AIBU? Working during annual holiday

[Oaktree1952]

Im a teacher and I’ve been contacted by three parents by email and “caught just to say” in town. I get teachers get really long holidays. I get the expectation that we plan and prepare the classroom during holidays. But should I be replying to parents or not. Do other £40k jobs respond to clients or other members of staff during their annual leave?

My auto reply goes on at 3pm on the last day of term and goes off at 9am on the first day of term! I sometimes choose to check in with my emails towards the end of the holidays just to see if there is anything from SLT regarding first day back but I’m not paid during the holidays so I’m not working unless I choose to! I’m support staff not teaching staff but wouldn’t expect teachers to either!

As the daughter of a teacher, I can tell you that this is a massive misunderstanding. During term time teachers work every evening and every weekends. Most of them do clubs or extra classes in their own time. During the school holidays, tbey put in many hours too.
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As a parent if I messaged school when shut I.e through the holidays I wouldn’t expect reply until start of term. At my sons schools we don’t get any out of office reply’s or acknowledgment to emails. Your school will have a policy even if you have access to work emails whilst not working I doubt your employer expects you to respond. I also have worked for a large financial company we did have a policy of out of office when staff were on holiday but that was different to education as the business was open all year except of bank holidays and colleagues knew you then to contact rest of the team (not on holiday).

At my school SMT respond to emails during holidays but they are being paid significantly more than £40k 😂

I go into school and do stuff during the holiday but I would need get respond to a parent email. I would forward it to SMT if it couldn’t wait until September.

I also live near my school so run into families past and present just about daily in the holidays. I always stop to chat if they want to but never about anything, just quick pleasantries. They sometimes ask questions about equipment or if I know the new teacher etc. It’s never anything difficult.

I work in academia and yes, unfortunately, it’s the norm to monitor and respond to emails outside of working hours and on holiday. My colleagues literally take work with them on holiday. It’s not healthy or okay though.

You do need to establish your own boundaries though. I keep an eye on my emails. I would respond to urgent ones (about student safeguarding or about time sensitive decisions, sometimes we have grant application deadlines to meet or academic misconduct proceedings ongoing). Otherwise, I have an out of office message on that says when I’ll be back. Day to day emails, no I don’t respond to them until it’s my next working day. Sometimes I don’t respond to them at all if the urgency has passed by the time I’m back.

Not every email warrants an immediate response. People email when they have time. You can respond when you have time.

Yes, I'm ostensibly in a corporate 9-5 role but I expect to be called at any time. The flexibility works both ways though.

Im a teacher and I’ve been contacted by three parents by email and “caught just to say” in town.

I don't understand what this means but no, this doesn't sound right. What do you teach?

How does teachers salary/ annual leave work? Is it a yearly salary and they you take you annual leave at your own discretion during the school holidays? If yes I would have my annual leave days where I would turn off emails and put ooo on. Then on ‘work’ days do planning/ answer emails etc

I don’t know why you are checking work emails when on annual leave? Just put out of office on, with info for anyone with a safeguarding concern.

Face to face, “sorry, got to dash. Email me.”

You need to put your OOO on, include a note to contact the DSL if a child is in danger and stop checking your emails.

FWIW though, as a teacher, you are not technically 'on annual leave'.

Agreed with PP that for a full time equivalent non-teaching job of between 50-60k, yes, there are some occasions when you have to deal with stuff on your AL.

I wouldn't expect a reply during the holidays.

Is it a personal email account? Or a work one? If a work one, why are you checking it? If a personal one, why are you using it for work purposes? Separate the usage of the two and separate your checking of them.

Full-time teachers get paid for 1,265 hours of teaching, paid in 12 monthly installments. Their pay is not pro-rata'd down due to the holidays, they are just not teaching when school isn't in session and therefore 'not paid', but if a full time teacher salary is £54k, for example, then it is £54k split across 12 months, with school holidays 'off'.

The pay includes statutory holiday pay (which works out to about 28 days paid holiday) and the rest of the time is a bit of a grey area. It's not holiday but it's not technically paid, but also it is technically paid, as pay doesn't 'stop' in the holidays.

It's confusing!

You are on holiday. They shouldn't be emailing and you shouldn't be replying... The only exception to this would be something

• really big and terrible like a child in your class being diagnosed with cancer
• less terrible but that might massively affect your teaching or whether a child could attend school - a child has badly broken their leg and school needs to have things in place to manage their condition on their return and parent needs advanced warning about whether the school will be ok with their child attending normally in case they need to take time off work or something.

parents are bloody entitled if they expect responses in the summer holidays. if it's a more structural question into the SLT that's one thing, but asked the subject or form teacher about little jenny's progress is out of order

In Scotland school holidays were split into 'annual leave' (40 days per year) and 'school closures' when they weren't required to work about fifteen years ago because before that it had been established by case law that if a teacher was on maternity leave they accrued annual leave based on the days the schools were closed. That would mean that if they were on maternity leave for a full calendar year they could accrue about 70 days paid leave to use at the end of their maternity leave. Splitting the school holidays into annual leave and school closures meant that teachers on mat leave could only accrue a similar amount of leave to other public sector employees (40 days per year). Salary was unaffected by this change so it's not true say that these school closures became unpaid. Unfortunately over the years this has led to the misinterpretation that teachers are unpaid for the 'school closures' and therefore would be paid more if these did not exist, with some arguing that disadvantages them compared to other professions. I expect similar measures were put in place around the same time in England since the right to accrued leave comes from employment and equality legislation which are both UK-wide.

I'm middle managment and on approx £60k. I would not respond to clients whilst on annual leave. In fact I dont even have my work email installed on my phone. I would answer a call from colleagues and respond to their queries.

Parents can email when it's convenient for them, you can respond when it's convenient for you - and probably best to set an out of office setting out when they can expect responses. Under promise, over deliver.

I wouldn't check my work emails when on leave. As a teacher I might set aside an hour or so every week to read and send any necessary responses during summer holidays, maybe every other week.
If a customer bumped into me in town and had a brief chat about work while I was on leave it wouldn't bother me, but if it kept happening I'd probably avoid the area 😆

Isn’t that the whole point of sending a email, the receiver can reply when they want to. So in this case the start of term? If it was a phone call I would say you had a point but I’m sure the parents are not expecting you to reply over the summer

I understand checking the emails for your own reasons, tying up what didn't get done at the end of term or in prep for returning, but parents' routine queries should be left until then.

School is open for 190 days and it's currently closed.

I think, personally, it's different if a child is trying to work independently during holidays just before exams or school mocks and asks for some support, but there's no obligation to be available.

There were mobiles in the last few years of my working life but not smart phones. Thank goodness. I have always been the past mistress at being "unavailable" unless it suited me. I worked in a uni and you were not allowed to take calls in the library so I would always say I was going there. The only time my phone was on was when I went out to do an interview for a project. For security we had to let the uni know where we were going, when we arrived and when we left. I'm old now so I can get away with weaponised incompetence when it comes to missing calls. hahaha

Put an auto reply on emails saying you will get back to them as soon as possible on your return after the holidays. Noone expects a reply

I’m a nurse. I am constantly being asked for medical advice and opinions whether it’s my day off, a night out or if I’m on annual leave 🙂

If you don’t want to see work emails on annual leave, don’t look at work emails ok annual leave and/or don’t give parents your personal email.

On most threads teachers claim / insist
to be working all through the holidays so maybe they assume you are based upon that.

That's interesting, but it works slightly differently in England and Wales.

Teachers still have the statutory 28-day annual leave entitlement like everyone else, but it's deemed to be taken during school closure periods rather than being separately identified as contractual leave. So it can be interpreted differently.

You are not being unreasonable not to work.

But that said I work in higher education and almost everyone answers emails and may do some work during annual leave.