To wonder why teachers say they don’t have flexibility - isn’t this the solution?

[Greeao]

I could be being quite naive here but chatting away with friends this afternoon, two of whom
are teachers, they were saying they have no flexibility and ’literally can’t go to the doctor on a work day.’ This was in comparison to other jobs in the group which were office based.

Surely you can go to an appointment at 5pm or 6pm in some doctor surgeries? Then for dentist and non urgent care you’d go in the half terms or holidays?

Similarly I don’t understand the issue with schools plays etc, surely it’s feasible to go to some of these events as not all half terms and holidays are the same for all schools and not every event is in the day time. For instance at our local school play starts at 5pm.

It’s not a goady post, I was just reflecting on my drive home and perhaps I don’t get the industry?!

I teach in FE in a rural location. My working hours are 8:30 - 4:30. I’m not allowed to leave the premises until 4:30. But leaving them would not get me to my Drs before they shut most days.

if I need time off for anything - hospital appt are fine and funerals of close designated family members, that would be fine too. But for anything else, I’d be allowed it, but I wouldn’t be paid. So if my children are sick, my uncle’s funeral, a wedding etc would all be unpaid leave, which quite frankly, I can’t afford… so I usually have to miss / my husband goes etc.

I think the hardest thing I have found is the Drs. You put on the form the time you’re free and then the Drs still try to call me back… then I can’t answer (rural, no access to a phone and no reception on my phone, not allowed them anyway), so they just leave a message, to call back, but by the time I’m free… usually it’s the end of the day so we start the whole thing over. For this reason (actually it was managing the Drs and my child’s health) I went part time in the first place. So now I do everything on my day off. I don’t think I know any teacher mums who work full time… most have at least one day off a week for doing all the life admin…

What time do most people need to call in to a GP surgery to book an appt? As a teacher the very latest I was in school and working was 7.40 am.
To add, it's a month's wait for non-urgent at my GP practice.

Teacher here! I am in school until 4:30 sometimes 5, my gp closes at 4. Dentist at 4:30. My kids are primary school kids, and I work in a Secondary school. So all of my own kids’ school plays are during the day. If I go, its unpaid. When anyone at work has to go to an appointment we are always told we should book out of work hours and that this time we will get off for that but not to do it again unless is an emergency.

Our lunch break is at the same time as GPs lunch break. So that doesn’t help. Plus, a lot of the teachers there are from other towns, so their doctors are not near.

So no, working in a school is not flexible for appointments!

Most same day appointments are gone by 8.30am at my GPs.

Presumably not uk. This wouldn't be allowed in the UK. I've taught in England and Scotland and staff where you can leave when the children have left, unless you have a meeting.

So since secondary schools in Scotland have 27.5 hours of learning each week, so that means secondary teachers get 5 hours of non-contact time whilst kids are in class, which is almost a whole day? Plus about 1.5 hours of time each day when kids are not in class that is part of their contracted hours? That's not bad, and that's obviously how my friend manages to pop home often. As I said upthread I don't grudge teachers having flexibility, and I am sorry that T&C are not as favourable in the rest of the UK.

@gentileprof7 In 21 years of primary teaching (UK) and across a number of schools, I have never known a teacher (unless supply) to leave at the same time as the children - nowhere even close.

None of those things would have been remotely possible at my school. Nor are they at the schools where my DD and son in law teach. Your friend is very fortunate.

This is not true of all schools. Where I work teachers are given time off for appointments, sports day etc.

Getting to the front of the queue to actually get an appointment at our surgery would be a win, you wouldnt get a say what time it was!
You can only book same day appointments which involves calling at 8.10. Usually its all over by 8.30 and you need to repeat the next day.
DH is self employed he recently wanted a dentist appointment, he asked if they had one early in the morning, or late afternoon and the nearest day that had one that time was 4 weeks away! So he took a half day and had one at 2pm next day.

I think teaching generally is pretty inflexible with regard to time off, because all the holidays are set...although I do have a teacher friend who often suggests meeting in the day time in half term or school holidays, as if everyone is off work then (Her DH works in a school and most of her closest friends are teachers so its normal for them)

You are wrong. Your friend’s school is very unusual.

Threads like this make me so glad I left teaching 4 years ago. People feel free to comment on teachers lives with no awareness of how hard it is. The idea that we had a proper ‘lunch break’ to take phone calls is laughable. I used to teach from 8.30-4 and was on duty during lunch 3/5 times a week. Teachers cover absent teachers so it was very common for me to have my 3 free hours a week used at the last minute for cover.
I was a good teacher but I was a poor mother because of my job. I left and now work in the private sector and do pick ups, attend sports day, nativity etc all things I couldn’t do before on more money! If you are a teacher and are reading this thread please leave the profession, the grass is so much greener and you don’t get people judging you all the time!

In my school routine appointments are only allowed after school or in the holidays.
Time will be allowed for emergency doctors appointments but frowned upon.
Time not allowed to attend nativities, sports days, university open days etc.
Immediate family funerals only allowed- so if your best friend, your uncle, your next door neighbour dies you're not going to the funeral unless you quit your job!
No holidays allowed, not even unpaid so when people plan weddings, hen dos etc. in term time I can't attend.
I can never go to The Yorkshire show, Royal Ascott ladies day, Chelsea Flower Show, Glastonbury etc.

To have any chance of getting an appointment at my surgery, you have to call at 8:30am or 2pm. We are teaching at those times. So never mind attending an appointment, we can’t even call to make one.

They can't actually stop you going home, unless there is a reason (such as they need you to cover a class).

@RubyTraybake Totally agree. Teaching is far from own child friendly. I left after 21 years in and just before my now 5 yo started school - I still pinch myself that I can be so much more present for her than I ever could have been had I stayed teaching.

Very much depends on what and where you teach.

I worked in HR for a large trust. Support staff were given zero flexibility. We had one who needed an operation and they tried to tell them they needed to cancel and ask for a date in the school hols.
I had a member of support staff quit as she wasn’t allowed Friday afternoon off to travel to her son’s wedding. A few weeks later 2 teachers were allowed whole days off to go to their mates weddings.
It just depended on who they thought was more valuable.

Teachers have less flexibility than office jobs where you make you make uour own schedule and isn't client facing. But it is not unique to teachers in anyway. Many other jobs are equally non-flexible. Teachers can have appointment. They can even have days off on school days, it is just inconvenient to organise.

Sounds like your HT was not following correct practices. You are entitled to a lunch break. When are you supposed to eat? If you had to do lunch duty (usually a TA's role but i have heard of teachers doing it), you should get your lunch after that and your lesson covered by another teacher.

Another difficulty school staff have is that mobile phones are not allowed to be on display in the classroom and have to be away in a storeroom on silent when you are in the classroom.

So you can't answer any important phone calls like medical appointments. I needed to have a telephone apointment with the doctor a few weeks ago- it was impossible when first i had to ring at 8am and end up in a queue for over half an hour- this is my usual journey time to work so not possible to do. Secondly, they only offer a call between 9am and 6pm- no specified times so impossible for me to answer if they did ring. Had to book an unnecessary appointment with the GP just to ask a simple question about medication.

I imagine it varies from school to school. At my friend’s school she has been allowed to leave to watch her child’s school play in the day once.

At one of my (previous, as I have left teaching) schools, I couldn’t even leave the classroom to vomit during pregnancy and would never have been allowed to call the doctors at 8:30, detentions, student support and duties before/during/after school and ‘period 7 lessons’ (cleverly not called lessons so couldn’t be classified as teaching hours) after school means you wouldn’t even be able to phone the doctor in the first place until at least 4:30 some days. PPA isn’t always spread evenly over the timetable in secondary, you might drop unlucky and get all your PPA at the end of a two week timetable so have 7/8 teaching days with no PPA. School declined my request of an urgent hospital referral appointment even when I agreed to plan cover lessons well in advance. Definitely no chance of leaving early there or popping to the local primary! As I say, schools are all different aren’t they and of course there are lots of jobs which also have a lack of flexibility.

After school and holiday appointments are great for lots of things but many services are all so much busier in those periods for obvious reasons so it isn’t all that easy to get an appointment when you need one.

When I had a painful ear infection I sat on the phone from 8-8:45 and got through, only to be told I couldn't book an afternoon appointment and to ring back at 1pm. Which I couldn't do.
Zero flexibility if you are the only adult in the room. Most of my friends have flexibility in their jobs to answer the phone for 2 minutes to speak to their doctor and were shocked by the lack of flexibility that comes from working in a school.

It is, obviously, not very flexible in that if you're in front of a class you can't pop out for half an hour. In that sense though it's the same as loads of jobs- retail, hospitality, all emergency services, medicine, care work, call centres etc etc.

Teachers do obviously get the holidays where they can catch up on a lot of that life-min. Which differs from other jobs. Teaching is a really tough job but I don't think it's so different to a lot of other tough public or private sector jobs or has particularly longer hours- in fact the unions have done a good job of negotiating hours. All of us in the public sector get rinsed for hours out of our sense of public duty...🙄

Schools have policies on directed time. Our policy states ppa must be taken on site.

5pm appointments are hardly available, OP. Same day appointment you have to join the phone fight from 8am onwards so as a teacher you'd already be at school, either in a meeting or getting ready to take your first class, not able to stay on hold for ages and pick up when the GP receptionist is available. It's actually hard enough to get appointments even with notice at my GP and I work part time - appointments are never after 5pm and need at least 2-3 week's notice.

You actually can go to a GP in term time if you need to, depending on the schools approval to be fair. But you have to request cover and there's usually pressure not to go, or to at least book it at the beginning or end of the day to reduce the need for cover. Depends on the school. A friend of mine in a previous school was given a warning for having two dentist appointments after school meaning she had to leave at 3pm (no classes missed, just afternoon line up).

The big thing it's tough for actually is phone appointments, it's basically impossible to take them on working days as they never call when they say they will and tend to call back when you have a class and obviously can't take the call then.