Two days teacher training sprung on us with less than three week's notice

[Wheels79]

Just had a letter from school saying reception will be closed for two days after half term for teacher training.
I'm new to being a school parent but I find that 1) a bit short notice; 2) lacking in an apology or acknowledgement that it might leave parents with a childcare issue; and 3) hypocritical given that their policy is to refuse to authorise any holiday requests and yet missing two days out of the blue is fine when they say so.
Am I being unreasonable for feeling miffed? Should I accept now that school will arse around with our lives willy nilly?

It is too short notice for many parents to organise leave around it.

School isn't childcare, however childcare is organised around school times. For a short notice INSET, there isn't sports clubs, wrap around care etc that you can otherwise organise in the holidays with appropriate notice.

A different situation, but when DS was in reception, his class was repeatedly affected at short notice by a local support staff industrial dispute. Some days DH managed to cover the gap by "working from home" other days he had prior commitments that couldn't be changed, including working abroad. Fortunately it was just after exam season and lunchtime pick-ups fell over gained time from an exam class and DS had to sit in on my afternoon lessons as it was the only way not to miss my afternoon exam classes. I couldn't ship him off on planes or trains to far flung aging/ full time working grandparents, and as I was working full time I knew none of the other parents as we didn't cross paths at 8.01 or 17:55. Short notice changes like this leave many parents with few options. Some parents in schools that were more severely affected by the dispute ended up losing their jobs over it because they lost so much working time.

It is short notice, yes. But please, I'm a single mother too and I work because I want to , not because the government expects me to. And do you really have no options for short notice childcare? None at all?

YANBU about the short notice.

It sounds to me like somethibg significant has come to light which means this is needed though.

We have an inset part way through next half term. It's been published since last year. Someone will still claim they had no idea and that it should be on the ens of a holiday.

YABU to bring up taking children out of school. That is irrelevant.

That is short notice and, while these things are sometimes unavoidable, an apology or an explanation might have help to diffuse any ill feeling.

OK. This is MUMsnet not TEACHERsnet, so I'm going to start from the assumption that the teachers here might also be parents.

What would your SLT have to say about you going in with 3 weeks notice from your child's school (so if your child doesn't hand over the letter the first day or you work part time maybe even less) to say "oh yeah I'm not going to be in these two days as school isn't childcare"? I can't imagine it would go down well.

It does not go down well in non-school based employment either! 6 weeks if I've to cancel a clinic, and that includes planned appointments eg with midwife as too disruptive to give less notice to the 15+ patients I'd have to cancel for half a day.

Yes emergency leave is different, even if it comes off your annual leave allowance. But 3 weeks is neither an emergency nor reasonable.

How many teachers here have ever had to apply for booked leave rather than being given fixed terms? You don't just swan in and say you won't be turning up!!

If it's just reception and the whole school isn't closed, then why aren't they just hiring a supply teacher for a couple of days? I'd certainly ask them that!

I agree that three weeks is a bit short notice

At least a month would be better

So i dont think you are being unreasonable to be miffed

But the thing is, if school managed to keep the school open, there will be a parents who's posting:

"School is sending teachers to the training and my dcs are looked after by TAs for 2 days. Is this legal?"

Knotty. I thought exactly the same!

Short notice like that probably means something has happened, a 'near miss' type thing.

Yes it is inconvenient but the school won't have done it just to be dicks.

knottybeams the situation you describe (going to SLT to ask for time off) simply wouldn't apply as teachers cannot request time off except in emergency situations - anything with three weeks notice would certainly not count!
I still don't understand why the school has done this though.

It’s not short notice for a school to hire a supply teacher for a planned staff absence as they would do if the teacher was on an external course.

Shutting reception because the teacher is doing a course is totally bonkers.

knottybeams the situation you describe (going to SLT to ask for time off) simply wouldn't apply as teachers cannot request time off except in emergency situations

Absolutely. What teachers have to do in those circumstances is pay for emergency childcare (like I do) or find other arrangements, as SLT never authorise those things.

Doesn't make it right that we are all in that position, though, knottybeams, I totally understand the stress and frustration too. It is just part and parcel of being a parent though.

And yes, like noblegiraffe says, it seems very strange they haven't just brought in cover

These teacher training days drive me insane.

We get them at such short notice too. The last time the notice given was less than two weeks so I deducted the cost of childcare from my monthly direct debit and wrote to the principal explaining what I had done and why.

We have another next Tuesday and I'll be doing exactly the same.

If it's just reception, I think you should go and clarify what's happening. It does not sound reasonable.

Roly thanks for making my point that little bit more obvious. So now we agree there are some jobs where this isn't possible, what options do parents and teachers together have that are?