How bad is This number of days off?

[attendance121]

9 days since September 1, what percentage does that work out as?

ACAS allows you reasonable time off for a childcare emergency. According to them that's about 2 days. I am off today and have no qualms about taking it off. I will have childcare tomorrow fortunately.

I also agree with Damn. Its a shit system. Putting work before the health of your children is ridiculous.

ACAS: Time off for dependants is a statutory right for all employees. It is unlawful for an employer to subject its employees to any detriment for taking it

Have you mentioned to a colleague at all in passing though that your child is ill so your husband is looking after them? If this has even come up in a chat and then you suddenly take time off then you could easily be found out, especially if there are some very bust stressed colleagues that are now having to cover for you...its not only the child that could reveal your lies.

However they dont have to pay you. I always have been but i'm not usually off more than one day.

Time off for dependants is a statutory right for all employees. It is unlawful for an employer to subject its employees to any detriment for taking it

An employer can say you need to take it from your paid leave though. They don't have to pay you for it.

Also when redundancy comes around time off counts heavily as part of the matrix.

You need to check the sickness policy. I've worked for employers where a formal process kicks in after 6 days sickness in a year, I've worked for employers who use the Bradford factor, and I've worked for employers where a formal process would only kick in if they think you are lying or if you are on long term sick and need a referral to Occupational Health.

Time off doesn't mean paid time off. And time off for dependents doesn't forcibly mean the odd day when they are poorly.

The issue is that op wants to be paid for it. That's not an entitlement and why should it be?

You'll have to take it unpaid OP.

Keep lying about it being yourself who is ill and it will land you in trouble.

I was a single parent with a young DC who was regularly ill. In addition to my 5 days per year dependant's leave (which I always had to explain in detail) I had to beg my DM to look after sick DC. Your DH needs to step up too and share the load if it's going to cost you your job.

The OP told her employer in October that she was off with a sick child.
Sorry OP I don't like what the answer is other than to take some unpaid leave

”An employer can say you need to take it from your paid leave though.” No they can’t. And OP won’t have any paid annual leave she can take anyway.

”They don't have to pay you for it.” That bit is accurate.

”Also when redundancy comes around time off counts heavily as part of the matrix.”

Using time off for dependents as a criteria for redundancy would be unlawful.

Problem here is the OP doesn’t want to take dependants’ leave because she doesn’t want to lose pay, so she wants to use what I imagine is a very generous sick pay allowance (are you on Green Book terms OP?) instead.

Some people have no family or friends who can help

Perhaps true. But those "some people" can't then get arsey when their employer isn't happy with them taking lots of time off. Or even worse, lie about being sick themselves to get it as paid time.

However tight the OP's finances, that really isn't her employer's fault or business. They want someone reliable and that's not what they're getting. If someone had a TA or similar as a 1 to 1 for their child and that TA was always sick, they would be up in arms about it.

I wonder how many of these employers are also running zero hour contracts where they ring you the week before and tell you when to come in. It's also the risk they take when they run on minimal staffing levels.

For some employers, acting this way is so short sighted. I was lucky enough (but would love to see this as the norm) to work for a company that encouraged parents to return after parental leave and tried to accommodate flexible hours. If a call came from school/nursery that a DC needed picking up, they would always say "go. Family before work". Obviously they had to have staff in the office but because they treated you this way, if you had a call that someone was off and could you cover, people came in to help wherever they could as it worked both ways. We really appreciated it. I actually brought in a lot of business by mentioning this at pitches and clients (a lot of whom were parents themselves) would think we were a good company with the right ethics and values.

Schools are very good re staff taking off time-I had 3 months off once due to a very serious accident and no-one said a word. I know certain jobs would discipline and actually sack an employee if they took 9 days off in such a short time period.

That's more time off than I've had in 20 years working, and I have 2 primary aged kids. No-one you can share the time off with? If it's a blip you're fine, most people have a period where it all happens at once, if it's regular then that would be an issue for any employer.

9 days sick leave since September is bad. You shouldn't lie. When you have time off because of a sick child, then you tell them that. If its unpaid then so be it. Kids are ill off school so often, that it doesnt make sense to keep saying that you're the one that's sick. If you keep lying then you ll end up with a disciplinary.

Unauthorised time I should have said...

Schools are very good re staff taking off time

Some schools are, not all are.

OP, what you do need to do is get a copy of your school's staff sickness / absence policy and read it cover to cover.
In schools I have worked in the sickness is measured in number of times off, not number of days. So if you're off for a week, that's classed as one period of sickness. If you have 5 separate days over a term, that's classed as 5 periods.
Obviously by now (9.50 am) you'll have phoned in school with the reason for your absence so any further advice is a moot point. Personally, I'd have been honest. If you have lied and said you're off sick, in my school you'd have therefore had 3 periods of sickness this term and this would trigger an attendance meeting with HR. We look at absences in any 12 month period, so your attendance would be checked back to December 2018 for the trigger. I know some schools just look at the current academic year.

We have a trigger for sickness absences of 3 separate occasions or 8 days in row in a 12 month period which requires a sickness review.

Check your work handbook or sickness policy, but I assume if you have another (3rd) sickness period this will trigger the review. The review will be a formal meeting about poor attendance, if you need an occ health referral etc and will likely have a review again in 2 months time. If you trigger again (another day sick) within that period, you move onto 2nd stage meeting and at 3rd stage they can let you go. If you don't trigger again you still remain on review for 12 months at stage 1.

I would suggest you look at alternative care (baby sitter, family or friend?) as if they are sick often your job security could be affected.

I don't hope you get get hauled over the coals at all. It should not be a crime to care for your ill child using sick leave A compassionate employer woukd allow carers leave ( caring for a sick child or elderly parent for example) to be taken as sick leave

I would imagine by Op's concern in her post, that she would look at alternative carers for her ill child if any were available.

@attendance121 I will have to say I am sick because I cant afford unpaid. that is lying, effectively theft because you do not have the right to paid leave to care for dependents, you only have the right to unpaid leave (and that only in limited quantity, not as much as you want). Saying you are sick when you are not is gross misconduct and a sackable offense which could render you unemployable - can you afford that?

I also find it shocking that UK employers do not allow carers leave to be used as sick leave

'I find it kind of shocking that parents in the UK don't get a certain number of paid days off each a year to look after sick kids.'

I agree with this (although where I am it isn't the employer who covers this but statutory health insurance).

All this treating relatively small amounts of personal sickness absence as a disciplinary matter in the UK is pretty shocking tbh. Here you don't even have to tell your employer what's wrong with you (though you usually do have to get a doctor's note by 3 days at the latest, but there is no information on the cause of the absence on it) and there's no such thing as a disciplinary for sickness (someone can be let go for very protracted or repeated sickness absences but there is very much a process to follow). The economy doesn't appear to have collapsed yet.