Can I be forced to complete 6 hours of training outside of school hours?

[Alpaca20]

I’m a reception teacher and have been told that I must participate in 6 hours of training over 3 days. With 2 days being this month and 1 in January. This training is with 3 other members of staff and is all virtual training. The problem is that the training is 4-6 on each of the days totalling 6 hours that I will not be paid for additionally.
I have thought about getting in touch with my union but I wondered if anybody was aware of where I stand with this. Can I be forced to do this?
Fortunately I do not have children but the other members of staff do. However I still have other ways I would like to spend my time after I have finished work. One member of staff is willing to do it but myself and the others are not and have made this clear but have been told by senior leadership that we must take part.
Any advice is very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Is that twilight to replace an INSET day? If so, I think you're stuck with it I'm afraid.

Thank you for your reply. It is not in place of an inset day. It is just additional training that only a number of us need to do. The rest of the school are not doing anything like this

It depends if it's built into your 1265 hours. It could be that it's directed time and if you're given enough notice, you're expected to do it. Will it be useful to you?

Could it be instead of a staff meeting in the week you’re doing it?

It doesn’t seem it is built into my hours and is rather something completely additional that has been sprung on us 7 days before the first session. It could be of some use but feel it would be much more reasonable for it to take place within school hours rather than having to give up 6 hours unpaid as the rest of the school are not required to do so

No unfortunately it will not be in place of a staff meeting. We will still be required to participate in a staff meeting on another day as well as the 2 hour training

Have you spoken to your head or relevant person about it? It would reasonable to ask if there were several staff meetings over the year that you could miss.
However, are you very new to teaching? This is not really a very unusual expectation.

As the pp says, it is not unusual to undertake twilight training and is something that most teachers do at some point. Certainly in my case I’ve never seen commitments beyond 4:00pm as ‘unpaid work’ or requiring additional pay.

I've been teaching for years and would have also baulked at this kind of thing early on in my career.

I've learned (the hard way), that it really is just part of the job and you need to get on and do it. If it was totally unreasonable eg. giving up a whole weekend, or half your holidays then fair enough, but in my experience of the teaching profession, this is a reasonable request.

And comparing yourself to other teachers is silly - they might need to do other training or something else extra at another time of year.
eg. at my school, Y7 tutors have to do an extra meeting and an extra parents' evening, so overall in that year they do at least 4-5 hours extra, but Y7 tutors rotate, so in later years they won't have to do it, and other people (like me!) will.

For me, this would be unreasonable, partly because it doesn't seem to be factored into your 1265 hours of directed time, and partly because its in addition to that week's staff meeting.

At a time when Primary teachers' working hours are ridiculously high, complicated by COVID regulations (especially EYFS staff who have a huge amount of additional work time daily at the moment cleaning, rotating and organising equipment and resources) and schools are supposed to be bending over backwards to support work/life balance and well-being, this seems like a big ask. I would, at the very least, expect no meetings in addition to this training, and for staff with childcare issues because of a 6pm finish on days that have not formally been laid out in September, to be allowed flexibility and fairness.

I find this thread really interesting because, as a teacher, it would never have occurred to me to take issue with twilight CPD. It’s just something you do, and it was much more common early in my career. Now, as a headteacher, governors meetings can go on until 9 or 10pm and again, I just see it as part of the job.

Am not criticising you OP. You are of course entitled to your thoughts and opinions and you are right to place an emphasis on your work life balance. Hopefully you can agree a compromise that works for you and the school.

I don’t see this as an issue either, just part of the job. I’ve undertaken training on a Saturday before - a bit of a pain but that’s when it was. Also, 6pm isn’t a very late finish to a work day.

This is additional time though, not twilight and not anything like attending a governor’s meeting on a ht salary. If everyone is just going along with schools exceeding directed hours then no wonder it is becoming more common.

At the least I would not be attending any meetings on those weeks effected. You have already more than used the time allocated for after school meetings by attending training.

I am attending an exam board online training session on my day off this week but it was acknowledged that it was my choice but ‘it would be useful for your evidence for moving to ups’ next year was the leverage.