to think that this is sexual discrimination?

[kumquatsarethelonelyfruit]

The vast majority of SAHP are women. Like me. I have been at home, raised my kids and 5 years later NEED to go back to work (pressing financial reasons) but apparently I am no longer employable as a teacher because I have forgotten everything I have ever learned. I can't even do supply as the agencies require you to have classroom experience within the last 2 years. One supply agency said they would consider taking me on as a TA (would only break even on childcare costs). This is despite me continuously working as a tutor and GCSE examiner! I am so pissed off. I have a good degree from a good university and got top grades in my PGCE. What the frig was the point in any of it? AND I still owe 7k in loans! To make matters worse they will employ cover supervisors with any degree and no teaching qualification but not take me on their books as I have no reference from the last two years. I feel so angry. I will never regret being at home with my kids but I know from here that there are so many women in my position and it is wrong and unfair both on SAHP and their children.
OH, and I can't even take a return to teaching course as the Tories have axed them :(

Correct re. indirect discrimination, JH (and - I think - employers have to show that they weren't discriminating, rather than claimants showing they were...)
But still, as Catgirl has more or less said, it's unlikely that a tribunal would regard SAHPing as inherently characteristic of a certain group in the way that e.g. height is. IYSWIM.

Ah but they are not wanting to avoid SAHPs (at least not overtly), they will not recruit anyone who does not have relevant classroom experience within the last 2 years.

So that includes people who have changed careers, people who have had a career break, people who have been redundant, people who have been carers, people who have been on long term sick etc etc

So it would not apply

They may well be discriminating but you would have a hell of a job proving it

Would you not then, Hecate, need to show that the policy in question was arbitrary? Because to me, with specific reference to the OP's situation, recent experience in teaching would certainly be relevent. Now, whether or not the lack of experience is prohibitive is another thing, but could it be argued that it is a flippant choice to reject applications from people with little or no recent experience? I don't personally think so.

But this isn't, surely, about what you did with your time out of the workplace; it's about the fact you've been out of that work area. You could have been flying planes, or being an international spy, or anything. The fact is, you haven't been in that specific area of work.

I applied a while back for a job I'd have been in charge of 10 years ago. I didn't get it. Because I've been working, actually, but in a different field. (Which is fine by me, in reality, as I just slung in an application because work in my own field was thin on the ground.)

Exactly, mother.

I'm just trying to understand what indirect discrimination is! Googling, learning and having a 'stream of consciousness' moment! I am not qualified to get into a debate about it because I simply don't know enough, like I said, I'm just processing this new information right now. If I was to try to debate it with you, I'd be talking out of my arse.

Darlene is right. Am slightly surprised that so many people haven't come across the concept of indirect discrimination, given that the Sex Discrimination Act is now more than 30 years old.

I also think kumquat is right. It's idiocy to discriminate against somebody just because they haven't got recent experience. You don't stop being good at something just because you haven't been doing it for five years.

I am perfectly aware of indirect discrimination, being both Ancient and a dyed in the wool feminist who has also worked in disability issues. I just am not sure this is a SAHM rather than a time out of the workplace issue.

You stop being practised.

Exactly, motherinferior. (And Catgirl)

It is indirect discrimination if a rule has a disproportionate negative effect on a "protected" group (I think that's what they are called).

So in this case you would need to show that the rule had a disproportionate negative effect on women. Which, as it is usually women who have career breaks of more than a year due to caring responsibilities, it is.

The fact that it is women who have these breaks is already recognised which is why there is that thing with NI conts where they keep them up if you have caring responsibilities - the stats for who gets that are there and it is recognised that it was women in the main who were experiencing poverty in old age and that was part of the reason.

I would agree with Darlene, is indirect sex discrimination, as it Is likely to prohibit people returning to the workplace after staying home with children, and in the most instance this will be women, and therefore asking for experience of less than 2 years, whilst seems reasonable, unreasonably precludes woman who have chosen to stay home with their kids. Unless you could show that the same amount of men were unable to apply because of the 2 year stipulation. (in my understanding of employment law).

However, it is always very difficult to prove and to take out an employment tribunal against an employer without even having a job with them would be unusual.

I guess people from non "protected" groups could claim indirect discrimination if they encountered it, but the brilliant thing about being from non-protected groups is you're not likely to

I would also like to point out (pugnaciously) that I do not resent SAHMS.

Then you'd need to widen that to all the other areas - from midwifery to flying planes - where you have to keep up your relevant experience and qualifications.

yabu. You made your bed, you've got to lie on it, however unfortunate that is, but it is not discrimination.

Fwiw i would be somewhat alarmed as a parent to have my children taught by someone with no recent experience. Neither would I employ someone in a skilled job without recent experience.

This is about supply agencies rather than schools. It is the agencies with the blanket ban it seems. It seems odd that they have a criterion which, IME, schools do not have themselves. I wonder why.

I think the point is that society is set up in such a way that women are the ones who take time out to raise children and should not be discriminated for this (indirectly or otherwise).

Whereas if you have gone off to fly planes then that's not because you belong to one of these protected groups.

My personal view is that OP should try to so something for a brief time that will get her the reference she needs.

Do people on here who believe that you make your own choices etc think that things like the NI conts for people with caring responsibilities should be scrapped?

I would be happy to have my children taught by someone with say 10 years experience teaching, who had then had children of her own. Especially if in the childcare years they had been working as an examiner.

No.

But I don't see the connection?

I can assure you herhonesty, the parents of my students were given no cause for concern following my return to teaching after 5 years in the SAH wilderness.

However, I can't deny that the first term back was possibly the toughest of my career. And any returners really, really need to be prepared for that.

Re NI - no, but I don't think you can have it both ways.

No, but I do think that if you take a career break you need to keep a watching eye on the employment market and think about what you need to do during that break. A lot of people - predominantly women - leave paid work on the assumption that they'll go straight back into it when their children are at school. And then, for a number of reasons - including the logistics of childcare - find that their options are, in reality, rather more curtailed than they originally envisaged.