SIL & Our Wedding

[Elleblue78]

OK - so yet another Wedding/IL thread! But would love to know if I am being a bit miffed for no reason or is this the norm?

OK so we are getting married next year - on a weekday as the venue we love had that day free and we got an amazing deal. Because its a weekday we sent out Save the Dates a good 10 months before the day so that people could either make arrangements to book a day off or tell us it wasn't possible - of course we understand that with it being a weekday people may not be able to or want to attend/use holiday etc.

Now my Fiancé's Sister works in a school as a TA. She loves her job and we are constantly being told that her school is super strict and she can NEVER get time off for ANYTHING in term time (this includes being ill, hospital appointments and funerals etc). She is a stickler for the rules. Anyway - before we booked the wedding I said to DF that we should speak to his sister as she had previously mentioned this fact. We did text her (as she didn't answer calls from us) and explain we had fell in love with venue etc and we got a great deal etc etc and could she check with school. She never came back to us despite chasing/calling/asking MIL to ask her to call us. So we went ahead and booked.

She has now said she cant come and that not only can she not come, nor can her 3 children or her husband - who happens to be best man! (he works in a diff industry so getting time off isn't an issue nor is it for the kids).

When we asked her to ask her school she said she will but to not hold out any hope and can we change the date to the weekend. She is being a bit 'huffy' about it and has said to MIL that we are losing 5 guests because of this.

Any TA's out there? How hard is it to get 1 afternoon off work (Late wedding) with 10 months notice for your brothers wedding?! Or is she just being a d8ck?!

user1468166567
I think that the OP has already stated the time and that she is willing to move it late so she can come.

the OP has stated several times that she will not be doing anythinng that makes it easier for her SiL to come.

Even with when saying that she doesn't mind if the DC don't come to the wedding, the OP ignores the fact that her SiL will be the one wrangling several kids to get them ready and take them to the evening event.

I think there is a general unwillingness to stick your head above the firing line and no one wants to be thought if as a difficult employee or "one who asks for too much". When jobs like that are hard to come by, and cut backs are looming it makes it very difficult to be shouting about your rights.

Headofthehive55, having good motivated staff is so important to any organisation. Maybe governors and Heads need to think about that.

I think it is so sad that all the advances that have been made in my working life, I started work in the 60s, are being lost because people are frightened to ask. Personally with 4 kids and a disabled husband I have never felt unable to ask, the answer might not be yes but I can't believe that people don't even feel able to ask. As a senior manager in a health care organisation where staff ratios are important I would always try to work with staff about time they needed off and consequently staff were always really supportive about going the extra mile for me.

Yes good motivated staff are important, but I can see why people don't feel they want to ask.
It must also be difficult for those saying yes to requests, because making allowances can cause a lot of bad feeling at the lower levels.

Every time teaching staff ask for time out, it represents extra work for other staff. Either the school is well staffed and the extra load is minimal or it may be really hard to ask staff to work extra constantly. That is part of keeping moral up. Not feeling that they are being taken advantage of.

Lweji, it would only be taking advantage if it wasn't possible for everyone. If someone takes unpaid leave then surely there is money in the budget for cover staff?

At the school where I volunteer the teachers take their PPA time in a block so a TA will be running the class for half a day a week anyway. Obviously different in senior schools due to timetables.

I thought supply teachers were more expensive than staff.
And would they get someone in for an afternoon?

I m going to get flamed here because I haven't read the full tread, well I've read most but too tired to read all.

I think she s being a bit attention seeking and a lot selfish mean spirited and silly.

I would suggest she wants to be made a
Fuss of.

From what I've been told supply teaching isn't great money like it used to be and of course you don't have the additional costs e.g. sick pay, holiday pay, training etc.

Yes I know supply teachers who go in for half a day. At my local school they have a teacher who they always use for cover, she doesn't teach fulltime and does alot of 1 to 1 tutoring but does do cover at this school so the children know her and she knows them and the school. It seems to work well.

I'm a teacher & have requested time off before now for something & been refused - it involved me leaving early on an afternoon when, as it happened, I wasn't even teaching, so no cover required: I was told it would 'set a precedent'. There was a damn icy blast of disapproval along with the refusal.

An unforeseen emergency or illness is an entirely different matter. Dashing off at a moment's notice because a dc had had a fall at their school & was injured - that was OK.

Partly it's because of 'rarely cover' - teachers can be asked to step in for a colleague in an emergency but not for a foreseeable absence, which the school would need to get a cover teacher in for.

I'm now overseas & things are more relaxed on the whole; it's considered OK to make a private arrangement with a departmental colleague to cover my class so I can go to watch my dds' assembly in the attached Junior school, for example. & yes, a family wedding necessitating a Friday off would be doable (although I was recently turned down for a Saturday off when a family visit coincided with an INSET session I had been asked to run....)

It is entirely credible to me that OP's SIL could have no chance whatsoever of the time off & additionally put herself in an awkward position just by having the temerity to ask!

PPs who are struggling to understand this - NO, you can't just announce you aren't going to rock up to work during contracted hours because your job is hardly brain surgery, ffs. You'd be on a disciplinary.

I wouldn't do it. I'd feel that db & sil had made it abundantly clear that they didn't need me, tbh.

Obvious solution might be for sil's dh to step down from best man duties? Then no childcare required - he can pick up their dc, then his dw, straight from school & whole family get there for the evening do?

And you couldn't have made it a weekday in the school hols?

A weekday wedding would really piss me off. Organising a day's leave (which eats into the time I need to save to conver the school hols), not drinking too much (work the next day), needing to find care fit the kids, much easier to call in a reciprocal childcare when people are busy in the week, etc watch.

I would not be chuffed.

What supply teachers earn and what the school actually pays for them are two different things.

A weekday wedding when you're inviting school aged kids is very risky let alone a key person who works school hours.

She's not being unreasonable to not want to go in that situation.

Lweji is right. It will make work for other members of staff who may very well decide that they then have a right to time off. Hence many heads say no to everything except illness or medical appointments.

All schools contracts n the UK say you can't have time off except in exceptional circumstances at the heads discression.

It's a bit like asking to vary your working hours after having kids. The needs of the business (of educating children) come first and if your wish can't be granted that's the end of it. You can ask but not all schools can or will say yes and there's a massive variance between schools just as there is between different businesses.

As for a TA isn't important and it won't really matter ....clearly you've never had a child who needed one to one support to be able to attend school or seen the difficulties caused in the classroom if a TA is away sick or called away .