3 days between Christmas and New Year - annual leave or not?

[_Bat_]

You'd have to sit in the car park with a wireless laptop and a flask of coffee for 3 days

Sounds good to me.

[john]

They should do the simple thing and make you a key holder and then you can work when you want over the festive period, surely that would solve the issue?

[woody]

They should do the simple thing and make you a key holder and then you can work when you want over the festive period, surely that would solve the issue?

If you become a key holder though, you may get 'roped' into performing other duties such as being called at 3am by the police because the alarm has gone off and they can't get hold of the caretaker!!!

Or you will get teachers asking you if you will openup so they can come in.

[theriver]

Is there anything that states that you have to be on site to be working? Planning, documentation, coding - there's plenty of things you can do from home. If you've got remote access, there's even more things you can do :-)

Why not try that approach?

[alan-d]

Under European law employers cannot dictate when an employee is to take annual leave unless it is a contractual agreement or notice is given well in advance that operational requirements mean that the employee is required to carry out his duties during a certain period and is required to be present.

In our case that means if you are involved in T&L or it is essential that you are on site you may only take annual leave during term breaks. If on the other hand you can provide evidence that you or your department are capable of running without your presence for a short period of time during term time then your employer does not have the right to deny you the use of annual leave. This has been tested in courts of law and 99% of cases have been won by the employee. The MoD fell fowl of this some years ago and was forced to open up offices and stores to allow civilian workers to work instead of taking annual leave.

Of course contesting the issue may damage your career prospects but nonetheless it is your right.

Here we work an extra hour a week above our contracted hours during the year to make up the hours lost over the christmas period. As most of us do this anyway it's no hardship.

[sidewinder]

I think it was voluntary at our school, as the site will be open because caretakers and contracters are working (at least i hope its open because I need to pick something up on wednesday!)
I was quite happy to take the days out of my leave anyway