What are you allowed to take time off for?

[DorothyL]

What will your SLT allow you to have cover for - funeral, wedding, hospital/doctor's appointment, nativity play?

Funeral - yes, but unpaid unless close / immediate family member.
Wedding - yes, unpaid.
Hospital / doctor / midwife - yes, no questions asked.
Nativity etc - not officially, but unofficially we cover each other within the team for family things like this.
Discretionary leave if your child is unwell, but as far as I can tell this is decided for individual cases depending on the overall absence picture for that colleague.

Hospital, funeral, parent/child medical yes.
Nativity etc. If we can arrange our own cover with a colleague
Child Ill - unpaid after 2 hours (as allegedly we can all sort childcare out in that time)
Dentists - no, unless emergency
Training courses not authorised
Wedding - no
Special occasions - no

Officially when DC are ill unpaid, but until this year we have always been paid for 1st day, then expected to sort care. Given we now have a large deficit I think we will be reverting to policy.

Hospital appointments for self/DC are covered, nativity, sports day etc if we can find our own cover then yes all else no. Not sure about funerals as I've only had funerals during summer holidays.

DS2 took part in a research project last year that needed me to take 2 days and HT supported, covered and paid me so I can't moan too much about him!

I had a day off unpaid for a wedding Deputy head had a week off to go to Florida. Paid. Clearly a fair system

Medical/funerals etc. all fine
Dentist yes in an emergency
Don't know about the child related stuff as I don't have kids but I know other members of staff do manage.

I've worked under different heads. Some have stuck to the letter of the burgundy book - it's never gone down well. I think particularly with funerals - if you feel you need to go to a funeral, then you need to go, you can't 'measure' how close someone is by a set of rules.
The better ones have used a bit of discretion, and the best staff teams have helped one another out with a bit of internal cover for the odd thing like a Nativity Play.

I've just been given time to go to ds's nativity. It's apparently a 'one off significant event' But I'm very glad that I can go.
Other than that: funerals are fine for close family, take unpaid otherwise.
Weddings unpaid, I think.

Nobody goes to a funeral for a good time, and they can't be planned in any holiday time. I think all funerals should be paid.

Funerals only paid if "close member" my uncle not considered close.
Midwife apps no probs
Child medical unpaid
Child illness unpaid - from the second I left my desk to ask to go
Special occasions - not even conceivable
Internal cover certainly not allowed - it happens but it's effectively lying to the boss, signing colleagues in and out etc not good.

Funerals fine for close family but its anyone's guess who counts, my dp's step mum counts, but my colleagues great aunt didn't count for her
Illness for me fine
Dc illness fine for the first day after that it's unpaid as we're expected to arrange childcare.
Hospital fine for myself or dcs but I've never needed to use it thankfully.
Weddings unpaid and only for immediate family.

Oh, and one nativity/school event per year if you can arrange your own cover.

I teach overseas. We get 8 days a year as paid leave to use however we want. I will have used all of mine this year by December. Three days in hospital, one when my daughter was ill and I have the last five days as leave to attend a wedding in England and then we will stay for Christmas. So one of those is unpaid and if I am off later in the year that will be unpaid.

My DD is at the same school, if I am free for her events I just go but if I am teaching then I just ask someone to cover me. There is no problem.

We can bank 3 days - this covers the extras done - after school sports, outwrd bound trips, meetings, etc. Days are not holiday but used for kids ill or appointments.

We're not. Our slt does not even let us self certificate if we're ill. No drs note then we need to be in work. Legally midwife stuff is allowed but they make it abundantly clear they're not happy about it.

momtothree what about staff who don't have kids? What do they do with their banked days?

It could be a funeral, sick parent, hospital appointmemts, etc. Its not restricted, but its not a free day pass.
So I have 21 hours that is deducted (hour used last week for DS dental appt)

One of the reasons I left my last school was that I wasn't allowed time (paid or not) for my uncle's funeral, and I was in,y allowed to take my daughter (15, hospital an hour and a half away, no direct public transport) to hospital for an operation because it involved general anaesthetic. If it had been local (dentistry op) I wouldn't have been allowed.
Current (independent) school is much more flexible, recognising he sacrifices we all make when things are going well for us.

Funeral - yes, for a grandparent (not had any others fortunately)
Wedding - my last school gave one day unpaid
Hospital appts. - yes, paid
Not sure about children's illnesses but I was allocated compassionate leave for three days when my dad had an op.
Nativities/sports days - seem to be generous in allowing staff to go, although how could they not when the HT goes (well, she's nice enough that she does let others go!)

My school are actually great and would try to accommodate anything you asked for, within reason!

Will generally accommodate all reasonable requests. As it should be.

I had to miss DD's first Christmas concert recently. I'm not staying in teaching.

I only ever went to my own children's school concerts if they were in the evening - which meant I never attended a Christmas concert/nativity whilst they were in KS1. Fortunately we had grandparents who could attend and a couple of times my (X)h took a half day's holiday in order to go.

I considered it the price you had to pay for being in the profession and cheered myself up by reminding myself that I only had to arrange child care for INSET days after they started school.