Denied Full time work after flexible working

[doolittle26]

Does anyone have any advice for me, from their knowledge or experience of teaching. I have just been denied full time working which I always believed was agreed for sept 2011 when my son begins school. For financial reasons this has been denied which hasn't come as a great surprise, as the Head didn't seem keen to talk about it during this year! However, they have just employed someone to do a history teaching job full time from sept which I am more than capable of doing (as I am a history/Frenhc teacher currently teraching French only following a retirement). Perhaps, I was less likely to be employed full time when I told the Head back in January that I was pregnant and on leave from mid sept. Any advice?

[Gastonladybird]

What do you mean you want a full time job but are on leave from mid sept?

[StillSquiffy]

Just as they can refuse a part time request for genuine business reasons, so they can also refuse a switch-back from part to full time. Flexible requests are granted as a 'premanent' change to terms & conditions of employment, so you have no automatic right to go back full time.

If they employed the new teacher after you put in your formal request then you might have something to go on, but if she is FT and you are PT then that adds up to more than '1' FT job, so they could easily argue that they thought it strategically easier to advertise for a FT role than a PT role. But devil is in the detail and you may have grounds to argue depending on the exact circumstances of the new hire and the process they went through, and how it co-incided with your formal request (informal conversations are unlikely to hold much sway)

[MrsWobble]

if i understand your post you are looking to go from part time to full time starting September and then after two weeks go on maternity leave. if i'm right then i think you will struggle to get this agreed and if i were the head i wouldn't as it's hard to see what the business gains from this change. given that maternity pay is worked out on earnings at a date before you leave i don't think doing this will increase your maternity pay anyway. wouldn't you be better off continuing as you are until you return from maternity leave and renegotiating then - will you want full time hours then?

[trixymalixy]

I don't understand why you want to go back full time and then go off on mat leave immediately either as others have said it will not increase your mat pay.

I'm afraid employers can deny increasing hours as well as reducing them. It would be discriminatory for them to deny just because you're pregnant and going off on mat leave, but I think you'd have a hard time proving it tbh.

[MissingMySleep]

does it cover this in your contract? ie at our place when you go part time it is treated as a temporary change to contract and each quarter either the employer or employee can revert this back to a full time contract.

[BerylStreep]

TBH, I think you are better sticking to the PT hours anyway, who knows how you feel after coming back from maternity leave?

The Head probably thinks you are trying to increase your maternity pay.

[trixymalixy]

I think it's normally a permanent change to your contract. It certainly was to mine. I had to apply to go back full time in a very cynical move by me to increase my redundancy pay. Thankfully there was a very good business reason as so many people had left and I had a very sympathetic boss and head of department.

[doolittle26]

Hi

I notice how some of you think this is to increase my mat pay. It isn't. Before I got pregnant (4 years after the 1st) I was not allowed to decide if I wanted a new contract or not, based on the fact that changing it may have caused me to be permanently part time, which I didn't want. Others in the school had had a variation in their contract for one year. Whilst I was arguing this, they had already written me out of the timetable. It was agreed in writing (I believed) that I would have a contract for the year, as this was what I was led to believe. Just recently, I have been told that there will be a review for sept 2012 but, to be honest, now he has found others to employ to teach a subject I used to do, I can't see a future change.

[trixymalixy]

That does sound totally unfair and discriminatory then. Do you have any emails or anything else written to the effect that you were to go back full time?

[StillSquiffy]

I'm sorry. You have lost me now.

Are you saying that...
a) They set the contracts last year but you didn't want yours set so they left it open?
b) You want to go back to full time on 1st September, teaching French and History, but will then be going on Maternity leave 14 days later?
c) You think they should have left a full time post open for you and then spent this term recruiting both a full time maternity cover person to teach history for 1 year only, and a part time French teacher to take over your old job?
d) Now that you have decided what you want to do (full-time 2 weeks, then ML then back to full-time, except you might of course change your mind later down the line) you are annoyed that they have said no, they will keep everything as it is with you on a part time contract?

Or have I got this totally wrong?

[EssentialFattyAcid]

If you had an agreement with the head that you would work full time from September do you have any evidence of this agreement?

[meditrina]

Presumably, if you wanted the FT role, you applied for it but the other candidate was preferred. Did you get any feedback from the process?

[MrsWobble]

I think i'm lost with Squiffy - it seems to me that as a result of your head's unwillingness to accommodate you you have lost out on two week's full time teaching - you haven't said what % your part time role represents but you haven't really lost out on much here have you. Wouldn't you be better off focusing on working out what role you want to return to after maternity leave and saving up all your goodwill to negotiate that.

Unless there's something else going on here it seems a bit of a fuss about nothing.

[BerylStreep]

I agree.