Is part time teaching worth it?

[Stealmysunshine503]

The school haven't advertised whether it's 0.6, 0.8 etc. So I'll need to find out first..it does appeal to me but at the time I'm worried about being expected to do full time work for part time pay. It depends on the school I guess..does anybody here/has anybody here done part time school work and found it suited them? It's secondary MFL

I'm 0.6 for secondary maths and I love it. I have a full day off and one morning and one afternoon. I often work on my days off, but only because I choose to. I feel like I have a proper work/life balance that I couldn't achieve whilst I was full time. I feel very lucky that I can afford not to work full time.

I used to teach 0.8 as a secondary teacher. It worked well for me having a midweek day off and the teachers who had my classes on my day off didn't expect me to plan it for them. It did help that my department had a great system with SOW so I could tell them which lessons we were up to and they would be able to work off the SOW.

I found the work/ life balance was good.

In the last 4 years Ive gone from full time SLT Senco, to 0.8 then 0.6 in the same role. After taking early retirement in December 2019, I then went to 0.2, then 0.4 then 0.6 as a PPA cover teacher in Primary. In September, I will be 0.4 PPA cover / intervention teacher. I absolutely love it!
HOWEVER
Many PT secondary teachers end up having to work every day due to the timetabling, so I would not only find out the % FTE, but what days. If you have to do 0.6 over 5 days that means you're tied up working every day but only getting PT income. Even worse, you cold be timetabled for 2 lessons first thing in the morning and the last 2 lessons of the day, meaning you’ve got a block of (unpaid) spare time in the middle of the day.
I’d ensure I was contracted for 3 full days rather than 0.6 of FTE hours before committing myself.

Oh, and I ensured that I almost never worked on my unpaid days off when I went PT - no emails, no phone calls, no ‘can you just pop in for a meeting’.

They can demand all they like! What they can’t do is force you to do any of the things you’ve listed. Employment law is well and truly on the side of PT workers.

Dim question. But what is 0.8 working week? How many hours is that within a week?

It doesn’t happen in Primary either - unless the teacher is not prepared to stand their ground.

A FT teacher is contracted to work 1265 hours of directed time a year. So a PT 0.8 teacher has to work 1581 hours annually. The hours are split over 195 days FT. But the total hours include staff meetings, parents meetings and hours before and after school that are considered directed time.

@hoglethotel I am secondary. This is what I have to do.

I am 0.8 and love it . On my day off I get to take my little boy to school and pick him up rather than using childcare and we always do something special . I can also fit in life admin , which is otherwise difficult when your holidays are set in stone . I do marking too so it frees up the weekend . There aren’t classes to cover on your day off unless you job share . I am secondary MFL and classes aren’t timetabled for me on my day off .
I do however attend teacher training days on my day off , which is unpaid . I also do parents evenings , although now these are online I do them from home .

I don't really understand some of these responses - why would you plan material for lessons that are not your responsibility and you are not being paid for?! Similarly other stuff - if you are being paid 0.6 then that is the proportion that you should do! I think some teachers martyr themselves into the ground and then complain to anyone who will listen about all the work they have. There is a retention teacher crisis, if your school is not supporting you, there are plenty of others who would love to have you!

I also get paid for INSET or parents evenings (if I choose to attend) and they fall on a day I don't usually work.

The teacher covering should be planning their own lessons. Why should they just get to turn up and have all their work done for them?

Are you currently teaching? I shared a class with a supply teacher who refused to plan or mark. Because they were maths supply and it was basically them or no maths teacher, they got the gig.

@maizeymazemaze

Unless you're the HOD, I'd be having words with your union. They cannot demand this of you, it breaks the STPCD.

Exceptions of course, if you have agreed to a reduced teaching load to counterbalance the planning you're doing. We've done that before when there's been a teacher on long term sick, covered by supply.

It didn't work for me. I did 0.6 but didn't have my own classroom, was moving around the department - some days in 5 classrooms in one day. And my classes didn't feel like my own because they were all shared with different people who were all FT, so they just told me which lessons to teach rather than splitting it in a logical way (e.g. you teach X topic and l will teach Y topic)

I think a job share with one other person would be OK, as you would have your own classroom and would share classes with just one other person, so could build a good relationship and handover routine with them.

Well it works at our (secondary) school as more teaching staff are part than full-time. Many 0.8 and lots 0.6 some 0.4, and various fractions inbetween to accommodate missing first or last period for childcare. Full days off, unless you want different.

You really have no idea do you?

@Mississipi71

"You really have no idea do you?"

Sorry, but I don't either. Teacher of 24 years here, most of this part time across many schools and different levels of responsibility. Only timed I have planned lessons for others was in my role as head of faculty, when I had a team member off on long term sick. I have never expected a member of my team to be planning lessons for others, unless it is on a sharing basis. Eg I plan X topic and share if with B who plans Y topic and shares it with the team.

The STPCD is very clear, every teacher is responsible for their lessons / classes but not others unless part of responsibility or a teacher might be asked to develop a SOW as part of a US target, but even in this scenario, the responsibility for the actual lesson lies with the teacher itself.

Especially with MFL, although you would have to pick up whatever was going in the first year, we would timetable according to your days if you had a ks4 or 5 class. We are a large school so have more flexibility than some but I get the impression some schools don't really try. Perhaps this is why we are fully staffed!

I think the planning for others things comes about as often the odd few shared lessons may be given to someone who is a non specialist. This then means that the specialist ends up picking up the slack. I also think teachers can be very pernickety about things being done right. I am a bit like this so this often means I end up doing too much.

@hoglethotel yes, but I am responding to a poster, who has never been in teaching and is coming from the criticising angle. Easy to do when you have no idea, as I said.

I have been 0.6 for the past 5 years. I teach all my own groups, the lessons are just timetabled for the days I’m there. You do have to do parents evenings but reports etc should be less as you are teaching less hours. I never work on my two days off. I just be might be lucky based on the messages on here 🤷‍♀️

@cansu

But surely, in the case of non specialists, that's what the HOD / HOF is paid for?

I think it's one thing to ask different people to take responsibility for a unit, develop a scheme of work and lessons, teach it and share it with the department as part of their individual targets (particularly if UPS) and have done that lots.... but never expected a teacher to plan for a class they're not teaching.

However, I have been involved in staff disciplinaries / capabilities where teachers have been pulled up on not planning their own lessons, and just using the one on the system without adapting for their class. This wasn't the only issue, but was raised amongst lots of other issues around not doing their job properly.

I love it. I do 0.4 in a school- 2 full days and I also work in adult Ed. My school job is lovely. I have split classes- we all do and therefore parents evenings, reports etc are all shared. I definitely do not feel I have to be working all week and they really respect my other job. Be clear with what you can do. I really enjoy teaching and don’t feel overwhelmed with my job and balancing my home life and teenage children and their needs.