Can anyone help with term time working?

[christmasiscoming25]

I am about to move to term time working in an office role. Can anyone tell me how this works with holidays? Do I just have a pot of 13 weeks holiday I agree with my employer? Or is it totally fixed non working weeks? I couldn’t work out how it works when school holidays vary and I’m happy to take some weeks in term time so that other colleagues can take off if needed

Why? If you know how it works for you, why do you need to know for others?

The key points are how many weeks you are being paid for and the amount of paid leave.

For example at my school a term time only job is 175 worked days - all term time days plus INSET days. You get pro-rated holiday of 33 days (5 weeks plus pack holidays) which works out at 25.44 days of paid holiday.

So they are paid for 200.44 days and expected to work 175.

If you aren’t a in a school you will effectively work out how many days you are paid for, how many you are expected to work and then mark it all out across the year.

If you want a hand calculating let me know - this is part of my job.

Thank you this is really helpful to know. It’s a very clear way of explaining it

You need to speak to HR and look at your new contract.

Term time hours, outside of education is a pretty unusual offering so you need to see what your employer is expecting.

Another one questioning why you are on a term time contract if you don’t know how it works. Also why did you go for it if not for childcare?

I work in a non school/education role office based and did term time. If my kids school was off I was off, adding up to 13 weeks a year.

Why did you take a term time role if you don't need one? There are parents desperate for these kind of roles, particularly parents of disabled children who can't get childcare in the school holidays.

Because she had the opportunity, it works for her and she took it? She’s not responsible for other people’s childcare arrangements. Other people may not have the skills she has for this role. Why are you questioning why other people take jobs that work for them?

Are you really saying that people who don't have school aged kids should not be allowed to take flexible roles?

I should probably step away from Mumsnet. I had no idea just how entitled people have become until I started reading it. Society is really on the decline.

I didn’t say I don’t need it. I have a child in primary school so yes I need it. But like I say my office doesn’t restrict to parents anyone can have one. That’s a fair policy to all

Op I have a term time
contract in a non educational setting. I assumed that I would only get the school holidays off. However my employer stated that my
contract means I only obligated and paid to work those days thus I am still entitled to get allocated holidays. I’m am extremely fortunate to have approx 19 weeks a year. Obviously I don’t earn a huge amount but certainly enough to make it worth my while.

I changed my working pattern to term time only this year, im in an office role.
We use the LA school holiday calender. Im not permitted inset days, but I can work an odd day in the holiday in place of a day outside of the term time.
My pay is now pro rota and I lost £200 per month. I would have lost more funding a holiday club, I feel very grateful.

Is there a reason you can't ask your employer, surely that's the only way to know.

What happens in other workplaces isn't relevant is it?

Are being deliberately thick OP? Term time only means you’re off when the local schools are off. You don’t pick and choose.

My friend has a TT contract in the civil service which isn't unusual.

TT usually means time off during school
holidays but sometimes there is some flexibility.

And you will get paid holiday eg if you work 39 weeks you will be paid for more.

I work in schools across 6 different council areas and each have their own holiday dates with some obvious cross over. OP doesn’t work in a school so isn’t bound to a schools specific holiday dates.

If you read the thread term time contracts work in different ways which some being quite flexible, some getting paid for holidays and some getting holiday entitlement on top. You sound pretty thick to not have considered all of that tbh.

No it doesn’t. If you want to be rude at least be correct.

I used to work part time and term time only. The job was not related to schools.

I had originally been working for the organisation 3 days a week (0.6) and asked to make the change.

I couldn’t afford to take a reduction in pay so increased my weekly hours to take account of the fact that I would be working fewer weeks.

I remember starting from the point of view of wanting 13 weeks off so made a proposal to HR that I wasn’t contracted to work for those weeks. That turned out not to be sensible - partly because I would be entitled to additional leave based on the hours I was working, which I didn’t want, and partly because I would have had virtually no bank holiday entitlement (because all but one of the bank holidays fell in times I wouldn’t have been contracted to work).

I member playing round with figures a bit and we ended up in a position where I wasn’t contracted to work for 6 weeks in the summer. I used my “normal” holiday entitlement and bank holidays to cover the other school holidays. Every year I had to tell HR what dates my non-working weeks would be, because obviously they were different every time.

I had a choice of whether to be paid for the hours I worked each month or to have my annual salary paid in 12 equal instalments. I chose the latter.

It worked well when I first changed, because there was no one else in my team with school aged children so they didn’t want to take holiday in the school summer holidays.

I was always lucky with being able to take my holiday in the other school holidays too, partly because people knew I worked term-time only but didn’t understand exactly how my contract worked and just assumed I wouldn’t be there.

It became less convenient when I changed role because the make up and role of the team was different and my frequent absences were less easy to manage. I ended up doing quite a bit of work when I was supposed to be off, but always from home, and I accepted that as a quid pro quo for retaining the term-time only arrangement.

In summary, it was a bit complicated to set up, but worked really well and it made my life much easier.