Shared Parental Leave - partner is a teacher

[Orangepen13]

Hi,

SPL IS A HEADACHE

My partner is eligible for SPL (I am not, but am entitled to mat leave, enhanced pay and maternity allowance). I am going to curtail my maternity leave at 26 weeks to make space for his leave.

We’d really like to make use of it for my partner to take two blocks of leave

• 2 weeks between paternity leave and school xmas holidays
• 11 weeks at the end of the summer term

I have a few technical questions

• Will he have to go back to work for a day before xmas and summer hols to guarantee payment?
• Should he make 2 seperate requests for the 2 blocks, or can he make one request without it risking rejection?
• Is there a way he can be paid for the half term in summer term? Perhaps if he takes a block of SPL before the half term (and returns for a day?) and one block after?

Sorry, loads of question! SPL is complicated enough, let alone when you throw in school holidays!

@Smurf123 this is the confusing bit - they can refuse if you request a discontinuous block, but you can make three separate requests for continuous blocks. So if I’ve read it right, you could request the 2 weeks before half term with 8 weeks notice, and put a separate request in for the bit before xmas hols (again with at least 8 weeks notice).

But this is all me just trying to interpret it - if anyone has done this I’d be super keen to know if it helps.

@Orangepen13 it would be good for us if that's right. I honestly can't make heads nor tails of it.. I even tried asking the education authority and their answer was to say here read the government policy which is confusing as anything!
I think we will submit the form and see what happens .. when I manage to find the form! How do you give notice to end your maternity so they know dh can take some spl?

@Smurf123 I found the ACAS website really helpful, it has all the forms on there. This website also was really handy at explaining how you can use SPL to keep school holidays: www.teachersspl.co.uk/how-it-works

@Smurf123 Sadly you don't get any annual leave pay, however you can use SPL to your advantage to get paid on full for any other holidays. You have to give binding notice (usually a written email and refer to it as binding notice) for the end of your mat leave. This could be the start of the Xmas holidays if you're into the statutory pay only bit by then (to make it financially worth it). Then apply for SPL for yourself for the remainder of your "mat leave" but starting on the 1st day of term in January. If you use one block and DH uses two, it should work out OK as a total of 3.

@Hercisback thank you that's really helpful! Yes I'll be down to statutory only by December so I'll end may leave that first day of the holidays!

Get all the paperwork etc in ASAP to school and DHs school is my advice. My school HR is done by someone who hadn't heard of SPL so it took a while for them to learn about it and OK it with DH employers.

Also don't know when you're going to back but if it's Easter, or close to another holiday, then it can be worth going in for the last day of a half term to get holiday pay. Some places are funny about you naming a day in the holidays. Don't forget KIT days too.

DH is a teacher and we did SPL - he had the whole spring term on leave. He timed his leave so he was paid for the Christmas and Easter holidays, but not half term, though we had no idea that was possible. I find the judgement/moralising about him taking leave you're getting on this thread so strange. As you say, taking leave from any job means leaving work behind, he isn't breaking some special teacher code of honour

I think him taking leave at any time of the year is absolutely fine. And he should. I just think trying to get paid for the holiday is poor form as teachers don't get paid for their holidays so the annual leave comparison doesn't work.
I would also be vary wary about the politics at your school. Some are lovely and have no problems but it may make your husband very unpopular and schools can make your life much harder than they need to be.

If baby is born in November, your dh will have two weeks* paternity at birth, 2-3 weeks at xmas, another week in feb, 2-3 weeks in April, a week in May and 6 weeks in the summer - paid* 🤔🤔

I hate it when people say that men shouldn't/can't take shared parental leave because their employer won't like it. Most employers aren't thrilled about women taking maternity leave but women are expected to accept that. Shared parental leave is a legal right and attitudes will only change when men actually use it and employers get used to it.

I dont think anyone said not to take it did they? More the stopping and starting in batches in a school year.

It's completely unreasonable to put all the responsibility for end of school external examinations on to an individual. If a student's success at GCSE is reliant on one individual teacher NOT taking parental leave, then that whole school has failed.

Most teachers will show plenty of good will every single day and throughout their teaching career, going above what is contractually required. Most will be considerate of exam classes when planning things that can be flexible - like job changes, and I've known it for non-urgent medical procedures. But it's not a healthy or sustainable situation if an individual teacher is expected to not take parental leave over summer because of the impact on exam classes (anyway, in secondary it would be the spring term jan to easter which would be the most important).

I realised after 20 years in teaching that schools (or rather the management) weren't repaying the good will that I demonstrated. They showed no loyalty to me and didn't operate to make things more convenient for me. The only person who was responsible for making sure I got a fair deal was myself. I'd tell any teacher to make sure you know your own value and don't feel that exercising your contractual rights is somehow morally wrong.

No one said don't take it. They just said take it but consider the wider impact on colleagues, especially with 3 different blocks in a year.
I'm not anti SPL, I used it myself in school.

If a student's success at GCSE is reliant on one individual teacher NOT taking parental leave, then that whole school has failed.

If you teach a minority subject it wouldn't be the schools fault.

@Hercisback

If a student's success at GCSE is reliant on one individual teacher NOT taking parental leave, then that whole school has failed.

If you teach a minority subject it wouldn't be the schools fault.

So you think the school would have no responsibility in ensuring some sort of succession planning or continuity should one colleague be unable to work for any reason? In a large organisation like a secondary school, this happens all the time. It's not a surprise. There's always a proportion of staff out for extended periods through leave or illness.

The school would have some responsibility of course. But let's not pretend there are lots of willing and able staff to cover (particularly in minority subjects). This isn't the schools fault either.

Also IME schools are the worst at any sort of contingency planning!

It wouldn't even be contingency planning, though - it sounds like the OP's partner is planning to put in an application soon for leave next April. That's a lot of notice - if the school can't sort something out in that time that's really not on him.

Seems there are two main ‘moral challenges’:

• do you consider others work load when taking SPL?

For us, this isn’t a determining factor. My partner is giving loads of notice, there’ll be cover and it suits our needs as a family whilst only taking a small amount of the school year off. Plus, SPL entitles you to take three blocks as you need it. I understand why others might think differently, but neither of us feel those obligations, nor would we treat people differently for putting work or family first. Your life, you chose how to live it. It’s the employers responsibility to manage other colleagues, not ours. I would think the same for anyone else.

• is it okay to “play the system” to have as much maternity pay as possible?

This one I understand more as it can come across cheeky in a culture where we’re not supposed to ask for more than we’re given. But hey, if it’s possible and it doesn’t have a huge cost burden to the school, why not? Again, personal preference and I understand why people wouldn’t, but it’s not technically wrong.

This thread was more to explore the technicalities of using SPL, but raised some interesting points of view. Perhaps influenced by the fact my partner is male, and therefore feels like there’s more choice? Maybe also just because of the working culture of schools? Or our culture of giving our all to work?

Ultimately, I’m with @kolo, my mantra is that work won’t love you back. I work in end of life settings, so I’ve learnt this the easy way. That’s just our worldview, and I understand others who have different priorities as well.

@Hercisback

The school would have some responsibility of course. But let's not pretend there are lots of willing and able staff to cover (particularly in minority subjects). This isn't the schools fault either.

I should have added DfE/government when I mention schools/management but that was a whole other can of worms. There's a crisis in education - lack of suitable staff, lack of money, lack of resources. Shortage of teachers, shortage of support staff, ever increasing burdens on those still working in schools. It's almost impossible to succession plan or contingency plan. Like asking why someone with below subsistence income hasn't been responsible enough to save money each month.

But this idea that it's unprofessional for a teacher to take time off, for any proper reason (illness, parental leave etc) and that it is that one person's responsibility to be there for their exam groups, at personal cost, that's not right. Posters upthread have suggested that colleagues will be pissed off with him, and promotions won't be forthcoming, if this dad takes time off in summer term. That's preposterous! The success of an exam group should not require that an individual has no time off for legitimate reasons, such as parental leave.

If he has the same attitude as the OP re laughing at his colleagues extra work then yes they will be pissed off with him.

@Hercisback you do keep coming back to that and you’ve made the point a number of times that you think I’m inconsiderate, which I have heard.

It wasn’t personal to you and I wasn’t laughing at other colleagues, I just thought the image of two sleep deprived, out of depth, new parents considering marking mocks above looking after a newborn baby was funny. I thought that was a fairly benign point, as I’m sure any frazzled new parent would, but I understand if you felt it was inconsiderate.

(One could argue it is also inconsiderate to expect a new parent to be more concerned about who will mark mock exams than looking after their and their family’s physical and mental health)

No I wouldn't expect you to think about it when you're off. However I would expect a colleague to have some consideration and forethought that others would be marking those mocks and possibly offer to take some to mark. Or at least say a huge thank you to whoever does them. Not just laugh about it.

I think it would be better to take all the PL as one block, so school can get a proper cover teacher in for this time