Friend and Continued Work Absence

[GentleWord]

I have a friend who has some mental and physical health diagnoses. She qualified as a teacher more than ten years ago. She has worked in different settings - state schools, private schools, and preschools.

Since then, she has had a few jobs as a teacher, but on average, she has up to half the time she is employed off sick. This does become an issue, and mostly she has to move on.

Never quietly. It usually goes through legal channels and I know the company have settled at least twice.

Before, I didn't think much about this, but now I have reason to think about schooling, I don't think it is fair that she keeps taking jobs that she cannot do. I'm actually unsure how she manages to get a new job with her history but apparently schools have only very recently been demanding of the last reference and now you can give "bad" references.

I don't think it is fair on the children to have a teacher who is so unreliable. I don't think it is fair on the staff. I think after a decade, it should be clear to her and her family that she cannot be a teacher. However, I think they cling to her profession as a status thing.

The same pattern is occurring again where shw is started to have repeated and medium term absences from a job she started last year. I think this time I should be a bit more honest with her about her career and the other people affected by how she engages with her job.

Unreasonable - dont say anything and just support her

Reasonable - find the words to say that teaching isn't an appropriate career choice.

I agree, I worked in social services. My mh declined and I recognised I couldn’t cope with the stress, I ended up on long term and ultimately left and found a more suitable job for me .

It sounds like your friend is masking , she starts a new job is able to do it well because she pretends everything is fine but ultimately the cracks begin to show.

id come at it from supporting her with her mh rather than her career choice.

That last part speaks volumes of op attitude towards retail workers.

She did want to be a teacher. There is a family expectation to have a profession.

If she sued and they settled, I'd assume her compromise agreement included an agreement of the reference ie employment dates with no reference to sickness

This makes sense.

This is entirely not true.

You need your work history verified going back 10 years - no gaps etc. including any work abroad.

You absolutely need a reference from your most recent place of work.

Safer Recruitment has been in place for many years.

Doesn’t it. It’s not my attitude, but I couldn’t think of another way to word it to highlight the OP’s horrible attitude. That attitude and the perceived “shame” of “having to work in Asda” is exactly why this poor woman keeps having to drag herself into an incredibly stressful job that trashes her mental health.

Given what the other person said, I think she may well of had a reference, I'd amend what I said to needing a good reference.

I think it raises the issue of just how much pressure schools are under. Unreasonable workloads are rife. Teachers are human like everyone else and they are leaving the job in droves, and that's without disabilities.

Is OFSTED or ISI found that recruitment checks were not being done in line with Safer Recruitment practices it’s an instant failure of inspection.

Safeguarding is the most important thing schools do and if legal requirements aren’t met the school would be in real trouble.

No, that's not what was said. In a retail job, if there is one person down, it doesnt matter as much as if you are a class teacher and things like a very small ratio of staff to students apply. There probably is a staff to customer ratio in retail, but it isn't 1/8.

@GentleWord Just because someone tells you something doesn’t make it true.

I'd have thought the same.

Exactly. Family expectation. She didn’t want to be a teacher, she was expected to have a profession, so she picked one she thought she could do. And then found she couldn’t cope with it.
Family expectation should not play into it. She’s a grown woman and should be able to do whatever the hell she wants to pay her bills. Instead her mental heath is being trashed by the weight of that expectation.

Poor woman.

The OP has explained her concern. One person's very regular absence and inability to fulfil her role is impacting on the education of hundreds of children. Why are you not concerned?! I suspect you would be very concerned if your own child's teacher was continually being replaced with temps.

OP what do you have in common with your friend? How much support do you give her with her mental health? How much do you know about what reasonable adjustments have been made for her? Given that you seem to know so much else about what's in her reference and his much time off she's had?
Just out of interest, what job do you do yourself?

I'd be wondering what she is doing with her time off sick. All of that time off should give her plenty of opportunity to focus on recovery and get better. There are so many tools and options out there to facilitate recovery. What is she doing with herself?

The best teacher in the world is a useless teacher if they're not there. If you know your health is such that a particular type of job makes it worse, why keep going back to that type of job rather than looking for a way to work that doesn't exacerbate your problems? Apart from anything else, it must make sense in terms of being able to stay in the job so you don't have to keep job searching and your CV looks better. Teaching does at least offer you quite a lot of options in that regard, e.g. part time work, home tuition, online teaching etc.

I think its not your business. If you disapprove of their behaviour then stop being their friend, if they are committing fraud or benefit fraud then contact the fraud hotline. Otherwise keep your nose out.

i would be worried about my friend rather than unknown children

She would be better as a private tutor and doing that as and when she can or retraining but easier said than done especially if she's sick alot. I imagine she would do something else if she could - it can't be easy with all the effort you have to make starting a new job then to quit not long after.
I had an A level biology teacher in school who went on long term sick and they replaced her with a physics teacher who was trying to teach himself biology at the same time as teaching it to us but it was awful, he really had no idea and couldnt answer any questions. I had been a straight A student the whole way through school and came out with a B in Biology and I know that was because I didn't have a biology teacher to teach us - it annoys me to this day. Not her fault though she was off sick but wish it had been dealt with better.

No she chose teaching over other professions. She wanted to work with kids etc.

I used to be but it is harder to have that dissonance when you can imagine it being your child's teacher.

Has she tried a day nursery type setting, rather than a school?
She clearly hasn’t found her niche.

That’s the school’s fault for not employing an appropriate teacher for the job. It’s not the fault of the teacher who was sick or the poor sod trying to teach an unfamiliar subject matter (and again, imagine how stressful that is).