Have any teachers ever taken parental leave?

[MrFunnytheEasterBunny]

I want to take a weeks parental leave for the first week back in September to settle my DS into school. My DH will be out of the country, so he can't help out, and my family are not close enough to help either.

Have any of the mn teachers ever taken parental leave, and if so, we're the school okay with it? As far as I can see, they can only refuse it for a business case, i.e. it would be too disruptive for the business, and if anything, it would be more disruptive if I asked to take leave later in the year, closer to exams and controlled assessment due dates.

I may be way off the mark here (it's a long time since my children started school) but wouldn't your DS settle better in the first week with the person who is going to take him on a regular basis? To suddenly change that after one week may be confusing for him.

Can you just request time off first thing and then last thing in the day? There is no point you having the whole day off while your DS is in school, you might as well be at work teaching your class.

Good luck.

I am currently rattling through unpaid parental leave as DD is very ill.

My school have let me go when needed during the past 3 weeks (often at minutes notice) as her situation gets worse.

However that is for illness, I don't know what the situation would be with starting school. The timing is likely to have an effect on your new classes (I'm guessing Year 9? as you said upper) coming up to the school, their new routines etc.

Parental leave is different to emergency unpaid leave to care for dependents. Parental leave needs to be booked in advance and from the looks of it should be taken off in at least a week block.

The teacher for yr3 was booked off for the first week back in September as he due a baby. As it was he worked 4 days and then was off for week. It made no difference other than making me cross I hadn't booked a place for my son on holiday in that second week. I had thought the first two weeks were the most important and kept him in school. When in fact he could have come away week 2 settled back on week 3 no problems.