FINES for term-time absences are making family holidays “the preserve of the middle classes,” Britain’s largest teaching union warned yesterday.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) will debate a motion calling for the repeal of penalties for parents who book trips outside the set holidays at its Easter weekend annual conference.

Under plans pioneered by ex-education secretary Michael Gove in 2013, parents can be fined £60 per child per parent for each absence, doubling if it is not paid within four weeks.

The plans have angered parents as holiday companies routinely raise their prices in the school holidays. Many workers are also frequently unable to get time off during holidays due to high demand.

NUT general secretary Christine Blower insisted she did not favour pulling kids “out of school at the drop of a hat.”

But she said imposing fines “interferes in the relationship between schools, parents and pupils.”

“If you have a reasonable amount of disposable income, you may not want [to pay extra for trips in the school holidays], but you can afford to,” she said.

“But we know the poor are getting poorer, and they will miss out.

“It shouldn’t be that family holidays are the preserve of the middle classes.”

Normally heads decide whether to levy fines, but in some areas councils slap on the penalties automatically. And Whitehall bigwigs have threatened parents who defy the rules with criminal records.

Regulations state that parents should be exempted only in “exceptional circumstances” — which the National Association of Head Teachers said should include funerals, weddings and religious events.

The motion, which is proposed by the NUT’s Nottinghamshire branch, calls for schools to unilaterally extend these criteria to allow families “to take term-time holidays in exceptional circumstances with parents and students agreeing suitable arrangements to catch up on schooling missed as a result.”

But a Department for Education spokesman said absences were “hugely detrimental” to kids and that schools could now set their own holidays.

“Parents should never simply discount a possible penalty notice from the cost of a cheaper holiday,” he stormed.

“Taking children out of school without permission for a holiday is a criminal offence and when doing so parents are risking prosecution which could mean much higher financial penalties and a criminal record.”