To say no! Twilight sessions (unpaid)

[LorlieS]

Can't sleep I'm so stressed!!
I'm working as a HLTA - paid hours 8.30 until 3.30.
Just picked up an email sent today telling me I need to attend two twilight sessions from after school until 6pm. Needless to say these will not be paid for and the first one is this week!
AIBU to say no?
Oh, and I also have a 3 yo and her childcare only runs until 4.30.

I'm sorry but some of these responses are very strange!
I'm really surprised that so many people seem to have this village of close neighbours, friends who don't work past 4:30 and have free time in the evenings for childcare, parents and siblings on hand to pick up childcare at a day's notice.

I literally can think of no one other than my lovely PIL that I could leave DD with - my parents live 8 hours away, my close friends work and live half an hour away, my siblings live in another country and DH doesn't have any living siblings. We can't be that unusual!

Of course we have options because we have a nursery that is open to six if necessary and PIL are close by. But in OPs situation I wouldn't consider these solutions of parents of friends or acquaintances from the school gates or strangers from a sitting company. DD wouldn't be at all comfortable with that and neither would I - maybe I ABU but i would decline the ask, explain I can't attend without a term update to the calendar and if that resulted in a job search then I'd rather take that option than disrupt my family so much for a role that pays so little.

You say ‘we’ so I’m guessing there is another adult responsible for the child that might need to take a few hours off / WFH for the end of the afternoon.

I’m part time but have to do an occasional training / business trip out of my contracted hours, DH just has to cover. And before you say he can’t, what would he do if you were unavailable? He’ll manage.

Do they not pre warn you of times expected in class for teaching? Surely they don't just keep you there unexpectedly, there must be a timetable that allows you to plan around it?
And are they not issued in good time to allow planning for all students to attend class?

@ImCamembertTheBigCheese Because they only live me very part-time (eldest EOW!)

They do, but all the notice in the world isn’t going to help if, as the OP claims, she has zero support.

@crumblingschools You'd have to ask my abusive ex-husband about that. The boys live with him the vast majority. I don't want "friends" to simply use then as babysitters. My friends all have adult kids.

Unless you work for free you are both getting paid and TOIL. You are paid to work 39 weeks of the year, of which 5 days are INSET days, so there is the wage for it, if you are doing twilight then that means you are working now and having the INSET day off, as your TOIL.

It isn’t professional to give you such short notice as the calendar should be available from September, at ours we do twilight every last Thursday of the month, so whilst it is on the calendar, the people that don’t check should hopefully have picked up on the pattern.

We didn’t have family nearby, made friends with one of our neighbours whose grandchild lives miles away. They became surrogate grandparents. They would babysit on occasion and we would help them if they needed anything. When their grandchild came to visit we could loan them equipment/toys and our DC played with them when old enough.

Even if friends have adult DC I’m sure they could offer to babysit if you were in a fix and they were available.

If you don’t have anyone like that surely you need to find babysitters you can use if you need to

This!!
Who is going to all this effort for a minimum wage job that can't even respect their employees enough to provide adequate notice of shifts??

If you are already looking for a new job, just continue and tell them you have no childcare as it is such short notice.

i think you need to just tell them you cant get childcare. Its short notice. you havent done anything wrong. Unfortunately you cant just magic up childcare out of thin air. They either have to let you bring your children or you cant come.
Try not to panic about it. It is what it is. You are trying to hold down a job in difficult circumstances and theres a reason that you chose a school hours term time job. The child care thing only works if you have a stay at home partner or other willing family to help at the drop of a hat. I think that its reasonable to be given more notice of extra hours outside of your normal worktime so you have time to organise.

How is partner has a work meeting an emergency?

I would ask if I could join via Zoom so you can watch what's happening from home. Or, ask if you can bring your toddler and give her a colouring book/iPad and sit her in the corner.

Unfortunately, if it's in your contract that you have to attend these things, it isn't their problem what you do with your child, as that's very much your issue to deal with. If it's not in your contract then of course you can just say you're not going.

It would be worth having a conversation with the head and ask what they suggest you do. You might be able to watch from home as I mentioned, or they could have another idea for you.

I would pack a snack/supper box and a bag of toys and take your three year old to the session.
You might miss some of it but you will catch most of it and your child might be surprisingly adaptable.
If not you just leave and nothing is lost.
Work places should give you more warning so it shows them how unreasonable the short notice is.

Quite often sessions are at shorter notice because if an external is coming in to do training that can be subject to change.

Some of us have literally no one, no wonderful neighbour who can magically step up, no relatives, no friends...

Yes. It's quite normal. When you have a baby you think hmm how can I take care of this baby which is wholly my responsibility? Either I look after it all the time myself - or I pay someone to do it. I find it really weird how people seem to think they are entitled to other folks looking after their baby!

it's lovely to have a nice granny but the first line of support for parents should always be support they themselves put in place. Which means thinking about paid childcare sooner than 3 years into the child's life.

If you are on a super low income you still need a bit of contingency in case main carer is sick or working parents have an emergency like this one.

It has annoyed me that OP feels she doesn't have to do the contracted work and shouldn't have to pay for childcare either. I started the thread hugely supportive of the low income juggling but many posters sound so whingy.

I used to be a teacher, the amount of responsibility given to support staff, for very poor pay is a big problem in most schools.

If I was in your situation, I would probably go to work and around 2.30 pm, say I had a phone call from your toddler's childcare and she's sick. Tell a little white lie and say you need to go early and pick her up, suggest you can join the meeting via zoom.
Long term though, you probably need to sort a plan B, for childcare. Can you talk to your head and Negotiate a small pay rise? As a HLTA you're probably worth your weight in gold, explain that you need an extra £50 a month for childcare one afternoon a week. This would give you some more time to study and another option in the future. Congratulations on your MSc. Don't lose sleep over this. It's hard trying to juggle everything.

"Unless you work for free you are both getting paid and TOIL. You are paid to work 39 weeks of the year, of which 5 days are INSET days, so there is the wage for it, if you are doing twilight then that means you are working now and having the INSET day off, as your TOIL."
Not always the case. As I said, in the three LA near me, TAs are paid for 38 weeks.

I see multiple people have explained why it is not unpaid, and YANBU to decline this week due to unreasonably short notice.

I just can’t wrap my head around the practicalities of your day. Why on earth are you commuting 40 minutes each way? I mean absolutely no disrespect to TAs and HLTAs but in my extensive experience they pretty much always live fairly locally to their school as the (scandalously low) pay makes commuting utterly unaffordable. The fuel cost alone must wipe out a significant chunk of your pay.

Is that also the case for HLTAs, though?

You should be given notice in advance at the start of the year of intended insets, twilights and meetings. Poor show on the part of management.

OP is BU about a few things but not this. Four days’ notice of a twilight is unreasonable.

Take 3yr old with you and say no childcare, could you sit at the back with child in pushchair with a few toys. Not the same but I did take my DD into work a few times when it was unavoidable, fortunately she was good as gold and would sit and colour (for a while anyway).

I don't understand all the angst. It's very short notice so they'll fully expect some staff to be unable to attend. Just say you can't arrange childcare at such short notice and that'll be the end of it.

But stop banging on about not getting time off in lieu of- you will, at the next inset day.

OP you say upu can't use your mum as she does full time childcare for you - your 3yo would get 30 hours free at childcare leaving your mum free to help with ad hoc stuff like this.

You have a husband who could look after the child. Parental leave, emergency leave, annual leave, swap a shift.

You have a 13yo and a 16yo either of whom could sit with your 3yo from 5pm or whenever your mum usually stops looking after them til your dh gets in. Even if they usually spend more time at their dad's I'm sure they would help with their sister in return for a pizza.

You actually have multiple options here, and don't seem willing to acknowledge any of them.

It's not the work meeting that's the emergency, it's the lack of childcare for his 3yo child.