To think school heads should be contactable in school holidays

[EloiseMinch]

A secondary head is likely to be on 70k+ and a primary head of 50k+. Those are high salaries for positions of senior management responsibility. AIBU to think they shouldn't just cut off completely in the school holidays?

Maybe some heads really are working in the holidays but I know the head at DC's school definitely doesn't. She is, for example, completely uncontactable from the end of one term to the start of the next.

I don’t think we can spell it out for you any further. YABVU and the kind of parent who create huge problems in school. You say the deputy has investigated but you don’t like the outcome. But you are working without all the information.

Do everyone a favour and move your child to another school. Just don’t be surprised if they warn the new school about you.

OP if you think the summer holiday is too long for the HT, which bit of that should she be working?
The bit when you want to call her? How will she know which week that will be?
Or do you just want her to be on call for you every day?

These limits do not apply if you are paid on the leadership range.

No. But heads have the right to a decent work-life balance and the governors are required to ensure she gets it. That means they will not ask, require or instruct the head to be available to any parent who ants to contact her during the holidays.

Do everyone a favour and move your child to another school

This is the most obvious solution OP. Why you haven't done this already is beyond me.

EloiseMinch It sounds like your child has had problems at school and of course it's not wrong to be protective of your child and to want it sorted out. However you have said they were attempting to do something but didn't manage to sort it out fully before the holiday. Sometimes it's just not possible to sort out every detail of an issue before a holiday, I don't think this means you should be able to contact the head whilst they are on holiday. I understand you would feel more comfortable if it had all been sorted, but in any job sometimes things have to wait. In this case, could the headteacher actually solve the problem in the holidays ? I presume they would need to speak to other children and their parents that have been involved in the issues your son has been having ?

OP, you sound very petty and petulant. Why are you so jealous and bitter?

Just because you can't contact the head it doesn't mean other people can't. I'm pretty sure the chair of governors, the LEA and other staff can. You don't need to. Weird that you think you should be able to. No kids in school = no contact necessary with fussy parents.

That doesn't mean your judgement of when she needs to be contactable outweighs hers. Why do you think your view is more important?

I am not comparing the importance of my views to anyone's. I just feel that 13 weeks holiday for a well paid (non-teaching) senior manager is too much. As has been pointed out, many heads actually don't take 13 weeks off at all so it seems my complaint is really about DC's head. It has also been pointed out that a head is likely not even allowed to take 13 weeks off, if I understood the NASUWT guidance correctly.

These limits do not apply if you are paid on the leadership range.

All that means is that she can be required by the governors to take calls, attend meetings etc. It doesn't mean she has to make herself available to everyone, all the time.

I am not comparing the importance of my views to anyone's. I just feel that 13 weeks holiday for a well paid (non-teaching) senior manager is too much

But nobody gives a crap, OP. I have opinions. Many. I think Justin Bieber is a whiny little fecker and the new series of Poldark sucks. Nobody cares.

Head teachers will be contactable during the holidays to those who need to be able to contact them. They won’t be contactable by parents during this time because you do not need to speak to them. You might well want to be that doesn’t mean you need to.

OP if you think the summer holiday is too long for the HT, which bit of that should she be working?
The bit when you want to call her? How will she know which week that will be?
Or do you just want her to be on call for you every day?

I think a highly paid manager should be working in a normal way all the time they are not on holiday. 13 weeks holiday is too much.

This is completely different to a teacher on a modest salary of course.

hibeat If there has been repeated problems with parents it may well be that closing down access is appropriate. I've worked in schools where some parents were raging because they couldn't speak to x y z teachers. They were parents who had been such a bloody nightmare for staff that it was decided that all contact went through one person.
Equally, heads must get loads of parents (fuelled in part by people on sites lile MN who tell parents to call and demand meetings). I know of schools where it's no message, no call back.

I think the head in this situation could be out there more, but it would be interesting to hear from people outside their little bitchy crew what it's like. I would imagine they'd have a very different take.

Perfectly1mperfect according to the last thread there's loads of ongoing issues leading to a child not being safe in school. If that was my child then I'd have been on to every formal procedure going to make them safe, not complaining to other parents and only going formal at the end of the year. Tne OP has a vendetta against the head.

But nobody gives a crap, OP. I have opinions. Many. I think Justin Bieber is a whiny little fecker and the new series of Poldark sucks. Nobody cares.

Well.. this is what AIBU was invented for! :)

Whether they're well-paid or not is a matter of opinion. For the job nowadays, I'd say absolutely not. And the recruitment and retention crisis for Heads (and teachers) would seem to indicate there's a massive issue.
And I have to say that parents like yourself are playing a large part in making Heads want to quit.

I am currently trying to help a friend who is a secondary head find a holiday that works for her dogs (all large rescues, and they go on holiday with the family) and has zero reception so she's finally got an excuse to NOT read emails for a whole week. Before she has a nervous breakdown. As it is she can only spare one week of the whole holiday as there is so much paperwork to plough through.

^^ this is totally unacceptable and should not be the case!

You op are a goady fucker.

the new series of Poldark sucks

What?! :)

I'm a governor. Our head works all the holidays, except the summer. Although I imagine he will be at school on GCSE and A-Level results days.

I don't know anyone who works harder than him. During term time, He is at school at the crack of dawn and stays until into the evening.

OP- no one has a right to contact someone or to have a reply.

This is why teachers shouldn’t be directly contactable. Someone parents just see it as their right to have a personalised experience like a consumer. Which is, in fact, wrong.

And just what do you expect the Head to do about your issue over the holidays anyway? I accept that you say you've been trying in vain to get them to meet with you for a while, but now that the school is effectively shut up for the next 5 weeks, what are you hoping to achieve?

What's with the overuse of the

Are you aware it makes you look like a thundercunt?

You think what you like about working in the holidays, but its tough tits

The ishoooes are not important enough for all this

Take up knitting

My OH was a HT of a secondary with 2000 pupils 200+ staff, 7 figure budget to manage. The first day of the summer holiday we went away for our holiday for 2 weeks. He took his school phone. He has had phone calls when we've been up a mountain in the Alps, or on a boat trip in the middle of a Lake in Italy. The whole of August he would be in school sorting out staffing, building work, appeals, implementing the latest government mad "reforms", plus moany parents arguing their little darling was in the wrong maths set or whatever. No surprise he took early retirement for the sake of his health.. Glad you think the work is such a doddle. Surprising there's a recruitment crisis as its such a cushy number. Im not sure what you expect a head to do about your issues btw. Presumably discuss with the teachers and the other children and parents involved - all of whom maybe on holiday. It will have be shelved till September. YABVU

And I have to say that parents like yourself are playing a large part in making Heads want to quit.

Not that it matters, but I have don't exactly nothing to make the head's life worse. Unless you include whining on MN :)

I earn about that and you can't speak to me outside office hours or when I'm on holiday. I respond to emails during those hours and not outside.
OH is a doctor and you can't speak to her outside of the hospital or clinics she's in.
What makes you think that the head is sat by the pool for those weeks, my OH mother is a head teacher and I've never met anyone who does as much work as she does outside of their working day. She works late almost every night and will be very busy during the coming weeks. She is in school most days, she will be painting classrooms with parents for 2 weeks this summer.

^^ That poor Head, how mentally unhealthy. Teaching is just a job at the end of the day, I hate school cultures that encourage people to work 24/7. It's not life or death.