To think I shouldn’t have to attend 100% of meetings if I’m part time?

[parrrtime]

I work three days a week, but our staff meetings fall on a day I work.

AIBU in thinking that I shouldn’t actually have to attend all of these? Not to be purposefully obtuse about it but sometimes I could really do with leaving a bit earlier and tomorrow is one of these. I am wondering if it’s worth arguing that I really shouldn’t have to stay.

There is never anything important covered in the meetings, by the way.

There is no need to ask. OP is only contracted to work a certain percentage of the meetings. OP is correct in what they are saying.

The real truth is that the OP wants to get off work early

No, why do people keep acting like the OP is lazy and bunking off when she simply doesn’t think she should attend a meeting that she isn’t being paid to attend when every other colleague at that meeting is being paid to attend?

It’s not getting off work ‘early’ it’s getting off work ‘on time’. Realistically she is probably going to do another 2-3 hours work after ‘getting off work’ and adding the meeting would mean 3-4 hours work after she has ‘got off work’.

I'm sure now that OP is aware they will attend the correct percentage. Perhaps they have only recently gone part time.

I think if depends on how long the meetings are. If they are taking up a significant portion of your working time then I can certainly see why you would want to cut down.

Exactly this.

If OP had stated in their question that they have a specific part time agreement stating that they do not need to attend the full percentage of meetings the responses would be different.

OP your union can confirm this for you but you are absolutely correct.

It sounds like teaching is different in that there's a contractual expectation that part timers only attend a percentage of meetings according to their WTE as opposed to most other workplaces where if the meeting falls on your working day, you'd be expected to attend meetings, which would be scheduled to fall on as many people's working days as possible.

Plus if the meeting is very important, people who's non working day falls on that day would be expected to swap a day unless this was impossible for them.

But the bigger question seems to be why you're having meetings that never cover anything important? What a waste of time.

I'm a .6 teacher too OP and I think some posters (who are not teachers) are not understanding the issue.

In teaching, we have both 'directed' and 'non-directed' hours. We only get paid for the 'directed' hours'...everything else is done 'because the children' 🤦‍♀️ and is unpaid. We work many, many 'unpaid' hours.

Our directed time calendar INCLUDES staff meetings, and is directly related to our paid hours. Therefore, a full time member of staff is 'directed' to attend all meetings 'within the directed time calendar'.

As a part time member, we CAN ONLY BE DIRECTED to attend a percentage that equates to our working hours...ie in mine and the OP case, 3 out of every 5. The same is true of INSET days, regardless of what day they fall on, as we are ONLY PAID to attend 3 out of the 5 inset days.

We get a list of termly staff meeting topics at the start of each term, and I negotiate with my head which of these she would prefer me to attend.

I only attend 3 inset days...but again, I negotiate with my head which of these she feels are most important. If she wants me to attend more I get paid to do them, but can also say no if I don't want to.

OP your union will support you with these negotiations if your school are being unreasonable. Please don't be bullied into working even more hours 'for free' than you already are doing.

But meetings are a part of your job?? What's the problem if it's on your working day??

As a manager I would not be impressed at this at all. Especially if you later started whining about not being told things. Staff meetings are one of the most important steps towards ensuring we're all in the same page.

If they’re part of her job, she should be paid to attend them, right?

If a manager moaned about a staff member not being up to date because the manager hadn’t paid them to attend the meetings, nor disseminated minutes, then that’s a shit manager.

The problem is that meetings can be time consuming and often not very useful. If you are part time it can leave not much time to do the actual job.

If you're working and they're in working hours you go to the meetings surely?
What if your colleagues "could do with leaving earlier"?

It isn’t in her working hours.

It’s in her colleague’s working hours, but not hers.

How hard is this to understand?

I work three days a week on set days.

I attend quarterly staff meetings when they fall on one of my working days. I don't attend them if they are outside my set days.

You need to re read the guidance around it then because you are wrong (or clearly not a teacher!)

This thread is clearly full of non teachers that just have no idea of the guidance. 🤦🏼‍♀️Probably would have been better posting on the staff room forum to get more helpful answers.

In my experience, the only meetings where things actually got done were dept meetings - and latterly the SLT used to try to coerce staff into having them outside the Working Time Agreement, whilst invoking the seemingly magical words “Oh, but staff will want to…”

Whole staff meetings and Extended Management Team Meetings were used to rubber stamp decisions already taken by the HT and LA.

This thread is going round in circles with advice from people who are not teachers.
Department of Education has statutory guidance for Teachers Pay & Conditions. Teachers ( and expectations of teachers) are in it! - unless the teacher is in an indie or academy trust who have taken a decision not to follow it and instead the teacher would have accepted the terms and conditions of that school/trust instead).

There is no point debating it….it is here, agreed by government.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-teachers-pay-and-conditions

if this question was for teachers only, why put it on AIBU
why not post in the Staff Room

absolutely

In most lines of work the meetings would be during the working day. If you as a manager of staff in a job with regular office hours expected everyone to stay behind for meetings after the end of the working day and paid most people for the time spent on the meeting, but only paid part time staff for a fraction of the time while still expecting them to stay for the whole thing then I'm quite sure your staff would find that unreasonable.

I'm a teacher and work 3 days so 3 fifths. I have to attend 3 fifths of the staff meetings. I sit with the deputy towards the end of a term and plan the ones I'm attending the next term.
Same with planning meetings as I share a class we attend planning meetings every other week. So my job share would do one week and me the next.

It benefitted no goodwill in my school. I've been part time for 7 years, attended all meeting for 5 of those and after slt screwing the staff over I had enough. So now I work my hrs.
Why on earth should me working to rule give any pt staff a bad name? If you want to do even more work for free that's up to you, be a martyr but doesn't mean we all have to.
I work to live not the other way round

No she isn't saying that and pt don't work just their hours. A staff meeting barely scraps the top of the extra hours of work done, however working to rule to only attend the correct number of directed hours is what should be done and is in our contract. Of course most teachers work over their directed hours but not through meetings.
Teaching contracts are unlike other work contracts and as such can be confusing but she is in the right to only attend a certain number. Other work has to be done and rarely gets finished within school opening hours so that gets done at a different time, usually at home. That's just the way teaching is.

Ok. I said yabu until I realised you were a teacher. In other professions then the meeting is in your paid hours and you attend, but essentially this is taken into account with the rest of your workload. Don’t know the specifics (lots of teachers in the family although I’m not) I think your 0.6 is made up of a number of teaching hours plus a number of directive (don’t know the term) hours. You’ll still be expected to do the right number of hours type 1 even if you do over the number of hours type 2, so you should get some form of agreement to ‘skip ‘ 1 in 3 ish

I’m not a martyr. I give a little bit (attend all our departmental meetings for example) which benefits me as it keeps me visible and in the loop and saves me time catching up. I bank that goodwill as I have a great head of department who is flexible and has been kind (eg covered time off when I attended the funeral of a non relative who was very dear to me). I am in the independent sector and working to rule is very frowned upon. Luckily the small classes and good behaviour and flexible management team balance it out.