Is this because I have been on mat leave or am I overthinking?

[Lenny1987]

I am an indie senior school teacher, and have been on maternity leave this year. I have just got my timetable for next year, and vast changes have been made to what I teach in comparison with previous years. I teach a non core but popular subject to a level, but have also always coached sports two afternoons a week. In addition have always taken up to 4 training sessions a week during lunch and after school, and done Saturday fixtures every week for first years then when needed for the last couple. This has now all been taken off me, without a conversation with me or my HoD, and the sport department were told I couldnt do it due to a member of staff in my department going part time. Initially I was a bit annoyed but accepted thinking that someone has to pick up the slack. However, 2 other colleagues ( both Male, both of whom contribute less to the sporting extra curricular department than I do), one of whom is the one going part time, still have their sports afternoons.
I have always enjoyed them, and want to keep for a variety of reasons, including relationships with pupils and parents. Am I being paranoid thinking that mine have been taken away due to me being on maternity leave and thus bottom of the pile, rather than the department taking the share and splitting it equally? I can't decide!

Has someone helpfully decided you won’t want to do Saturdays anymore or are they part of your contract anyway?

Sorry I'm being thick! So are you teaching more and coaching less? Is that what is being suggested by the new timetable?

What have they been replaced with?

Replaced with more classroom teaching, every different year group and 3 different a level sections of the course so no repeats. My HOD initially thought they were being helpful until I told her that I was contacted last week (whilst still on maternity) to ask if I would umpire matches next weekend (whilst still on leave) unpaid because I 'might like it'. I think they will still expect me to do it all but with extra teaching and no sport afternoons timetabled. Our contracts dont specifically say Saturdays but say basically everything needed to do the job.

Maybe they needed you to do more teaching, especially A-level?

Taking teachers off teaching their actual subject to supervise cricket (or whatever) seems pretty lavish from a state school perspective.

@noblegiraffe
Completely agree and understand that need, and if it had been spread evenly across the department I would have understood. But when the two Male members of the department have kept their sports, it seems odd that I dont. Especially without a conversation.

Losing sport and having more teaching time means an increase in planning, marking, reports and parents’ evening time. Fight this.

@HowardJohnson
Any suggestions on how? Do I suggest it is maternity discrimination? Is it worth discussing with my union rep? I am normally such a yes person, I don't really know how to challenge it.

Are you a PE teacher? If so it seems discriminatory in terms of fairness across the department. Are you the only one able to teach the theory aspects to exam classes? If you are a non specialist who enjoys teaching PE is it just that your department needs you to pick up those lessons and the PE has gone to other non specialists who have slack on their timetable?

It’s probably not PE. In public schools all the teachers coach some sport.

I would write to your HR manager and set out what you are cross about and how they could fix it. If they don’t come back with a satisfactory answer, then escalate to your union. It does sound like your maternity leave has caused an out of sight out of mind situation, which is unfair.

So you've picked up or been assigned the teaching load from the person going part-time? Or if not his exact teaching load, the equivalent - are you returning full-time?

Who was it that told the Sport Department that you could no longer do the afternoons, was it the Sport Department that did the timetable on that basis?

1. Is it a mixed school? It occurs to me that maybe the games dept is over staffed for women teaching the girls but understaffed for men teaching the boys? This could explain why your male colleagues are keeping their Games and you are losing yours.
2. This does sound worth arguing. Those games sessions are such an important part of independent school. They are very lucky that you WANT to be involved and should be making the best of that. Plus, the increased marking and reports involved in more academic classes could be real drain if you are in a school which demands reams of prose at report time.

@ChicCroissant
Yes I have essentially picked up their extra teaching but they have kept their sports afternoon. And yes I am returning full time. It was slt ( academic deputy) that decides on allocations and tells the departments who they can and can't have.

@likeafishneedsabike
Mixed school but I do one boys and one girls afternoon ( coach rugby and girls sports). Additionally the boys department is the one that is always significantly overstaffed(something which the girls have been fighting unsuccessfully for a while), but they have kept the 3 afternoons from my two Male colleagues. And that's what I think too, there are many colleagues who have lost sport because of an unwillingness to do training sessions ag lunch/ after school and weekends, I have never been one of them.

Feel very much like I have been put to the bottom of the pile and ignored because I am not presently in work.

Has there ever been an issue with the teaching standards (classroom topic, not the sports side) of either of your male colleagues by any chance?

In the circumstances that you describe, it does seem to have been a deliberate decision to put you into the classroom more than your colleagues. Even if the timetable was changed for the year of your leave, your colleague going part-time would have meant a change anyway so they can't even say they are keeping the same structure that they had during your leave. There may be something else going on which has caused the change, even something that has happened while you were away.

But with my former HR worker head on, I am wondering if one of your colleagues has been slightly below par and has been gently pushed out of the topic teaching side due to a dip in exam results or similar. Not that it helps you whatever the reason though!