Part time worker dilemma

[thatmakesmehappy]

Background: I am a teacher, I work 2 days a week in a nice school. The communication in this school is awful however, and having been there a year and a half I miss out on lots of need to know info, purely because I don't work the days that they tell everyone (I have raised this issue several times before and nothing has changed).
I started working there as there was a big leadership change over, and as a result never really got a proper induction, and again am finding things out that I should have been told when I started a year and a half down the line. This was my first part time role after having my DC1, so don't really have another non full time role to compare it to.

Anyway, on to my AIBU. Last year I was asked to attend certain inset training days on my days off because they were important, which I agreed to, no problem. However, this year I haven't been asked to go to any. I was thinking 'great I've got away without having to do any'. However, in a chat with another colleague the other day I find out I should have attended the number of inset days, per number of days I work per week, even if they are not on my working days off my own back. Just attended ones that aren't even relevant to me, just to meet my quota. So now I have a problem. I've signed up to attend one after Easter, which gets one out of the way but the last one of the year is before half term in June. I go on holiday on the morning of that final inset day, which I don't plan on changing just to attend an irrelevant inset day.

AIBU to feel like this isn't my fault, although I'm fairly sure if they notice they will say it is. Also, any other part time teachers, is this usual practice, that you are expected to attend inset per number of days you work a week? Keen to hear your opinions.

I've never attended on my days off unless I've chosen to for a good reason. This year I finish at break on a Monday so I leave then when it is INSET. No one bats an eye.

I went through this at length with my head ...and the union!

It is NOT true that if you work 0.4, you have to attend 2/5 of the Inset days. You ONLY have to attend the Inset days which fall in your normal working days. It is the responsibility of the SMT to book them across the week to make this fair. I worked Monday/Tuesdays for ten years and the head tried to make me do Inset days which always fell on a Friday. She refused to pay me but said they were compulsory.

The NUT got involved and I ‘won’. The head actually apologised to me and said I was right and she didn’t realise the rules. She said she would prefer it if I came, but understood it if I didn’t and if I did, I would be paid.

Holidayshopping that's great that she admitted she was wrong and that you peruses it! Sad that it couldn't be resolved without the unions though. The SLT should be able to look into it and realise for themselves. When I actually looked at the union documents, it's very clear. Just took someone else suggesting I look there for me to do it 😂.
The inset days at our school are always Monday and Friday, neither of which days I work. There was 1 inset day last year that was on a Wednesday (purely because this was the 1st non bank holiday day after Christmas) which I went to, without thought as it was my working day. But this year, they all fall on Monday's and Friday.

Yes you have to attend a pro rata amount of INSET days. Ours are published at least a year in advance & a whole school email reminder is sent out several times before each one with an agenda attached. I've often had to attend them on non-working days- it sucks but there's not a lot you can do about it. I can't believe you naively assumed you could go an entire academic year & not attend ANY?!

2/5 of directed time quickly adds up when you count the weekly staff meetings. Ours total about 1.5 hours a week. I'm not sure how it would be viewed if you hadn't attended anything at all all year just because it didn't happen on your day. Sure, they can't discipline you, but it won't look good on your performance management.

Once you've looked at your directed time you need to compare it to what a 1.0 teacher would do at your school. Do they publish the directed time budget as this would make it easy?

Sometimes as a main scale teacher the directed time will be well under the maximum allowed, it very much depends on your school. You just need to do 0.2 of what the full time teachers at YOUR school do.

And regardless, you CANNOT be directed to work on a non-working day. They can request you work (and should pay you or can give you time off in lieu) but can't make you. (You might have another teaching job on those days for example.)
Hope you can make the numbers work!

Yes you have to attend a pro rata amount of INSET days

No, as people have explained. You really don’t. Read section 41 of the STP+C.

June2008 I've looked through all the published documents for this year for my school and there is nothing about a directed time budget or anything similar. The head is new, started when I did, and never heard of anyone talk about directed time budget.

Isn’t the directed hours 1265?

OP I am in a similar situation and have checked this with HR. As a teacher you only have to attend inset days on days you work- you cannot be required to work any on days you don’t work. After all you could teach elsewhere on those days!! It is not pro rata. Hope this helps

I always found in schools that the Head/SLT were either excellent at dealing with PT staff or absolutely hopeless. No middle ground.

You don’t have to do ANYTHING on your non working days. Normally you’d be required to attend pro rata inset days but not on days when you don’t normally work. It’s up to your employer to arrange for you to discharge your contractual obligations on your working days. Definitely contact your union.

Are parents evenings an exception to the "you can't work on your non working day" rule? Our parents evenings are always on the same day of the week and surely it wouldn't be on for some teachers to never attend a single parents evening.

I think it's a job which requires a bit of give and take. You don't want to be known as the rule book teacher who works exactly to rule and no more. With parents evenings, someone has to do it! If you are part time and your job share is long term sick, should the school rearrange everything around you for parents evening? What would happen if there was another teacher working mon and fri, and couldn't make parents evening on your days? Would parents have to attend on two evenings?

Are parents evenings an exception to the "you can't work on your non working day" rule?

Not as far as I know. Obviously most teachers will flexibly accommodate them but if you can’t then they can’t insist.

Barbie I already said I had attended all parents evenings. It's the inset days I am disputing. I am by no means a 'rule book quoter', and will be accommodating on most occasions if requested. But don't see why it should be some sort of unspoken rule that isn't actually correct that we should attend a certain number on our non working days.
I am pretty flexible, our parents evenings are not on my working days and I still go, because it benefits the children and is something relevant to my job role. The inset days (unless it's something like safeguarding, or general teaching skills) are just not relevant and quite frankly are a waste of time I could be spending with my son, especially when I have to pay for childcare too!

A lot of people here are very wrong.

You are not required to attend school on days you are not working. Even in case of parent evenings or INSETS. If school wants you to turn up, they need to pay you or give you time in lieu.
The pro rata works the opposite way, so if you work 2 days, then you only have to attend lets say 40% of lets say after school insets/twilights, IF they are on your working days.

I work in HR in schools and we get this a lot.

You are paid for a pro rata days so if you work 2 days you are paid for 2 days.

However, you can't be made to work any training days that are not on your normal work day. You should be encouraged to do that for your own professional development and a school should consider part time staff when allocating days. Also, if you wanted to do all 5 days you could and would have to be paid for the extra 3. Your employer can't stop you from doing them because it will cost them money.

We had this same thing in Feb half term. A teacher had booked to go away on the Friday long before the inset days were set and then her head was trying to insist she worked this day and wouldn't be told she didn't have to. So the teacher came to me and I got it sorted.

Prinkprincess sounds like my situation, although I am kind of pre-empting there being a problem, as nobody has said anything to me yet about not attending INSET days. I wanted to make sure I had the facts before it happened, so that I could fight my corner. I was fully prepared to have to do some making up if needed.
🤞🏻 for no problem.

Effective heads will usually come to some arrangement with a bit of give and take. I was paid for days I went in on a non working day, or I had time in lieu. There was goodwill, so we would both be flexible. I’d help out when I could and if I needed time off, I could usually have it.

I looked at the Inset day topics and would attend those that would be useful. I worked on staff meeting days, because it was helpful to me to know what was going on. It’s easy to miss out when you’re part time because people can forget to tell you things, so you need to make sure you find out stuff.

Holidayshopping - yes the max is 1265 but most schools will not go quite to the max for a teacher with no responsibilities. The 1265 also applies for teachers with a tlr who are likely to have more meetings.

BeanBag7 - parents evenings are no different and you cannot be made to attend on your non-working days. However in my experience most part timers will got to parents evenings, otherwise the onus is them to contact the parents individually to discuss progress. (And that takes far longer than going to parents evening in my experience!)