HELP! I'm having such a crap day. Teachers advice needed too!

[tryingtobemarypoppins]

What a rubbish day. First thing this morning I send my boss (primary head teacher) an email to ask about the first day back which is an INSET day. It is on a day I don't work, Thursday and so asked him if he wanted me to attend and if so I would put a pay claim form in.

He sent the rudest email back saying that although I work Mon-Wednesday I needed to attend all INSET days and just 1 this year is on a day I work so the others I would have to go unpaid! I am too pissed off to email him back, but phoned my union who said he was way out of line and had to pay me or give me time off instead. The childcare costs would be £120 if nursery could even help me out!

Trouble is it?s the sort of school where you get an outstanding observation if you conform to these mad systems and a crap observation if you say anything out of his dislike! AIBU and should just keep my head down and hope family and friends can help out? I only have until Feb and I'm on maternity leave.

Oh and then just to tip me over the edge went to play at a friend?s house today and my toddler of 22 months refused to share and bit my friends son

He has never done it before I feel CRAP!

Charliesweb, come over here!

Wonderstuff Thu 27-Aug-09 20:55:58
"If the school can't afford to pay teachers for inset then they are mismanaging the budget imo, our school has money for everything. "

But there are schools and then there are schools, my previous school just did not have the money to pay for everything that was needed and expected due to the way that forumlas were worked out. Our students needed an excpetionally high level of support which is very expensive. Probably in another town I would say that a good percentage of each year group would be in behaviourial units. But the demand was so high in the town that we had to have them in main stream education.

Sassyfrassy Thu 27-Aug-09 21:11:25 Add a message | Report post | Contact poster
Even with older children you still have to sort out childcare for before and after school, and if the school doesnt provide scemes then you'll need a childminder who'l most likely want paying during holidays as well.

Yes you do, but you dont need as much childcare as someone who works 48 works a year 9 - 5.30pm.

You def only have to go to the percentage of INSET days you work for i.e. if you are .6 you go to 60% of the INSET days. This is the same for staff meetings etc. Sometimes a school might ask you to stay for the INSET and give you time off in leiu. Dont let it upset you...think all schools can be a bit like this x

Is it worth finding out what your going to be doing on Inset day and i its reverlant .Here on Inset day I happen to know theyare having day of makton training .Which is essential since its what my ds going to be using

bu canfeel for you on the childcare costs and especially ifit short notice about you needig to atend

violethill:So what do you do in a situation where employing two part time equivalents to a full time post is going to cost you more?

tethersend: My point is that the question shouldn't be addressed to the teacher- it should be addressed to the school/borough/LEA/Government.

Only just got back to the thread, but actually tethersend, I agree with you on this point. The question shouldn't be addressed to the teacher concerned, because there should already be a clear policy in place to cover situations like this. So certainly the OP should not be getting last minute phone calls from her Head, asking her to come in, when the pay situation isn't clarified.

However, I think there is a huge difference between part time posts which are instigated by the school, because they need a teacher on a P/T basis only, and part time posts or job shares which are instigated by the employee because they want to work part time.

Where I work, the vast majority of part timers were originally appointed to a full time post. They went on ML leave later, and requested to come back, say, 3 days a week, so in most of these case, another part timer has to fill the gap.

One of the condtions of an employer agreeing to such requests, is that it doesn;t place an additional burden of cost on the employer. So, for example, if two job sharers said they wanted to be paid for a two hour crossover per week to liaise, the answer would be no, not because the school is being difficult or awkward, but because that liaison should be done in the employees' own time. If that involves paying for childcare etc, then that's part of the deal of accepting a part time role. TBH in this situation, I think parents evenings and INSET fall into the same category. The school budget should not be used to pay someone to come in on a day 'off', if that person is doing part of a job which could be done more cheaply by one person. It's just not right to divert money which should be used for other purposes. Even if school budgets were healthier (I wish!) then the principle remains the same.

Of course, if a school wants someone to teach part time, and advertises that, because there isn't a full time need, then that's different. I think in that scenario,it's entirely reasonable that the employee should be paid for anything over that part time contract. But again, that situation should be made clear in the first place - it shouldn't have to be discussed every time a situation arises.

I do take your point violethill

I just think that the school are able to refuse jobshare/pt applications citing exactly this extra cost, and should really do so at the time of application if they see it as such a problem.

To accept the application and then at a later date require the teacher to work outside of her normal hours to avoid incurring additional costs is unreasonable in my opinion.

Agree with you on that.

The conditions should be made clear at the outset, and then re-iterated if, for example, one job share partner changes.

I think a lot of schools (and no doubt other employers) have been feeling their way with this one, because flexible working rights are relatively new, and like anything, there can be teething troubles. I know management at my own school have had their fingers burned a couple of times through not considering every detail of situations like this.

But yes, in principle, everyone should know where they stand with regard to contracts/hours/pay so that this type of situation doesn't crop up endlessly.

violethill I also take your point but in my case I am cross because I am being made to work more than the number of INSETS needed AND not get paid.

My head has also not planned INSETS fairly. 3/4 are on days 1/2 the staff don't work and none of us will be paid but HAVE to go.

INSET planning has to take account of other factors too though. Often a school will want to attach it to a weekend (ie either Friday or Monday) as this makes the week less fragmented for learning. Also, if the school is buying in a speaker for training, this may affect when it can take place.

At the end of the day, the school isn't there to fit INSET around part time staff!

A school which has half of its staff not working on particular days sounds as though it perhaps has its staffing balance awry anyway. Sounds like way too many part timers to be able to function smoothly - the INSET problems being just one indicator of this.

Actually violethill, the school does have a responsibility to ensure that all staff receive up to date training via INSET days.

If a school has a high number of pt staff, they are not exempt from their legal requirement to provide accessible training for them.

Requiring pt staff to work unpaid on a day off in order to do this is completely unreasonable, and the head should have scheduled dates when as many staff as possible are able to attend, or accept that (s)he must pay staff for attending.

tryingtobemarypoppins- If I were you, I would do as kembletwins suggests and take this up with your local union rep.

Not disagreeing with any of that tethersend - yes, the school does have a responsibility to ensure all staff have up to date training.

But they also have a responsibility to pupils and parents, and putting INSET days alll over the place just to accommodate part timers could be compromising those other factors.

At the end of the day, this thread shows that there are inevitable logistical problems with employing people on a part time basis. Now, I'm not saying that as a result of that part timers shouldn't be appointed, I'm just pointing out that it can make life more tricky.

I return to the point in my other thread - if the job is part time because the school wanted it to be part time, then it's reasonable to expect them to accommodate as far as possible.If on the other hand, the part time issue is because a full timer wanted to become part time, I think it's in their interests to put themselves out to make it viable.

Ah... violethill...we were so close to consensus!

I don't think that the school's legal responsibility to parents and students involves making life easier for them by scheduling INSET days either side of a weekend for instance, whereby their legal responsibility to provide training is very clear

My school minimises disruption by providing 'twighlight' INSET sessions after school throughout the academic year. It works well in our school. The surplus 'day off' is then tacked on to a school holiday to minimise the impact on parents/carers.

I think that once the school has made the decision to agree to part time working hours which have been applied for through the proper channels for whatever reason, they should not renege on this and require teachers such as the OP to provide them with additional unpaid hours.

violethill he could simple have 2 INSETS on a Monday, 2 on a Friday its not rocket science.

trying to be marypoppins.... but what about part timers who have a Monday and Friday off?

I really don't think I'm disgreeing with you personally btw - it sounds as though your particular school has got itself into a situation where it has way too many part timers to cope, and then ends up treating them shabbily - probably precisely because they can't manage the situation well. In your situation I would look to move too.

I think this whole issue is an interesting one, because in recent years there has been a huge increase in people changing to part time work, through flexible working agreements, and this has inevitably thrown up new issues.

My own school has a number of part timers where the situation works absolutely fine, but we've also encountered a few where people have been very unreasonable, eg, going down from full time to 3 days a week (their choice) and the whinging every time a parents evening or training etc falls on a day off. It's as if they expect the entire staff to revolve around their particular needs. There can also be very sound reasons for fixing meetings on a specific day of the week - eg our staff meetings are always on a fixed day at 4 pm, because it wouldn't be reasonable on all the staff (men and women, full or part time) who have childcare commitments to have to change their arrangements on a week by week basis, which would be the case if you had a 'rolling' meeting, Monday one week, then Tuesday etc

At the end of the day, if people want flexibility in the workplace, it's in their interests to be flexible themselves, and to do what needs doing to make it work. The more intractable people are,the less likely an employer is to look favourably on other employees who may want to request flexible working. It's give and take isn't it. The employer shouldn't be exploiting the employee, but neither should a part time worker expect everything on their terms. In any institution which runs full time 5 days a week, like a school, there are bound to be aspects to part time working which are tricky.

It sounds as though in your case though marypoppins, you're likely to keep running into this type of scenario so I think you're doing the right thing by planning a move.

The issue over what days the INSETs should be on isn't just about which staff are at work on those days- I'd be surprised if that is even thought of when senior management are planning them- it should also be about what is less disruptive for the pupils. I don't know if it's such an issue in primary/infant/junior schools but in secondary school it's a total nightmare if they are all on the same day. If you only see a class once a week it's a huge pain if you then lose 3 or 4 lessons to INSETs (esp if it's a Monday and the couple of bank holidays affect it too)

====At the end of the day, if people want flexibility in the workplace, it's in their interests to be flexible themselves, and to do what needs doing to make it work. The more intractable people are,the less likely an employer is to look favourably on other employees who may want to request flexible working. It's give and take isn't it. The employer shouldn't be exploiting the employee, but neither should a part time worker expect everything on their terms. In any institution which runs full time 5 days a week, like a school, there are bound to be aspects to part time working which are tricky.====

Exactly. It's a compromise, which means giving and taking. The price for a better work-life balance is the occasional day when things don't suit.

If part-timers become militant, then it makes the employer less favourable towards part-time workers in the future.

My employer was strictly full-time until relatively recently, but started considering requests for part-time working as a marketing strategy (to make the company more attractive to new employees). The people who were granted part-time working (minimum 60%) were nearly all women returning from maternity leave. They found that they missed out on essential meetings, and found it difficult to coordinate with team members. In order to get the job done, they would often have to take phone calls at home, on their own time. It also made it very easy for office politics to conspire against them and limited opportunities for career growth. The over-riding culture was to get the job done, and put your personal life second place. It's not that full-time members of staff just work 37.5 hours a week.

Hi I also have a really unreasonable head. We do not get paid if we attend insets on our days off. Last year I did not get PPA time, until I had a meeting with head after long talks with union. It was very stressful but I kept repeating about my entitlement.

Remember it is really hard to "get rid" of a teacher unless gross professional misconduct.

The way INSET days missed works in our school is we get our job share or someone we trust to pick up notes and feed back.

Schedule a meeting with your head and take a friend or union rep with you. It is hard but once you stand up to these bullies it does end up making your life easier. In the meantime dont worry.

Small people act out all the time - it will be your friends child next timeand it will even out.

Take care.

vinblanc-
"Exactly. It's a compromise, which means giving and taking. The price for a better work-life balance is the occasional day when things don't suit."

Why does there need to be a 'price' for a work/life balance? I disagree with this statement, as it is open to interpretation; your idea of the 'occasional day' may well be different from mine. This allows heads to- in theory- require that the teacher works 'an occasional day' each week. Believe me, some would. I think it better that days are stipulated in the contract to avoid this kind of a grey area.

"If part-timers become militant, then it makes the employer less favourable towards part-time workers in the future.''

By the same token, if part-timers allow this to happen, it will set a precedent for the future erosion of their working rights and equal status with full time colleagues (something not yet fully actualised).

I appreciate that this is the way things are in your place of work; I think it should be challenged. I'm not sure if you do. Your posts make it sound as if the part-timers deserve to be treated in such a way for going part time as if their application to do this was never approved by the company, and they simply took it upon themselves to not come in for a couple of days a week.

tethersend - that wasn't my reading of vinblanc's post at all.

I don't think anyone is saying that any employee should be a doormat.

I still the key issue is that very many part timers (certainly the vast majority in my school) were actually appointed to a full time post, and subsequently requested to drop their days through flexible working. This means that in terms of the job which needs doing, training issues etc, it's still a full time job. That's a very different scenario from an employer who only needs someone to work for 3 days, and advertises and appoints for that.
In the former situation, there will always be occasions where it is desirable for both job share partners to access training fully, or attend important meetings - and it's not reasonable to expect the school to fund one of them to attend over and above the salaries they are already paying. That would mean that two part timers are costing the school more than one full timer.

I think it's really important that the complexity of the issues are clear here, because the potential danger is that the very people who want flexible working, and don't wish to work full time, will shoot themselves in the foot. If they are difficult and inflexible, it will make the employer far less likely to consider future requests for part time posts.

I still think it boils down to being extremely clear from the outset about the terms of any job. If one of the conditions of a negotiating a flexible work agreement as a teacher is that training days have to be worked, regardless of whether it's a 'day off' or not, then everyone would be clear where they stand. At the end of the day, most people who want part time will probably put up with such occasional inconveniences and extra expenses because they want to be part time. If they don't want to put up with it, they can always stay in the job they were appointed to!

Where a part time job is advertised from the outset, and there is no change to conditions, again, the key thing is ensuring that each party knows where they stand.

I am very pragmatic and tend to see things for what they mean in a practical sense.

I would like to see teachers valuing themselves as professionals (salaried), but even when this is difficult, it boils down to cutting off your nose to spite your face.

violethill- I agree with some points you make, particularly about clarity of job description, but I think the moment you apply to go part time (and it is accepted), your full-time post ceases to exist. It's not a case of 'staying in the job you were appointed to', the pt post becomes the job you are appointed to. The school is able to deny such applications, ie not appoint the teacher to the part-time post, and should do so if it foresees such problems as requiring the teacher to work without being paid. I think we may be in danger of going back and forth on this issue... perhaps we should agree to disagree.

vinblanc- teachers do value themselves as professionals, for a number of reasons (skill sets etc)- refusing to work for free does not negate this; quite the opposite, in fact, it is indicative of how much they value themselves as professionals that they do not regard their time as having no value.

I think it would be churlish to assume that teachers will not do what it takes to get the job done; I am merely saying that to require them to work for free in order to do this is unreasonable.

If the job really and truly requires 5 days work, the school should not appoint a teacher to do it on a 0.5 basis. The responsibility lies with the school.

Thankyou dmmum that is really nice of you.

tryingtobemarypoppins- apologies for the thread hijack.

Will stop now

tethersend not at all!!! You have proven why this issue is such a nightmare!

Who would be a teacher?!!!