Encouraging Women in STEM.

@decomposingcomposers - there is out of hours gp covering late night and weekends (I dunno whether this is a mandatory rota or additional to core hours though).

I work in the health sector and I think more would leave, but I guess you could campaign to be the first area to try out removing part-time GP.

So do you share the classes with another teacher?

No, I told you I have a shitty timetable and sometimes have large gaps in the day where I’m not paid.

Funnily enough, other part time teachers at my school have had enough of this and quit teaching. Teaching is a model where refusal to implement widespread proper part time working practices has led to a retention crisis and a critical shortage of teachers.

Namenic

It would be interesting to see what would happen. Would drs leave or would they accept working full time, particularly in general practice with no shifts, weekends to cover.

@decomposingcomposers - Or more GPs could leave with no one to replace them... I think this is the more likely scenario. But I guess you could do a trial to find out... the nursing issue is probably the more pressing one though.

When there is a lack of qualified people for the job, it is in the service users’ interests to vote for a govt to fund the service so it will be more attractive. Pure economics. Nothing about whose job is harder/who deserves what. If you want more people to join, make it more attractive.

I get that.

I just think that mire thought needs to be given as to how the needs of service users are balanced against the needs of employees so that the desire to work part time hours doesn't come at the cost of disadvantage to others.

@decomposingcomposers - that’s it - least worst solution. Because of rubbish working conditions. I’m sure being gp would be more bearable if they saw fewer patients with longer consultations and more time to do write up notes/letters/check results. Being a teacher may be easier and more sustainable if class sizes were smaller and curriculum did not change as much and there was adequate provision for special needs. It’s not just about amount of time worked, it’s about intensity.

As for gp's, apart from urgent appointments if I want to guarantee I see a particular Dr, I book in when they are available

I've not found it to be great tbh. We can just never get to book an appointment because most of the drs are part time and there are just nit enough appointments available plus some services so coil fitting for example was done by only 1 gp who was part time. You just could not get an appointment with her because she was in demand plus you had to make sure that any appointment she had available coincided with suitable times for the patient.

Yes, I understand that continuity is important. There are pros and cons to having 2 rather than 1 teacher. How well it works depends on how they divide the work load. As for gp's, apart from urgent appointments if I want to guarantee I see a particular Dr, I book in when they are available.

I think preventing part time work in some professions is untenable. Unless that profession had an excess of applicants per job and was not struggling to recruit and retain staff.

Treat staff like shit and they vote with their feet.

noblegiraffe

So do you share the classes with another teacher? Is that working well for the students?

I guess the new cohort with higher student debt will come in (and be more reluctant to leave)... but I don’t think that will be enough.

Exactly. Or drs who want to stay in the profession might well stay full time as GPs rather than leave medicine entirely. Having part time drs is not a problem so long as there are far more of them (other than losing continuity of care).

It is very difficult because there is a balancing of needs - the needs of the employee against the needs of the service user and what benefits one doesn't alway benefit the other.

My Y10s have 4 lessons a week. My Y11s also have 4 lessons a week. In order to not split those classes I definitely have to be in 9 days out of 10.

I'd also rather my DCs had 2 maths teachers than all their maths lessons for a week crammed into e.g. Monday&Tuesday.

That's where there needs to be a bit of planning though so that a teacher could work 2 days but maybe spread out rather than consecutive days.

And having experienced 2 teachers for a subject with my children it was not great. I dare say it could work well but there needs to be good communication (think duplicated work, different teachers requiring different things from work, handovers not done properly). It wasn't a good experience for the students and they definitely made less progress than had they had 1 teacher. Was it better than no teacher? Yes, obviously but that doesn't mean that it Was good or worked well, just that it Was the least worse option.

@decomposingcomposers - Not an unreasonable supposition - why would they stay if you made conditions less desirable?

I guess the new cohort with higher student debt will come in (and be more reluctant to leave)... but I don’t think that will be enough.

I used to work for a Dutch Electronics firm, well known for TVs & lightbulbs. They had great flexible working which …. even the men took advantage of. They had good staff retention. Generally few women though because women weren't doing the needed degrees.

I agree about the word ambitious though. I was hard working & self driven, but never had 'ambitions' to be doing X by the time I was Y.

I'd rather my DCs had 2 maths teachers than no maths teacher.
I'd also rather my DCs had 2 maths teachers than all their maths lessons for a week crammed into e.g. Monday&Tuesday.

But that’s what’s happened with teaching. Schools decide it’s not in the students’ interests to have part time teachers on a reasonable part time contract, and hey presto, women in their thirties are the group leaving teaching in the greatest numbers, at a time when we can’t afford to lose any teachers.

It’s short term thinking.

Decomposing If noble was working full time, then not only would she be at school 5 days a week, she would also have to do a number of hours at home every week too in evenings or weekends. This way she still gets to see her family more, even if childcare is needed for preschool children 5 days a week.

Anyone can request consideration but they don't have to be granted.

It's up to the employer to decide if they can be accommodated. My point was in answer to it's in everyone's interest to allow flexible working and I don't think it is. It's in the employee's interest and probably the employer's. I don't think it is always in the service user's interests - be they students, patients or customers.

I have a friend who is a part time gp. Works approx 30 hours in 3 days. Short days seem to be roughly normal office hours.

Am not sure why people think gp's should not be eligible for part time work. Thought everyone was legally allowed to ask for part time hours.

Namenic

I guess that presupposes that the alternative to part time GPs is no GPs.

@decomposingcomposers - part time is better than none. If nhs don’t offer it doctors will leave. Why do you think there is a LACK of GPs? Because it is a nice steady relaxed career? It’s economics - it is an undesirable job because of high stress, more complex workload, static funding (I don’t know if pay in real terms has actually come down).

What is undesirable is the the lack of manpower planning that has failed to keep pace with an aging patient demographic and RETENTION of staff (there is a much worse shortage of nurses) which cost the govt a huge amount to train in the first place.

Medicine may attract a good % female students, doesn't translate equally between specialism. Some (e.g. surgery, cardiology) are very dominated by men.

I work in stem. Quite common for women to outnumber men in meetings, including senior roles, engineers, lawyers etc. I work in a progressive, modern and forward looking industry.

Colour me surprised that the gender pay gap in our main competitor (we are too small to publish) was 40%.

It's sexism. No other way to describe.

To be sure, there may always be some jobs which aren't 'family friendly', but there are many which could be with proper thought as to how they're structured, use of technology etc.

Do family friendly hours benefit everyone though? By everyone I mean employers and service users too? Certainly in medicine, particularly GP practices, I don't see the huge increase in part time GPs being a benefit to patients.

This kind of thing can be a problem. We have a GP shortage where I am, but the same number of GPs there used to be. Part of it is that many of the women GPs are part time, though all young GPs seem to want less work.

But there are probably always going to be some jobs that have longer requirements in terms of time, travel and such. It would be nice though if they could be considered in a more careful way. A lot of the demands in Academia are about publishing and they are counterproductive even apart from this kind of question.

I've worked in STEM for many years, but currently very dubious about continuing. I left my last job after unpleasant experiences with 'important' people, and even now I'm finding myself in interviews having very basic stuff mansplained to me. Yes, I do know the difference between analogue and digital. Or going to the bigger companies who are actively trying to recruit more women by inviting you along for an interview when it's clear that you don't have the exact experience they're looking for.