Sister-in-law's wedding. Would you expect time off work to be paid or unpaid?

[saltandvinegardiscos]

I've got a friend who works as a TA. She's asked for leave from work for a day, so she can go to her husband's sister's wedding.

She's fuming, because work has said she can take the day, but it will be unpaid.

Personally, I think that's fair. The policy says it's at the discretion of the headteacher.

Anyone else who works in schools or in jobs where you can't just book annual leave, what would you expect in this circumstance?

TA and other school support staff all get paid for 39/40 weeks PLUS the full statutory holiday, so 28 days.

Term time leave is very very rare to get approved, and almost always unpaid.

Who said that? But having less staff in them and paying staff to have a day off (and often paying a person to replace them) isn’t going to help either.

You do know that for most of those 13 weeks, TAs are not paid? So they’re not holidays, they are days of unemployment.

ROFL at your husband's sister being someone you are "fairly tenuously connected to".

You do know that for most of those 13 weeks, TAs are not paid? So they’re not holidays, they are days of unemployment.
And? It's a less than full time job so it comes with less than full time pay. Why would anyone expect any different? I worked a 4 day week for a number of years. Does that mean I was unemployed every Friday? TAs are just part time workers who have their non working days in blocks rather than one each week or whatever. They get paid for their contracted hours and are entitled to the same legal minimum paid annual leave (pro rata) as any other employee. Then the remaining days that they don't work they don't get paid for. Just like anybody else who doesn't work full time. TAs aren't some particularly mal treated group in employment terms, they just have a specific work pattern, which has some advantages and some disadvantages.
They don't get the flexibility of choosing when their annual leave is, but nor do their employers have the flexibility of making them work outside term time, and that is one of the major attractions of the role for many people. But obviously if you are not contracted for 52 weeks a year you're not going to be paid for 52 weeks a year any more than I was going to be paid for 5 days a week when I was contracted for 4.

It depends on the TA.

My SIL is a TA and starts an extra half an hour before her paid time to prepare their classroom every morning - unpaid, she has several children with SEN and can’t do it when the children arrive.

She also covers break time playground cover 3 times a week- unpaid as they don’t have enough staff.

She has to deal with any children who have had a toileting accident during lunchtime- unpaid, not enough lunchtime supervisors.

She has to complete any after school training- unpaid, no money for overtime.

She has to go on school residentials, - unpaid , ( they at least do this on a rota).

She works an extra 15 minutes a day, unpaid- talking to parents, tidying up.

She has to cover the teacher if the teacher has to go to a meeting- unpaid.

She covers the teacher’s PPA for a measly £2.50 an hour.

If they go on a school trip and they are late back - unpaid.

She does this every week and isn’t the only one where she works that does it. There is no money for overtime and apparently they are over staffed so can’t get an extra staff employed.

She would be mightily pissed off if they docked her a day’s pay for a special occasion. There should be some discretion because that school would fall apart if it wasn’t for the goodwill of staff keeping the school going. She gets paid minimum wage.

And yes, we tell her not to do it but that’s easier said than done when she sees children struggling.

The operative word here is "precedent". Granting this day paid would have a tendency to open the floodgates.

She's paid to be in school working with a teacher to help children learn. I wouldn't have granted it unpaid, let alone paid.

The school I work In doesn’t have the budget for pencils and glue sticks.

Why would the school use public funds to pay someone on a day that they aren’t working?

It depends. A lot of TAs go above and beyond their pay grade and hours. If she's one of those then why not expect to be paid?

I've seen TAs cover classes for weeks at a time when a teacher is off sick with anxiety/stress because they split up with their boyfriend or their cat died or they are finding the class too difficult. Covering class means the TA has to come in early (to find out what they are teaching and prepare resources) and then stay late to talk to parents or catch up with marking. Unlike the teacher, they have to have the difficult class without a TA. Unlike the teacher, they also have to cover break and lunchtime duty. Unlike the teacher, they are often teaching lessons without a plan. Maybe the TA gets home exhausted and sees on social media that her teacher has had a picnic with friends in the park that day (its good for her mental health!). Their teacher (maybe a member of SLT) is earning at least double what TA does and their school is saving lots of money by using a completely unqualified TA rather than supply, so when that wedding invitation arrives from their SIL then, yes, maybe they would be fuming if their Head Teacher decided to stick to 'the rules'.

I'm SLT and we would pay it, but the policy does say its discretionary.

The key is that it's consistent, so all wedding requests are treated the same way. I worked in one school that paid teachers but not support staff.

My head pays people when the staff member has no control over the date. So it would be paid to attend someone else's wedding but not if you organised your own during term time. A child's graduation is paid but not their birthday party/a wedding anniversary long weekend away.

For staff wellbeing and morale/ retention. Because unless you're going to employ a temp to cover (really unusual for a one day absence) there's no additional cost to the school, the money's spent anyway.

My own child has booked their wedding on a Thursday!

Yep! Our school struggles to get and hold on to them, as do most of the local schools around here now. Times have changed. Rate of pay is crap and the behaviour of children has gotten considerably worse over the last 10 years, and ramped up since covid. They can make more at Tescos with flexible hours, plus a shopping discount, so no need to put up with TA roles any more...

I would have thought that teachers and TAs were unpaid if they had any additional days on top of school hols. Not commenting on what’s fair (although tbh you know going on that that’s going to be the case) but that’s what I’d have expected

Yes exactly this. We lost a really good TA becuase her family booked a surprise holiday to celebrate a wedding anniversary. We said no to 2 weeks unpaid leave, which was probably the correct decision because of the disruption it causes, but she just resigned so she could go.

If/when she wants to return to work, she'll be snapped up by another school or could easily get better paid work elsewhere.

That is not how school policies work- not in Local Authority schools that are well-led. Academies do what they like. If schools do not follow what they say they will do in their policy, they are open to challenges by unions. The policies exist for a reason- as I said. It will say in the policy if the Head has any discretion- if there is no discretion, the Head should apply the policy.

The policy will almost certainly say this is discretionary...