Made redundant today

[Soontobe60]

I know people get made redundant all the time, but it’s the first time for me. I’m really sad.
I’m 1 year from receiving my State pension, so only had 1 year to work. I love my job! We got a new Headteacher in January and shes turned out to be bloody ruthless.
My job will still need to be done after I leave - I teach PPA classes which are legal requirements for all class teachers. She’s not followed the Redundancy policy - makes it up as she goes along. It’s just not the way I wanted to end my 35 year career.

Ooh not read the updates. As a former union rep myself, give them hell.

Good for you, OP

Give ACAS a call.

These points have already been covered but I wanted to echo them.

Sounds like you haven’t been told about the right to appeal, you were made redundant rather than the position, you were not given redeployment opportunities even though you were being made redundant AND ageism is at play!

I am sure people have won employment tribunals on any one of those but you have all of them. I really think you could win a tribunal. Use your new free time to pursue this case. If you’re not in a Union (which I see you are not) then go to ACAS. They will support you.

Thank you. After a sleepless night with this running through my head, I will contact ACAS for further advice.

Speak to ACAS this is awful

Poor you. This is so shit. I had a Sham redundancy at Christmas, I was so hurt I cried because they treated me so badly. I did think about fighting but decided not to. I've had a new job for 3 months now. Once you too get a new job it feels better, whether you then decide to fight or not.

It's a horrible thing to happen, but the alternative was to work your last year under someone who didn't want or appreciate you. Don't underestimate how difficult that would have been and how it would have left you feeling. This way, you can negotiate an improved settlement for your retirement and leave a legacy for your colleagues. That's a better outcome than 12 months of misery and a loss of self esteem.

I appreciate that neither of those options looks particularly desirable at the moment but the reality is that the die was cast when she was appointed, not when she made you 'redundant', and from then on your career was never going to have the end you envisaged. You can still have a worthwhile and useful 12 months though. Good luck.

Monty is right, the die was cast, but don't let this one bad egg sour your whole view of your fab career - but don't give her the satisfaction of her stealing that from you too!

What a complete idiot she is, I'm really sorry. Please keep us updated as I want to hear her getting her just desserts. Hopefully she'll get pulled over hot coals from the council too.

This does sound as if she has decided that an HLTA can do the PPA cover for less cost than a teacher.
The only way I think she could have done this legally is to make the teaching position redundant and create a cover supervisor position. However, I am sure she would have needed to go through the legal process, offered voluntary redundancy to all teaching positions and if nobody took it have all teachers reapply and reappoint all but one. Then advertise for the new cover supervisor role.She would not then have been allowed to advertise another teaching position.
I am very surprised this has got past governors to be honest.

What a totally shit end to your working life.
Having worked in the private sector and then in schools for the last 20 years, it astounds me how easy it is to 'manage out' teachers.
It's all wrong!

I hope you have some joy with ACAS and that you manage to irritate the head 😁

ACAS will definitely help you. They have a very good website and the people on their helplines are usually excellent whenever I've dealt with them. It doesn't cost you anything to get their advice.

You definitely have grounds for a grievance and I agree, I think you would win a tribunal case. However before the tribunal step you have to have tried "early conciliation" through ACAS (basically trying to come to an agreement with your employer before the tribunal step) anyway. So in either case, it's worthwhile speaking with ACAS as a first step.

You will walk away from this with more than she has initially offered and I know it's stressful, but I think it's worth fighting to ensure she does not do this again to another member of staff.

Also I wonder if you should be contacting HR at the local authority?

Please do this.

If a process has not been followed which can demonstrate fair selection criteria, setting out of the plan going forward (I.e. how your workload is being accommodated etc) and a meaningful consultation, I believe you have grounds for unfair dismissal and potentially age discrimination. As you are probably aware, the age discrimination issue could be a very costly mistake if proven - and you don’t have to prove it was, but she has to defend that it wasn’t. Without a selection criteria etc, this could be interesting!

With only a year left to go, you have nothing to lose in taking this as far as you want to. I get so mad that us “older” women are treated with such disdain after a bloody lifetime of working hard 😡

Just wanted to add - I’m not suggesting you aim for a tribunal because last I heard lead times were at least a year and it can be stressful. But I think you should use ACAS to try and negotiate what you can, and take it from there.

And speak to ACAS as soon as possible. 🌹

What a horrible situation. Definitely contact acas, I found them to be really helpful and full of advice. They didn't resolve my problem but gave me the information to allow me to resolve it with my employer

Take heart OP. It happened to me 3 years before I was due to retire (altho' they followed all the legal requirements unlike your case) and with hindsight it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I liked my job, but I found that I liked free-time more!

Having said that, if I were you I'd be after them for not following the proper procedures!

OP, that resonates so much with me. My head did exactly the same and then couldn’t find anyone to replace my specialised role. Fortunately, a short time later, he was there in the morning and ousted by the afternoon.

I was asked to do some part time and maternity cover work, so it was fine, but not what you want or need.

Thanks for all the lovely words.
Just to add to this, the staff as a whole have decided to make a collective grievance as they have got other examples of having been treated shoddily, and at times in ways which break employment law. We have a group meeting with our Union next week.
I have emailed the Head to confirm the details of the meeting when she gave me the news, and silly her has replied acknowledging that she is making me redundant because the funding that she says pays my salary has ceased. I know it hasn’t, it’s in the budget for 2024-2025. I’m creating a paper trail of evidence so she can’t deny things before I actually raise my grievance.

I’m sorry to hear about your unexpected redundancy OP, which I can imagine must have been a terrible blow and be truly awful for you to deal with.

But I’m very glad to see you’re not going down without a fight!

I know of someone going through similar in the private sector. He is being made redundant even though his work is being given to other people, and there has been zero effort to find him another role. Fortunately he’s been there well over two years. Like you, he has his grievance already prepared, and a lawyer lined up to assist in any tribunal.

Please keep us informed. And good luck, although your case sounds rock solid to me.