To take a regular extended lunch break

[BecomeStronger]

I'm really struggling to get my exercise fix atm. In winter I usually run with a club or go to the gym. No club or gym atm and whilst I ran on my own a lot in the summer lockdown, it doesn't appeal much in the dark.

I was thinking about if it's possible to run at lunch but only get 30mins. Realistically, to change, shower and get a decent run in I'd need 1hr20? The building is locked at 5:30 so I can't stay late to make the time up but I can wfh (arguably that's what I should be doing anyway but let's not go there now).

It would be unreasonable though, wouldn't it?

Bloody hell. As if it wasn’t hard enough in school at the minute SLT start pulling stunts like this...

No. No you cannot triple your lunch break so you don’t have to exercise on your own time.

Unless you could make it part of the curriculum and take your students or colleagues with you and sell it as a health benefit, it’s a new initiative to help us keep fit type thing, I think you can’t run at lunchtime as there isn’t enough time and you’re not on flexible working hours.

Errrrr nope. I'm assuming you're full time and not a teacher? If you were you would have directed time and then could reasonably finish at 3.30pm one or two days a week and then work at home. Sounds like you're a school business manager or similar? It's not reasonable, at all.

Get exercise on the way to work by running or cycling all or part of the journey, is that an option?

Could you run to work in the morning, or home......?

@Hugepeppapigfan

You can exercise with one other person so organise a running buddy from your club.

Yep.

A running buddy will help motivate you.

It would be fine in my workplace where you don’t log 9n at the dot at 9 and off again at 5. You work the hours needed. Though I wouldn’t be very happy if someone did it 3 times a week and we had to rearrange meetings around them, I am happy for people to fit a run in around meetings.

But it doesn’t sound like your workplace is like that.

Is this a reverse?

Am I being unreasonable to skive off work to go for run because running on someone else's time is much more appealing than running on my own? How do you even think that this is a question?

@MaskingForIt I don't know where you live, but I've never come across one of these numerous prowlers you speak of . I need the exercise for my mental and physical well-being, there's no way I'm staying indoor on the vague possibility that some nut-job is on the loose!

I avoid a trail run or particularly quiet country lane but as it's the only time I can go during the week, I've worked out a couple of set routes I'm comfortable with and my DH knows and just get on with it. I regularly pass 3 or 4 other runners. Pre-Covid I did a weekly running club training session which was great and hopefully will return one day!

No, you can’t just decide your getting three times your lunch break, especially when you’re team won’t have this option. Run in your own time, not work time!

I could imagine most the SLT doing this in my school, while the others are Struggling working 12 hour days with a 30 min break as well. It’s lowers moral and in my views is totally unethical.

Imagine I went for a run at lunch time, then missed 45 min of my lesson after lunch to shower and change. Wtf!

Run in your own time. Or do a 15 min HIT training then super quick shower!

That would only work in a place where a flexible working pattern is possible, and if by think that is the case in a school.
It’s taking the piss a bit, and I imagine many people would want to do this if you set a precedent.

What would happen if all the staff in the school decided they were going to take extended lunch breaks? We're all struggling, but there would be chaos.

I recommend planning really nice exercise over the weekend, so somewhere pretty that you might not normally go. If you don't want to run in the dark that's fine, but do an exercise DVD on YouTube instead?

We've all got to do things a bit differently.

Obviously speak to whoever manages you, and if they say you can do a bit of work from home later in the evening to make up for it, that's fine. But chances are they'll want you where you're meant to be, when you're meant to be there.

Should read - I don’t think that’s the case in a school.

I think disappearing for a hour and a half in the middle of the day in a school would go down incredibly badly with the other staff.

Are you joking? I take it your In a non class based role and know exactly the impact on schools at the moment. As a DHT I would be furiot with this set up

It's unreasonable to do it without talking to your boss because you are being paid to spend that time working.

However you might find your boss sees the value of it for your wellbeing and will be OK with it, or reach some compromise where you do a bit extra work from home to make up for it.

If they are not you will just have to find ways to exercise outside of work. It's not reasonable to expect to not have to be working during work hours that you're being paid for.

We bought a treadmill hugely reduced on Black Friday a couple of years ago. It was an old model, but it does for us.

Seriously! Don't be ridiculous. If your school is anything like every other school I know, staff are currently covering lunch duties, extra playground duties and the like on top of their existing duties. If a member of SLT at my school decided to triple their lunchtime, they would find themselves in serious difficulties and covering everything I could find for them to do!

Just saw you're in a senior role in a school. Stay at work. School staff are needed more than ever at the moment. It's not OK to go off running just because you "don't fancy it in" the dark.

When would you normally do your winter run club? Presumably that wasn't in work hours?

Set up a lunchtime running club for pupils?

Dear god. Why would you even consider this at the moment? I couldn’t go and pick up my prescription the other day in my “lunch break” as you guessed it; I didn’t get one. But I’m just a lowly teacher dealing with kids and stuff. Yabu, massively.

No, I would not do this. Some years ago I worked as a teacher in a school where my head of department went off cycling in his lunch break. The 40 minute break could end up being a couple of hours. Never mind that it was annoying that he got a long break no-one else did, he was also unavailable when you needed to talk to him because he was out cycling, and then when he was actually there, he was trying to make up for all the things he didn´t get done because he was out cycling, so you still couldn´t discuss stuff with him. Parents also got frustrated with him (although they didn´t know about the cycling just that he was unavailable). It ended up in a situation with a lot of resentful and angry people, there was a complaint made and he got an official warning. So no, don´t go there. It seems like a good solution for you, but it will impact your job and your relations with those you manage negatively.

At the moment every single member of school staff in the school where I am based (and a number of others I know) is working across lunchtime supervising students. No-one likes it, everyone is tired out, but they do it because there is a recognition of the shared responsibility. Shared by everyone. Every single member of SLT is on duty before and after school, at breaks and lunch. We are in this together.
The short daylight hours are sad for all of us, but we have no choice.

Wow.

Can you take an extra 50 minutes a day and not make it up? How is it on your planet?

I mean I don’t quite get what job you do in a school and all that, but wouldn’t it be better to be there when all the other staff and kids are there too?