For telling my trainee the rules

[SunnyCritic]

i have a trainee who’s attached to my role at work. She stared out great, enthusiastic, working hard, on time. But slowly things got worse. One random day she opened up in our meeting that she had lost her brother like a year ago and her dad just before this (which ofc was really sad and I passed my condolences). But she then later ran out the building and came back in late and said her marriage was breaking down. I sat and listened to her for ages, around 3 hours to be precise. She was crying but no tears came out, she said her husband demanded sex, was rude and called her ugly, was ringing work to check she was in etc. she then randomly mentioned that she has a restraining order against the ex, her mum and sister think. I only hear one side of the story, so I don’t know what is really happening. But, since this, she goes off for around 2/2.5 hours out the building, I don’t know where. And I monitoried it over time. And it became every time she had a free (were teachers so effectively a 1 hour gap that we aren’t teaching constitutes a free) she was gone. It came to the point where she was gone for 3 hours on one of the days and just came back in 10 mins before the day ended. I wasn’t happy because although you’re free, there’s still a requirement to be in the building for part of that.

I sat her down yesterday and said, to clarify, while breaks are allowed and permitted and you are more than welcome to leave the building. It is not acceptable to be gone for up to 3 hours. You are still considered an employee while you are here and therefore you are permitted up to 1 hour out. But I have noticed this is a daily occurrence so please can it be minimised from here on.

aibu?

YANBU - handled like a champ!

Why would that not be acceptable if it’s the rules?

She’s divilged information about her husband being abusive, and I suppose in a way I should be extending a hand of sympathy. But I’m struggling to know what to do because I don’t know the circumstances.

Furthermore, she’s also come to find me on 2 occasions in the past month saying she feels “unwell” and needs to go home in the middle of a working day.

Do you have support from your SLT with her or HOD as I think you shouldn’t have to deal with this alone.

I’m going to be escalating. But very little is done. It’s because they come from external providers, so technically while they’re considered an employee they “belong” to their training provider.

I guess eventually it becomes a question of whether the time you offer for training is worth it? I think you did a good job but it definitely needs to be escalated. If she is needing to take so much time off each day, perhaps she needs a pause in her training, as this much time is not really giving her the experience she needs. Or she may be a drama queen and it may all be made up. Either way, it does not sound like a good place for her to be right now, and it is a waste of your time.

The training provider needs to be informed that she's not doing the required hours. How is her prep, teaching, marking etc? I can't see how she's doing the job being off site for so long.

Do you have to write reports on her for the training provider?

Presumably the external providers who are sponsoring their placements request feedback on their trainees’ performance and there’s some sort of system for monitoring? Use that to express concerns and let them manage it. If you are teachers then your role is to mentor her in that capacity, not get involved in HR issues.

If she is doing teacher training then this is presumably a placement.

In your shoes I would get in touch with the university as it sounds like she is at risk of the placement needing to be paused/needing additional support.

If she is at a uni then they have a duty of care towards her. She's informed you of some difficult home circumstances so in your shoes I would tread quite carefully - if she is on a pgce she isn't an employee.

(Although she must be nearly done by this point surely?)

How many frees a week does she have?
3 hours out of the building in one day is excessive.

Also your school should have a protocol for what to do if anyone becomes unwell in the middle of the day and needs to go home.

At my school the rule was you told your Hod and he then sorted cover.

In my department of 13 it happened about once a month.

Or are you implying she is not actually unwell?

Does the trainee have a practice educator/assessor/uni? It needs to be raised with them really.

Regardless of a worker's circumstances, tragic or not, work requirements need to be adhered to. Sounds like this trainee is massively taking the piss. I think you need to put in some boundaries around the time you are spending listening to her issues. She clearly needs professional help and you aren't the person to do it!

I think you need to raise a safeguarding concern to the training provider. She sounds vulnerable and as much as what she’s doing is annoying, she’s not your organisation’s employee.

Escalate.

Being there for the hours you're needed and are paid for is a basic requirement of any role so you have to address it somehow. It's ok to do it formally regardless of what's going on in her life.

Is this a teacher in training? Presumably there is an impact of her not being there, does someone have to cover? There are some jobs where an unexpected absence has more impact than elsewhere, teaching is one - harder to cover at short notice.

People get ill in the middle of the day, that's just going to happen but if it's frequent it has to be addressed. Going AWOL is not acceptable and doing it regularly is doubly so.

Our organisation has a HR specific domestic violence special arrangements, does your school have any flex for her ?

I would escalate immediately. Hopefully she can get some support.That is a lot going on.

they said “nothing we can do. Tell her to tell the uni” sad really.