Staffing issue

[dejavuaswell]

Rewind back to January 2010.

12 classes with 12 teachers at the school but one teacher then goes off sick so the school drafts in a replacement to cover the absent colleague. Everything is still fine although the school is then paying 13 salaries for 12 posts. Sadly the sickness continues through to Easter and then into the summer term.

The Head Teacher then decides to go to 11 classes from September 2010 so the decision is made to "get rid" of the teacher providing the sickness cover. September comes with the sick colleague still off and down to half pay but of course having lost a class there were still enough staff to cover the 11 classes.

THEN in late November sick colleague says she is coming back in January which means 11 classes but 12 permanent staff.

One more staff than there are classes!

What happens now?

[Yulephemia]

Maybe the returning teacher will cover teachers' planning and preparation time? Or undertake some other project, like curriculum development? Perhaps her illness isn't completely over yet, so the HT doesn't want to put her in class full-time? Is there someone due to leave/retire this year whom she will replace in due course?

[hels71]

There was a similar situation at a school I worked in years ago and the "extra" memeber off staff became a permanent covering teacher (this was before PPA). He gave us all some non contact each week, covered if anyone was off sick and filled in in any classroom who needed extra support. He also took some children each day for extra one to one work. By the start of the next academic year some staff had left anyway so it all settled down again.

[PandaNot]

Posted this on your other thread:

Don't know what will happen in January but school won't have been paying 13 salaries - they have insurance to cover the cost of the extra teacher, after the first 3 weeks of sick leave.

So it might be that the head just decided to save a little bit of money or that the budget was struggling with paying 12 salaries, in which case they will still be struggling when sick colleague comes back.

[c0rns1lk]

what panda said
all the schools I've worked in have had insurance to cover long term sickness

[admission]

not all schools do opt to have sickness insurance.
I would suggest that the fact that the school can exist on 11 classes is because they do not have the number of kids for 12 classes. So I suspect the head will use the extra teacher to cover sickness, PPA time etc but as soon as possible one of the teachers will be let go. It is possible that one or more of the teachers is on a temporary contract, which could well end in August 2011. Or alternatively the head knows that one or more teachers are already going to move on from the school or are pregnant possibly!