Part time teacher and staff meetings

[OWS12]

Does any teachers know where I would stand with being asked to attend staff meetings after my ppa afternoon? I only get paid for 45 mins of that afternoon as I am part time and I dropped from 0. 5 to 0.45 so I could pick my children up from school on that day.
Thanks

All our staff are rotated to be in on staff meeting days.
Legally, assuming your school still signs up to Burgundy book conditions, you must attend 45% of after school meetings if o.45 contract

That’s a weird one, so I don’t know where you stand exactly. I think the percentage thing is correct, but I don’t think you can be compelled to attend meetings on a day you don’t work. So it’s a weird one for you because you have been working but you have only been paid for 45 minutes that afternoon. Meanies - jeez - I’m part time but do three times as much work as my full time oppo!
My situation is that I’m part time , three days a week. My job share works four days a week. However because I work on the staff meeting day and she doesn’t, I attend all of the staff meetings and she attends none.
I see it as just one of those things, I suppose, but that’s the shit thing about part time isn’t it? You end up
Trying to squeeze more into fewer hours for less pay.
I need to go full time so I’m not bitter anymore.

The Burgundy Book only considers part time teachers who have full days off and is entirely useless for those of us on patchier timetables.

There is nothing that says that you can’t be asked to attend an afternoon meeting on a day when you only work in the morning. There’s also nothing that says you have to do 0.45 of staff meetings, just 0.45 of directed time, so you could not attend any staff meetings and make up the directed time by attending more than 0.45 INSETs and parents’ evenings.

You need to go through the directed time allocation with your line manager at the start of the year and decide where you will and won’t be attending, otherwise schools have a tendency to take the piss.

Thank you

@noblegiraffe

The Burgundy Book only considers part time teachers who have full days off and is entirely useless for those of us on patchier timetables.

There is nothing that says that you can’t be asked to attend an afternoon meeting on a day when you only work in the morning. There’s also nothing that says you have to do 0.45 of staff meetings, just 0.45 of directed time, so you could not attend any staff meetings and make up the directed time by attending more than 0.45 INSETs and parents’ evenings.

You need to go through the directed time allocation with your line manager at the start of the year and decide where you will and won’t be attending, otherwise schools have a tendency to take the piss.

Just to stress....

That is 0.45 of the directed time of an average FT teacher which may not be the full 1295 (?) hours

That's really useful thanks.. Happy to do the insets as that's easier to cover child care wise. Hopefully the head will agree!

Also be mindful that if they try to make you stay, then that time you are stuck in school that you aren't paid for is trapped time and that has to be counted in your directed hours as well.

I had exactly this situation years ago and ended up in a massive argument with the Head - he turned out to be a nasty piece of work if you didn't just do as you were told as well.

It is a really grey area and there's not right or wrong answer, all you can do is discuss it with the Head and come to an agreement that you're both happy with.

The situation that arose with my Head, was because he insisted that I had to be available on all of those afternoons, and HE would decide, sometimes as late as on the day itself, whether I should attend or not. This was ridiculous for me, because it meant I would have to pay for childcare for all of those afternoons, even though most of the time I wouldn't actually need it.

I did arrange childcare at first, but the first few times, he told me I wasn't needed, on the morning of the meeting, so too late to cancel the childcare. This really pissed me off, so I stopped booking childcare, but then one morning, he told me I was required to attend the meeting, and obviously I couldn't attend - he went absolutely berserk and tried to put me on a disciplinary, which fortunately was immediately thrown out by HR, who thought he was being ridiculous.

In the end, the ONLY meeting he wanted me to attend over the whole year, was that one, but he'd wanted me to make myself available for every one of those afternoons 'just in case'. It was basically to cover himself because he couldn't be bothered to plan in advance what each meeting or training session was about.

It was ultimately all about control on his part - he wanted to make sure that I would jump whenever he asked me to jump.

Hopefully your Head is a bit more reasonable - my current Head is lovely and would happily sit down and discuss it like a pair of adults, and come to a mutually agreeable arrangement. My previous Head wouldn't even let me in his office to discuss it - I tried to arrange a meeting loads of times, but he just ignored emails and would not see me in his office - claimed he was busy.

He sounds like a complete nightmare.😬 I have tried to arrange a meeting with my head but she has said she is busy all week so won't be able to see me. Then it's the end of term. The deputy won't discuss it with me either as it's a head decision. Hopefully she will find a window in her busy week to fit a chat in🤞

I would ring your union to know your rights fully before the meeting.