To think that this makes no sense at all and completely defeats the point of it?

[WineInMyBelly]

I have 2 children with SEN, both children attend a specialist SEN school. I’ve made a flexible working request in work (I don’t work in education. I work as a marketing manager for a global company) to work term time school hours only. My flexible working request has been approved. But now my line manager and HR are both saying that the term time/school holidays will be based on the school holidays for LA schools in our area and not my children’s specific SEN school. The school holidays for my children’s school vary slightly from the school holidays for the local LA schools though! I’ve queried this with my manager and HR but they won’t budge on it at all. I had assumed a term time contract meant that I would be working when my children are in school and off when they are not in school but obviously that won’t happen now! AIBU to think this makes no sense at all and completely defeats the point of me having requested term time working?

How varied are they? Will someone cover your role when off?

Did you specify hours to align with the specific school or just term time only? Surely that’s better than what you previously had anyway. Do you have a partner that can share the load for the few extra days?

Could you ask the head of your children's school write them a letter explaining what you actually need.
I agree with you that their decision completely defeats the point.

It’s not just a few days here and there unfortunately, there are times where there’s a week where the holidays don’t align unfortunately. So there will be times where there’s a week that I’ll be expected to be working but my children will be off that week! There are multiple times that this will happen during the year but my manager and HR are refusing to budge on it!

I think they've been really accommodating. I used to have a similar arrangement and dates / hours were for local state schools. Mine were in a different set up, but it made a massive difference to me. It really helped me juggle it. They didn't have to approve this, so I would be appreciative. If you still need more flex, maybe a different type of role?

I think that's a pretty standard approach. All my term time colleagues certainly have their hours determined by the term dates the LA published.

Do they have longer holidays than the state schools?

Otherwise it seems a bit petty.

I’m a single mum. I specified it to align with my children’s school and HR said that would be a term time only contract and that I would need to make a flexible working request but now they are refusing to budge on what dates they will class as school holidays because they don’t want it based on my children’s specific school.

We have term timers at work and they work the school days here, where the office is, it’s not based on where they live.

The head is lovely so she would definitely agree to write a letter for me but would HR or my manager accept that?

Send them an email with an Excel list saying these are the days off I need.

Otherwise I would look for another job with "normal" flexibility.

How big is the overlap of holidays ? If quite big, surely it is better to take this offer and make arrangements for the small number of days where you will be working and your children off school ?

This has to be better than many other jobs where they would not allow this change at all

It just completely defeats the point of me having made a flexible working request for term time only if I’m now still going to be working even when my children are off sometimes.

Where I work has different term dates to where I live and if i wanted term time working I'd think it totally bizarre to base it on the office location. No one does that so I don't actually know what they'd do

Apart from anything else doesn't it make it a bit easier if staff holidays are spread out a bit?

What's the point though?

You may as well just send HR the link to the school website term dates.

Although pointless if you say they won't budge.

You won’t know until you send in the letter but its so stupid of them to be inflexible on this point that they may not accept it. The stupidity if it is that being slightly off schedule eith others who follow the regular school schedule makes your role easier to cover rather than harder.

It makes no sense to me. As in I cant think of a business justification of why that specific LAs term dates work for them but not the actual term dates. Is it easier to get cover during that specific las holidays.

To be fair it doesn't totally defeat it, will your holiday cover the times when the dates are different? Presumably it's not loads of weeks

How significant is the difference between what they're offering and what you need?

Yes, could you work it out so your annual leave will cover some of it?

Surely you can cover the remaining days with other arrangement and holidays ?

Work out how days a year, this will be a problem and take it from there . If you really can't then you might have to consider leaving this job, though it.may be hard to find something else.

I think it is unlikely they will budge. If they are saying they will give you standard school holidays not working then that is what they are willing to do. I wouldn't waste too much time fighting it myself

You can try 🙂
It seems a crazy rule.
Are you in England?
Something like 90% of English schools are now Academies and they don't have to follow LA dates so saying that a "term time" contract has to be based on the LA dates is just daft.
Schools usually publish their holiday dates a year in advance so your work should be able to plan your work schedule well in advance.
Personally I would go even higher up than the school head - I'd get my local MP involved.
Fingers crossed for you.

I have already sent HR and my manager the term dates for my children’s school but they just keep saying it’s based on the LA term dates and won’t budge.

They are saying they won’t be hiring anyone to cover my role when I’m off and that my workload will be absorbed in to the wider marketing team. Which is why I don’t understand why they can’t just base the holidays on my children’s school then?

Using annual leave wouldn’t work unfortunately because of the way my annual leave now works after this flexible working request.

We are in England yes.