On Mar 30, 12:24*pm, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 03:23:40
on Fri, 30 Mar 2012, Roger Traviss
remarked:

Really? Perhaps in your strange world but folk with children will have to
take some time off during the summer to fit in with the school holidays

You're kidding?

On this side of the pond parents can and do take the kids on holiday anytime
they want.

Which side of the pond are you? In the UK it's almost impossible to get
permission to take kids out of school during term-time for a holiday.

My own school says it won't authorise term-time absence for any of the
following reasons:

* availability of cheap holidays
* availability of desired accommodation
* poor weather experienced in school holiday periods
* overlap with the beginning or end of term

... so all that really leaves is religious festivals or unavoidable
family matters (like burying a Grandmother who lives overseas).
--
Roland Perry

When I was in primary school, it was permitted at any time, indeed, we
normally went on holiday in September, just after the new school year
started. When I went up to secondary school, this was no longer
permitted. When I started work I got two weeks (10 days), which
increased to 12 days after, I think, the first two years, and then to
15 days. It's now got ridiculous; for the last few years I've got 37
days, but this includes five days carry over of unused leave from the
previous year. From this year carry over will no longer be permitted,
so next year I will get 32 days. At the end of last year I had 22
days unused, and the previous year 21 days; it's just about impossible
to take all of the leave; there's too much work to do. There are
certain times of year when no leave, other than compassionate, is
allowed to be taken, and leave at other times has to be approved, and
will only be granted if it does not conflict with the needs of the
organisation; this mainly means how many other people from te same
department will be out at the same time for various reasons; I suspect
that this would apply to most organisations. Recently, I've tended to
take two blocks of about five nights each in Yorkshire, though two
days of each would be weekend, plus a handful of odd days. This year
I'm taking a week and a half off next month, but will probably not be
going away in October this year. Holidays in exotic places seem to be
popular again, one of us went to Vietnam this year, and two weeks
seems to be typical; I don't know many people who only get away for
one week, and this has been the case for many years. I don't think
many of us take our full entitlement. When overtime stopped being
paid we were allowed to claim TOIL instead for essential work out of
hours, but since we've already gort more leave than we can possibly
take, we generally don't.