Flexible working???

[Magtils]

I'm currently on my second round of maternity leave. After my first child I gave up all my responsibilities and went back part time to "just" teaching (which was lovely!) for 2 days a week. I'm due back in September and will now have a child starting primary school. My ideal is to increase my hours slightly so that I worked 3 days a week but finished at lunchtime, I teach at a secondary school so would only miss 1 lesson after lunch. This would enable me to pick up my youngest from the childminder and still be able to pick my eldest up from school.

Has anyone ever asked for this type of flexible working!? Can anyone see how this might affect the school in a negative, or even positive way?
I have a meeting set up with the head in a few weeks and have to fill in some paperwork before then. Other than issues with the timetable and the increase in hours (though very small!) I can see any major issues for the school.

How did they manage your timetable when you were 2 days? Was it a job share with another teacher? If so, then it would be much harder to timetable an early finish. You will also have problems attending after school meetings, which the school will probably require as directed time.

I work a 3 day timetable over 5 days so I sometimes finish at lunch, pick my DD up, then home for an hour, then to school to pick my DS up. To be honest, it's a pain in the arse, rushing back and forth, I don't get any quality time with my DD and I'm disorganised because I have to leave school straight away to pick DD up at lunch so I don't get any admin time to prepare for the next day. The days I do which are full are tiring, but I get my lunchtime to work through and set detentions (this is quite important), and some time at the end of the day to tidy my desk, go to meetings, do after school revision. I wouldn't recommend working just mornings tbh.

Ah ok, that's interesting. Thanks for replying. My two days were 2 full days. The reason I want to do half days is so that my eldest child doesn't have to do 2/3 long days at school. I thought 3 early starts would be better than 2/3 really long days with after school club, especially in her first year at school. I did assume on the odd occasion.. Eg parents evening/open evenings, I might have to go back. But I would try to arrange an alternative child care arrangement on those days and stay at work. I hadn't thought about detentions. Though we tend to do departmental ones not our own individual ones. I know I'm probably going to end up with a lot of work to bring home, whereas before I would work through lunch and for 2 hours after school to reduce this amount.
I have the added complication that my husband doesn't actually want me to go back to work. It makes his life harder as he is going to have to get two children ready and drop two children in two different places! He used to to drop off and pick up my eldest when I went back to work last time, but that's not possible now as he works much longer hours. I really enjoy my job though! Maybe 2 longer days is the way forward!?

Sorry... No it wasn't a job share. They just managed to arrange the time table to suit. We have a 2 week timetable though which made it easier.

I don't know how on earth the average secondary school would timetable that. Mine certainly couldn't. If you did a job share with another part-time member of staff you might be able to manage it on some days.

The timetable is led by the curriculum so I find that secondary schools cant be particularly accommodating to flexible working requests although you can always ask.

I tried this and got badly caught out, because once you work some hours on any particular day eg. the morning, some Heads think they then have a right to ask you to do anything else at any other point in the day eg. they will expect you to come to meetings, parents' evenings etc. The teacher's terms and conditions are very confusing and almost contradict each other, but different Heads interpret the terms and conditions in different ways. I worked for an awful, inflexible Head who just assumed that because I worked every day of the week (but only mornings on some days), then I had to come back for all meetings, parents evenings etc.(for no extra pay, and no expenses to cover going home and coming back again). If you go for mornings only, make sure you check this with the Head. My current school couldn't be more different - I only work 2 days a week, and one of them is a meeting day, but they straight away told me to not bother coming to the meetings, since I only work 2 days anyway. If you work whole days, they absolutely cannot make you to come in on your day off (even for a parents' evening) - the terms and conditions are much clearer on this one, so it's more difficult for the school to have you working loads of extra hours for nothing.

Ok thank you. I'm finding it hard to try and justify my working and balancing out what's would be easiest/best for my family. Maybe I'm clutching at straws a bit.