Quote Originally Posted by qccfc View Post
You can book holidays at work, so the point is irrelevant. In a medium sized business with all of us with families all trying to get time off in a 6 week period is too difficult to schedule.

I havent had any term time holidays for the last 3 years, i just have smaller UK based vacations. However i do believe there should be an option there to book a weeks leave from school. At 4 and 7 i'm sure i could cover their work load for a week.

Maybe cut down the 6 weeks holiday to 4 weeks and give each child 2 weeks annual leave.

In a previous life when I was a bus conductor we all had 4 weeks holiday a year in 2 blocks of 2 weeks. Rotas and duties were organised on the basis of the same % of crew on holiday at any point throughout the year. In most cases the 2 weeks fell in school term time, although the following year they would move on a few weeks. When the holiday rotas came out most people with kids were desperately trying to swap their holidays with people without kids. Most failed and either had to take their holidays in term time, or not have a holiday with their kids at all. I think the same system operates now.

You could say those people had an exaggerated sense of entitlement to family holidays? On the other hand they are far more restricted than people in jobs where they can apply for holiday leave at any time (subject to cover and business/service priorities). It was not about chasing lower cost holidays in their case - either in the UK or abroad. There must be other jobs like that too?

However, although I think there should always be space for discretion and exceptional circumstances, I do think rules should be respected and followed as much as possible. Collective provision and responsibility before individual preference. The man in the High Court case was arguing the primacy of parental choice over school rules - not exceptions or costs - and I disagree with him.