4 day week? Teacher

[MilkCereal]

I'm struggling with work and life demands. Work fulltime in demanding job as does dh. We have 2 dc. Seriously wanting to drop to 4 days but not sure if I should financially and career wise. Anyone do 4 days? I'm a primary school teacher. Wondering how to approach the subject with headteacher.

Good points re class responsibility. On my 4 days I still have 100% pastoral care, parental
Contact, reports,phone calls etc. I’m requesting 3 days from sept 22

@MilkCereal it's 0.6, so 60% of full time pay I think. I keep 100% of my TLR which is worth about £4,000. Before dc I took home £2300 a month after tax, pension etc etc. Now I take home £1800 a month. That's on UPS3.

Literally divide your wage by 5 and times by 3. May end up a little more than that with tax. Differing to PP, I'm 0.6 and only get 0.6 of my TLR (despite doing the whole role!)

@MilkCereal

Yes definitely need a rethink and something has to change. We did have a cleaner, Dh does school drop offs, do online shopping etc but still feel like work is taking over. If we have no cleaner or after school club for 2 nights we'd be saving £ 264 a month. Silly question but how do I work out monthly pay on 3 days a week?

Google the TES pay calculator and you can get exact figures.

Thanks all so much! Will dig out contract too to see if I theres a certain time frame for it. I'm in an academy so not sure.

I do four days and salary isn't that much different esp if you factor in petrol and the fact I only need four work outfits

I'm secondary and have Monday off generated by random and stuck with over the past two years. This is year three and it has changed my life from living to work to working to live. I get the weekends to have some down time. I clean the house and go out and I no longer palpitations on Saturday night with the dread of how much there is to do on Sunday (housework ironing marking).

On Mondays I finish of what didn't get done at the weekend and any medical appointments or urgent errands. Very occasionally a long weekend. It's just a mental breathing space. Means k don't have to stress about leaving work for an appointment - tomorrow I have an emergency dental appointment.

I might be wary in primary if you have to set and mark the work on The day off. An unexpected bonus for me was proportionally less planning and marking.

On a side note My parents both worked full time and it set a bad feeling for me that work for them was more important than family. I promised I wouldn't do that (I don't have dc long story but tried and I can have them)

What scale point are you on?

I've done some quick calculations on the Martin Lewis income tax calculator based on UPR/s 3 and the pension contributions for full time, 0.8 and 0.6

You pay lower pension on lower salary. It's pretty accurate i get a £1 less than calculated on here.

Net each month would be

Full £2397
0.8 £2001
0.6 £1577

I do 4 days but am SLT rather than class teacher. Definitely agree with those who say that 4 days is just full time on less pay. No one is employed to cover my responsibilities on my day off and any issues are just waiting for me when I get back.

I’d love to just do 3 days but it’s not possible with my role so 4 days is better than 5.

The hit on your pension will be significant. Make sure you take that into account.

@FrownedUpon yes you are right about the pension but I balanced it with being able to stay I teaching until 60.

Rather than want to quit everyday.

I had a consultation with Wesleyan and I can still retire at 60 with a 20k pension.

@cherrypiepie thank you- yes that panic feeling is familiar and overwhelming house/kids stuff.

I'm scale point 5 now.

Full
2042
0.8
1717
0.6
1364

As long as you work in England or walks not London/fringe have no student loans

The Martin Lewis salary tax calculator is really good if you know your pension contribution (7.4% up 28k 8.6% + the moment) and you can add other variables eg student loans

I've just gone to 3 days plus PPA & it's 66%.