Would you plaster on a smile for the last half term or leave?

[thetemporaryworker]

This is a complex story but I have been working 'on supply' for a year. I am paid at the daily rate and do not get paid for holidays or sickness.

The reason for this is because I moved quite suddenly last July (bereavement) and I didn't expect to get a job so signed up with a supply agency. Initially the job I was offered by the school was fixed term until Christmas but no one sent my DBS form so I had to be paid through the agency.

Then I agreed to stay on until summer on a fixed term contract but again someone forgot to send off my DBS.

Now I have another job in my 'old' role (I used to be middle management) starting in September. School I am in now is horrible.

I think I want to go.

Would you?

Sorry, this doesn't sound quite right. You should not be working in a school at all without a DBS. Someone is making excuses, and if its the school you are at now, then no you dont owe them and they can get someone else on supply. They have not shown a commitment to you and you are effectively a supply, so can leave when you like. Is the job at your old school dependent on you starting immediately, or can you hold it off for a few weeks to allow you to give some sort of notice?

However, it sounds like there is more to this, so hard to advise, really.

Dbs is through supply agency not the school.

If you can afford to leave, then leave. You owe them nothing.

There have been so many threads lately about how some schools are such horrible places to work at the moment. I find this depressing, not because I think teachers are moaning, but because I recognise it myself in my own work place.

Hopefully OP, with more people like you refusing to work in places that make them miserable, school leaders might actually sit up and start asking the right questions about the sudden high turnover of staff.

Do it for all of us !

Thanks.

It is the money largely. I have a small independent income and also will pick up bits of supply but it's the uncertainty.

Don't know where you are but here (South East) there is ample day to day supply.

North west. Thanks. I have agreed with the agency to go in next week but I think after that I'll throw the towel in. The advantage is the school is so close to my house and convenient in that respect and part of me does think to grit my teeth and put up with it for another 7 weeks but I have just been so unhappy for ages.

You have a job for September to look forward to - minimal uncertainty there! Get out of the current horrible situation and build yourself back up s you start the new job with a confident smile! Personally I wouldn't give them another week - don't stay longer! Good luck

I am also at a 'convenient' school and it's beginning to sap my health.