How much goodwill ?

[Ronaldo]

I am supposeing that since this is the staffroom and therefore inhabited by teachers mainly?

So, I am just wondering how much you are happy to do as extras ( unpaid and because you are nice folk) before you start saying enough is enough?

Do you draw the line at additional duties? Bus duties , coming in onm a day off ( part timers), school changing school day and requiring more hours for the same pay, school demanding easter revision classes for students on own time? Attending PM and management meetings in ones own time. How about things like trapped time? How much is reasonable - and where is unreasonable?

Also , how doyou expect to be communicated with? e mail. notes,letter, verbally? Not at all? Told or negotiated with? Do you expect a " Hi Guys" management speak tone from someone you do not know ( colleague ) or good English? Where do you draw the line on palley tone (when you are strangers in all but name) with SMT?

Thanks

You should have said something about the timetable last summer, not half-way through the academic year. Were you not asked to sign your allocation and make timetable requests?

I am a timetables, and I would have worked hard to avoid trapped time. For 14 teaching lessons, I would give you four PPA and one HOD lesson (so you would be paid for 19 lessons). I would put these on your timetable as "available", and all other non-teaching lesson as unavailable. In these unavailable times, I would not put you on cover or expect you to be in school and attend meetings. You would have 1 duty, and would have to do prep once a term.

If all your three days of working have you teaching 1st and last lessons, then you should have put your foot down. It is bad time tabling. It might be unavoidable because of the other members of staff in the same option blocks. If so, they should really be trying to find a way to fill in some of your trapped time, eg by teaching a couple of lessons in the lower school.

It is very difficult for the school to understand how you are feeling and then begin to resolve it if you are making it difficult to meet with your line manager. You might want to just think about using the hour of trapped time as this is less inconvenient to you than staying very late after school.

I think the reality of teaching an A-level only subject is that your teaching timetable is very part time, eg 8 hours a week. There's not a lot a school can do about this unless you are to teach a second subject or take on management responsibility - or really promote your subject so that you can have two classes.

Have you had a look at the school timetable to see if your students have study periods in the middle of the day, and then switch the lessons yourself? Sometimes it is very easy to break option blocks like this, especially if you have a small number of students.

As for targets, I suggest you write your own. The targets have to be relevant to and achievable by you, so there is no point in your having anything that is only applicable in the lower school.

It is a little bit worrying that you have a large number of managers newly arrived from the state sector, but they will have a lot to offer your school. However, they need to be trained too by you - it works both ways. Keep reminding them that it is all about the individual student.

4 PPA for 14 lessons?! Blimey.

You should have said something about the timetable last summer, not half-way through the academic year. Were you not asked to sign your allocation and make timetable requests?

I have done nothing but complain since I saw the timetable. I did not receieve it last summer but the day before I began teaching it. Timetables were not finalised until then. Eevn then I was told there would be changes. The changes made things worse and resulted in a number of clashes which were not of my making and could not be resoloved.

We are never asked to make reqwuests vis timetables. I went to the school on the agreement of a timetable that would fit into two days. That was then widenened into two and a half days and now it is three full days. However, the timetabler constantly says that he cannot timetable the classes ,given all the constraints he has on three days. The problem he claims is part timer workers who have much bigger timetables than I do but who have negotiated ( post maternity leave) to go to part time from full time and they require times to fit with their child care. I have no such priority and so am sidelined.

It is fine for you to say the above but despite what I request, four out of five years this is what I have been given.

And what on earth do you mean " sign for"?? Eh? Never heard of that. :)

If the school want rid of me they are going about it in a funny way because no one would take on my timetable. In fact similar timetables are most probably the cause of certain failed appointments and colleagues leaving.

You could say the timetabler needs shooting - you could be right. Symptomatic of the problems in the school management.

As you are thinking about retiring, why not get militant with the new SMT line-manager? Or do what a friend also nearing retirement does with her wet-behind the ears, form-ticking asst head line manager, "Now I know you're working on your people-skills, and I don't want to patronise but have you thought about..." and ..."I've told the head how well your people- skills are coming along, especially after that kerfuffle about...." She says he gives her a wide berth

Thanks , I like that. May well do it.

I was thinking of e mailing him with " Hi Guy, as a part time employee contracted to focus on classtime, I am afraid my time is at a premuim and is directed toward pupil teaching and learning, thus I have no available teach time to touch base with you in face time and I suggest you mail me your PM targets" - or similar. I am afraid my management speak is not up to par though..

I dunno Ronaldo. I would say you have a worrying facility for it...

I am a timetables, and I would have worked hard to avoid trapped time. For 14 teaching lessons, I would give you four PPA and one HOD lesson (so you would be paid for 19 lessons).

If you did that there would be very little trapped timeon my timetable over the three days. However, you would have to pay for it. This matter was mentioned a couple of years back by the union. They pointed out that significant trapped time should be paid as it prevents the teacher ( any teacher not just me as therewere several with this problem) taking a second an alternative employment which they should be entitled to do. The school do not want to pay for this time ( I mentioned this back aways - the Bursar drew the line). In fact such a move would increase my salary by virtually half as much again. I would have had no objection to that. The school did not want to fund it.

It is very difficult for the school to understand how you are feeling and then begin to resolve it if you are making it difficult to meet with your line manager

I have only become uncommunicative sine my line manager was also timetabler refused to take my objections on board and actually got shirty at my mentioning that I had the smallest timetable , which was most specific and it should have been timetabled as a priority not an afterthought. I considered it most reasonable that he had threedays to timetable contacttime that should have been managed in two days ( I worked in a state school which did this quite easitly before going to this school). One member of staff who had been given a two day contract actually left the school in the lurch last year when she was timetabled three days - she claimed they broke her contract.

I have tried to be more ameniable. However, I draw the line at being asked to do things in that time I am not being paid for and which effectively move me from an 0.35 to an 0.6 ( unpaid).

He has now transferred me to a new line manager. The new line manager has nothing to do with timetables and moving me is a part of a redistribution of staff across SMT ( I am not the only one moved ).

I think the reality of teaching an A-level only subject is that your teaching timetable is very part time, eg 8 hours a week. There's not a lot a school can do about this unless you are to teach a second subject or take on management responsibility - or really promote your subject so that you can have two classes.

In my time at the school I have more than doubled the numberstaking the subject. In fact the class is one of the largest. I have two thirds of all the sixth form in my classes. In any other school ( or any other time) the clases would have been split and teaching time doubled, but as I said, the school do not want to pay for this.

Part of the trapped time is a result of the school changing its timetable and putting prep and activities into the middle of the day ( it used to be from 4:00 - 5:00 and in most schools that is the way its done. This means two and a half hours a day are of necessity trapped by that timetable move.

Have you had a look at the school timetable to see if your students have study periods in the middle of the day, and then switch the lessons yourself? Sometimes it is very easy to break option blocks like this, especially if you have a small number of students
Yeah, so did every other teacher as the scambled to get early finishes. That causesdmy timetable to have clashes on it - and those have not been removed. I had agreed the times on the balance that it did not create clashes....... then it did.

The biggest cheek then became that the timetabler and a couple of other teachers actually expected me to agree to take on an extra hour and a half doing tutoring for those in clashed classes and again this was to be unpaid.
They saw the gaps in my timetable and thought I could just do it- no thought for how my contract worked. But if they were asked to do more time they would say no.

I dunno Ronaldo. I would say you have a worrying facility for it...

You think so? Thanks for that.

I had a bit of practice at it in my lastschool when I got a wet behind the ears clever cloggs. He used to speak to me in his broken record style and I took to sending him memo's reminding him I was doing the school a favour in taking over a troublesome year 11 class as a result of an SMT cock up! The cock up was before his time and he lost sight of the history to it.

Also, many years ago I did a a M Sc in educational management BS. I was a manager back then

I ask in all genuineness ( ref post before last) would *you( have been willing to work 28 periods to split the classes and teach to miss classes but only be paid for your original 14 contracted ones?

Is that done in state school? ( It would never have been suggested previously in my school). Where are these state school managers actually coming from in expecting ( even almost demanding) that?

I refused but its been tense ever since.

TFM,

We give a PPA for every 4 lesson. 14 lessons would be 3.5, but we round up. :)

We don't really allow PPA to be taken at home as it means you are never available for cover (we cover all our lessons in-house).

Re your 11.23 post - how come other part time workers were able to make requests and you weren't?

If you said 2 or 2.5 days, you should have gone to the Head when it turned into 3. If there was absolutely no way to change the timetable, the you should be paid 0.6 and then be first on cover for the extra hours.

I am 0.6 at a state school and teach all 5 days. Most of my trapped time is single lessons which enables me to get my planning and marking done at school rather than taking it home, which is fine by me. I have a couple of days a fortnight this year where I teach P1 and 2 then not again till P6 giving over 4 hours trapped time. I have to pay childcare for the full day which isn't great. Sometimes in that 4 hours I will stay at school the whole time and do a shed load of planning, sometimes I'll high tail it out the door and go shopping or whatever. The school occasionally asks me to cover a lesson in that time but I'm paid supply and can turn it down. Sometimes if I'm trying to arrange a meeting I might suggest a lesson of tra

Sorry... A lesson of unpaid trapped time for the meeting but that's my choice and usually it's a meeting that's useful to me.
As I'm in every day, technically I could do meetings and insets every day, but I only do 3 out of 5 insets (0.6) and I don't attend after school meetings where I have an afternoon off. I do attend parents evenings and open evenings where I have an afternoon off.

Re your 11.23 post - how come other part time workers were able to make requests and you weren't?

The only reason I can ascertain, and its the only one I have been given directly by the esteemed timetabler is that those who got their timetable requests were all mums and needed to accommodate child care needs.

I do not and so my timetable had to be moved for their ( greater?) needs.

I am not the only one. As I said. Oneteacher walked out when her two days weremoved into three.

I complained.

Three others ( similar position, slightly more periods - 15/16 - ended up in the same position pretty well as I have - with lessons start and end of day and a lot of trapped time.

If you said 2 or 2.5 days, you should have gone to the Head when it turned into 3. If there was absolutely no way to change the timetable, the you should be paid 0.6 and then be first on cover for the extra hours

I did Thats why the HT tells him to back off every time he tries to use my trapped time for meetings or asks me to do things for free ( and in goodwill). I am on the list for doing paid supply ( DH and HT do the cover lists) . I did not ask this. The HT felt it would compensate with additional pay for the time he could not justify paying me for otherwise.

The school does do all its supply and cover in house. However, there are a number of full time teachers with light timetables who do cover/supply by first choice because it is unpaid.

One thing I suggested when I was told asked to split classes and teach additional time for free to miss clashes was that a subject teacher who was specialist in the area with a light timetable but not teaching the A level might do extra classes to avoid the clashes.

I have large classes. Those lessons wherestudents have clashes usually have around three or four pupils in them ( I have 22 in L6 and 20 in U6 - and I am not allowed to split)

A bit of a muggers buddle really.

The /.5 timetable waswhat I was originally contracted on before the school day changed in September. It worked quite well. Now it seems no one can be timetabled in less than three full days. I still think we need to shoot the timetabler!

2/2.5 days

22 hours is ridiculous for an A-level lesson. This should be split into two classes.

Are all students full fee payers?

From the students' point of view, it is better for all their lessons in a given subject to be over three days rather than over two.

Would you prefer to have the trapped time unpaid and be free to do what you like, or for the trapped time to be filled with paid activities (essentially for your contract to increase)? If they can't fix the trapped time, then those are really the two only acceptable options.
If you don't want the trapped time at all, then I think you will have to quit. My school says that timetables will be arranged to suit the school and students rather than part time teachers. Obviously it's shit that other part timers have a better deal with their timetables than you, but if they teach more than just sixth form, then that would be a lot easier to timetable.

I agree Noble. The timetable has to suit the students first. It should not be built around part-time staff, although frequently is.

We would not allow a situation to happen where an A Level class have all theri weekly lessons compacted into two days. As Knowabitabouteducation says it is not fair on the students and while the school has to take into consideration your requrst for part time working they have to put the students first.

If the school want rid of me they are going about it in a funny way because no one would take on my timetable. In fact similar timetables are most probably the cause of certain failed appointments and colleagues leaving.

I do think your school is trying to move you on and that whoever replaces you ( if you move on) will not have the same timetable. As you say the others who have left have all had similar timetables and left - maybe they are having a clear out of staff intentionally and waiting for you to jump. I have seen this happen again and again.

I teach 7 periods ( around 4 and a bit hours) for AS and 7 lessons A2. Normally the class would have been split into two - around 10 in each but I guess someone thinks we need to tighten the belt.

I would have had no objection to taking two groups ( and working 5 days for that if need be. That would have been a near full timetable anyway.

But that isnt what has happened. I was not asked to do that. Last year it was mooted to me that numbers for my course were large and would it be possible if the class needed splitting - and I had said yes. But that didnt happen. I had 10 in U6 and 20 in L6 ( yes 100% take up at A2 from AS and A8 -C in grades with half on A*A as well - and no, its not a mickey mouse subject).

Yes, I think they are all full fee payers. I dont have the scholarship kids in the class. They dont usually go for this course. Although I have two overseas pupils on government funding and one lad who I think may have a 10% reduction, minor academic. My class sizes are used to subsidise those subjects where we run with just one or two students. The rest are middle rankers academically.