Work dilemma (teacher)

[mumtomaxwell]

I need some perspective on this and I’m hoping you can help me find it... I teach 0.8 in a very optional subject.

I’ve just found out that our A level numbers have dropped which means we are going to lose a group. The group affected is one that I had on my timetable and now amounts to me being a whole day per fortnight under allocation.

There is a massive back story to this that I posted about before involving a decision by the former head and my HoD to recruit a full time member of staff into a vacancy that was only part time. The ‘new’ recruit had worked with us before and made my life hell.

I’m angry and feel let down by the HoD (who doesn’t want to change the group allocations) which makes me want to leave... BUT this is a great school - and I don’t want the recruit to win/push me out.

I could reduce my hours down to 0.7 so a 10% cut which I can ill afford.

Or I could put up/shut up and spend 5 hours per fortnight teaching any subject at all.

Any thoughts?

If you like the school I would take cover. I'm having to take 3 hours of cover next year which I wasn't happy about but it wasnt something I wanted to leave the school over. Cover is frustrating but personally I dont find it too bad as its gets me into different parts of the school and to see different students.

I would probably stay; funding is getting worse and I am not sure you’ll find there are better situations in other schools.. plus having an extra string to your bow is always good. I have 5 hours a fortnight on my timetable teaching a class I dread, in my own subject; I wouldn’t leave for it. The benefits at the school outweigh the negatives.

I'd stay. There's no guarantee that if you cut your hours that you'll ever be able increase them again.
It's for 39 weeks, and then there'll be another timetable.
I feel your pain - I have 4 different subjects this year to teach, and am only qualified to teach 2 of them. But I like my school and don't really want to move.

I would stay. I'm 0.6 over 4 days, already teach 2 subjects and this year have had citizenship added to fill my timetable. But I need the job.

You’re right and I’m calming down now... I’ve got other things to offer/fill my time with. Hopefully what this means is some flexibility to show/remind my boss what I’m made of!

Plus if you cut your hours to 0.7, will it give you a whole morning/afternoon off, or 5 random periods of trapped time?

I don't understand the choice (not a teacher). If you don't reduce your hours, you'll have to take a group in some random subject to make up the time?

@AnAC12UCOinanOCG yeah, often if you have spare teaching hours you're used to cover other subjects in the school.

An alternative could be to offer to do some kind of monitoring role in your extra hours. Learning walks across the school looking at a particular target group and feeding back etc. If it's the sort of thing you are interested in it's more fun than cover and depending on the school they may jump at the chance to have someone provide feedback, action plan and monitoring?

@AnAC12UCOinanOCG Yes that's what happens. I taught for three years in total in two different schools. 6 subjects.

Stay and give the other member of staff enough time to annoy everyone else.

Ha ha @Hollow Talk I like your thinking!!

I agree with PPs re cover. Day to day cover is soooo expensive so they would probably bite your hand off tbh. And IME, you won't always be used so can use the extra time for planning. I had a cover lesson last academic year.

@ @AnAC12UCOinanOCG that’s something I’m trying to avoid... basically being made to teach literally any subject for those 5 ‘extra’ hours!

Currently we have Maths and RS teachers doing PE, we have a PE teacher teaching food, loads of non specialists picking up bits of Science and English... welcome to the recruitment and retention crisis! It has hit our school relatively late on, but it’s having a massive impact.

Why are the Maths teachers teaching PE when the PE teacher teaches Food?

I'm guessing you're secondary- could you pre-empt the cover requirements by offering to support colleagues/ team teach within your own department for any particularly big or difficult groups in the time slots which have been released- if room availability works out, you could perhaps split some classes in two? Or offer to teach small intervention groups within your own subject in those times, reducing the pressure on colleagues with challenging groups?

If your HoD teaches non-exam groups in the lesson slots where you would have had the A-level group, could you offer to teach the non-exam class so that your HoD gets some non-contact time, or offer to take classes for colleagues who have pastoral roles?

If funding is very tight (as in schools everywhere!), you might find that you're timetabled to teach another subject anyway, but if you can find a way to be timetabled within your own department by showing yourself to be a team player, it's a lot easier on you.

I was in a similar position a few years ago (with a different backstory). I'd been timetabled to teach a related subject for a couple of lessons a week, but that HoD insisted on having a subject specialist (though he later said he'd have kept me if he'd realised it was me ) . Instead of having the lessons timetabled as additional non-contact, I asked to team teach with colleagues who had especially challenging classes, which meant that I stayed within the department (and ultimately reduced the workload on HoD , because having my colleague and I team teaching resulted in far fewer behavioural problems).