Given that the entire countries school system starts and breaks up at the same time you get an absurd system that holiday companies are able to rinse parents wanting to get away with their kids.
And since it isn’t tied to income it essentially ends up as a tax on poor people who aren’t able to afford the fines or the additional cost of taking them out during holiday times.
It’s a crap system that wouldn’t actually be that difficult to fix if they put some thought into it