Anyone else have a workplace like this?

[MissMilly88]

Hi all, just curious to find out if any other schools or colleges are set out in the same way as mine. We work on a blocking system A-F which basically means if I wanted to go part time (due to have a baby in May) and have just 1 day off a week, I'd have to go down to half pay. To have more than one day off a week you have to job share. My department doesn't job share (as a rule) so therefore I have no choice but to do 5 days. Our college is rubbish for going part time in a nut shell. Anyone else have the same?

We have a blocking system but do still have part time workers. It means sharing groups but we manage this by sticking to certain parts of the syllabus for each individual teacher.

Part timers always come out of it worse though as they still have to do open evenings, parents evening, inset days etc and may have to come into School on more days than their fraction for shorter sessions eg . 5 would not be 2 and a half days but spread over 4.

My current and previous school/college both have block systems but both have part time staff with no issues.

Generally, part time staff have shared groups (depending on how many days they work) but some still have full groups as well.

It seems madness that one day a week off would mean dropping to 0.5?? Is that because you would only be able to teach certain blocks because groups aren't split?

It seems very inflexible - can you speak to the head/deputy and see if there is a way around it? I'm sure there must be?

Another part timer in a college with blocking system. I work 0.8 so 4 days. Currently over 5 days, but at my request, has previously been 4 full days. College generally supportive of PT, timetabling down to HoD so can vary across departments how accommodating they are/can be. Shared groups are fine, it takes some planning and communication.
Personal experience is that it's nothing to with the system of timetabling and all to do with whoever does the timetabling.

No, that sounds awful! I'm on 0.4 for 2 days which is a job share, but I'll be going up to 3 days in September on 0.6.

Thanks for your replies, very interesting! Many people have spoken to SMT and they claim it can't be changed. If I was to just teach D and E block it means having a Wednesday off but dropping to 0.5. It's utterly pants. I'll be looking for a new job once I've been back for a few months. It's so inflexible and quite a few part timers have left recently as they're sick of hitting a brick wall every time they bring it up. Good to know there are places out there that are better though :)

This Thursday Pregnant Then Screwed are doing a Q&A specifically for this. There's so many of us there is a full day.

Are you saying that your part time option is teaching all day Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday but only getting paid 0.5?!

Or, do you mean that you would have a 50% timetable but it covers 4 days?