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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Is part time teaching worth it?

57 replies

Stealmysunshine503 · 14/08/2022 12:33

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

OP posts:
cansu · 14/08/2022 15:18

I am not saying its right but it tends to happen. I think if there are four lessons a week and you are doing three of them then you can end up planning the next one.

lanthanum · 14/08/2022 15:41

Check firstly whether it's 3 days or 0.6 spread across four or five. But also check what will be written into the contract - because you don't want to find out the next year that the timetable is totally different, and that your day off is different or non-existent. Watch out for fortnightly timetables, too.

Another thing to find out is whether they manage to timetable you for whole classes or whether you end up with lots of split classes. Being the only teacher of a class is much easier.

Rules can be a bit complicated for part-time. Your proportion is based on the proportion of the teaching timetable you work (including PPA). Your directed time is then based on that proportion. For things like duties, meetings, parents' evenings, you should be doing the correct proportion overall, but it doesn't have to be the correct proportion for each individual thing. If you don't teach all year groups, that usually knocks out the odd parents' evening. I didn't have a tutor group, which cut out some of the meetings. It's best to add up all the meetings/evenings and check whether it goes over - and if so, ask which ones you should skip. For department meetings, the agenda can sometimes be arranged so that you can leave before the end, if there are items which don't affect you.

For training days, if you work whole days, then you do the ones on your days. If that's none of them, so be it; in that case you're probably teaching more days than you should be proportionally. They can pay you to attend extra ones by mutual agreement, but they can't make you attend them. It's a bit more difficult to work out if you work part-days, but in sensible schools you can reach agreement on what to attend - it usually makes more sense to attend a couple of whole days than four part-days.

I worked part-time in 3 different schools, and it worked very well for me. I was unusual in not having childcare to worry about, and I actually preferred to have my timetable split across the week rather than whole days off. I could then fit planning and marking into the gaps and not have school work encroaching on evenings and weekends. This made timetabling much easier and meant I didn't teach split groups, so it suited everybody. Timetabling someone teaching 3 days a week is much harder, particularly in subjects that have 3 or more lessons a week.

The schools I worked in all treated their part-timers well, which meant that there was a bit of give-and-take. If you get a chance to meet another part-timer at interview, sound them out, because I don't think all are quite so good.

hoglethotel · 14/08/2022 15:45

OP I would also check at interview whether you would still get GCSE and A level teaching. Some schools prefer not to give exam classes to part timers, and I left one school for that reason. Others don't mind at all.

hoglethotel · 14/08/2022 15:47

That is, of course you still want to teach KS4/5

Heathofhares · 14/08/2022 16:01

It varies. I currently do 0.8 and it works really well for me as I share my class with an experienced colleague who plans and runs their day pretty independently. Our week is planned so they have stand alone lessons. I have my weekend back as I have an extra day in the week to catch up and it also suits me to have one day when I can pick my kids up from school and such.

my previous role was only 0.5 but the demands were ridiculous as I was expected to set all work for my days off and do all the admin assessment etc for the class. The other .5 was in essence just covered by supply. .5 hours and rarely worked less than 40 hours a week. Needless to say I didn’t stay long!

part time can be good but IME you really have to be careful about expectations.

Malbecfan · 14/08/2022 16:03

I work P/T in a secondary school. I have been 0.55 for several years. Our timetabler is brilliant and puts all my teaching on 3 days. We work a 2 week timetable and most years I get the same 2 days off each week. I use one day for food shopping and household things and the other for my dad or DDs. If I want to do work on my days off, I can, but it's my choice. I will often spend the afternoon of the food shop day on lesson prep or marking so I get free weekends.

I teach my own classes and plan for them accordingly. I share GCSE and A level classes but we have split the specification between us so we each teach to our strengths.

To the poster who commented on having to do parents' evenings on non-working days, you should be paid for them. For 3 years, I was because I taught elsewhere on those days.

My H/T has told me that he prefers happy p/ters over miserable f/ters and a number of us run departments or have leadership responsibilities even on less than a f/t contract.

Stealmysunshine503 · 14/08/2022 17:08

Thanks I appreciate all these responses!

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