Anyone else’s school have crazy procedures for absence?

[Treacleortreason]

We have to ring in twice: once to cover and once to line manager, text isn’t acceptable.

We have to set cover, but can’t use PowerPoint or word / pdf documents.

We have to fill in detailed forms about prior learning and objectives - just what you need when you’re ill!

I guess it’s to stop people bothering and just drag themselves in regardless.

That's ridiculous! Do you have a union? If so, I would speak to them. People shouldn't have all that faff when ill.

At ours, we ring and leave a message. Email cover if possible (or just let line manager know where classes are up to). We ask people to avoid PowerPoint as supply can't always access it.

That's it. Nothing else.

We send an email to our cover email address and cc in the office. Our cover planning is about a page long. If it just says "complete pages 14-16 in workbook" then that's perfectly fine. If we are too ill to sit down and do planning, the rest of the year team will just chuck some worksheets in the room and then that's that.
I don't really care whether what I've put down for cover gets done. I usually set Art or "go for a walk in the woods". No extra stress needed.

That sounds like they're trying to make it as difficult as possible to be ill

In my current school we have planning and cover saved on the shared drive so all you have to do is say which lesson you were up to and the cover staff will continue. Alternatively you can send something else in if you want.

We have to call school to let them know and I tend to text my line manager as well as soon as I know I won't be in as that's usually a few hours before someone will answer the phone.

We have to ring/text the school absence phone line between 7:15 and 7:30am. Then email in cover work to hod for them to sort out. No detailed forms or anything. We can't send anything that relies on videos/PowerPoints etc being shown to the class, because the cover supervisors don't have access to a computer.

What would happen if you didn't? Surely it would never hold up in an employment tribunal if you received disciplinary measures for not completing work when sick, which I'd be pointing out if it ever came to even an informal chat. I think schools get away with these things because they aren't challenged on them. I worked in the private sector before moving to teaching and am known in my school for questioning certain practices though - mainly to do with pay!

Well, I didn't set work when I had covid. I emailed my hod and told him I was too ill to set any cover, told him the topics we'd covered so far for each class and left it up to him to sort out. So if you're too ill to set cover in my school it does get sorted out, but it's often then a pain to come back not knowing exactly what they've done. Better than having to set cover while ill though.

Not sickness but our absence of leave policy is batshit.vSLT recently announced to all staff that in order to request time off you had to ring up to speak to a member of SLT to discuss the required leave, fill in a form detailing what you've just spoke about, submit it, then have a meeting with SLT to discuss the outcome which will then be emailed to you. Eight times out ten it won't be granted. And they wonder why so many people call in sick.

Ridiculous. If we're off sick, we message the HT or phone the school. If you've left the work out for that day, whoever is covering will use it. We've recently had 2 teachers off for a couple of weeks and they have not been expected to set any work. In fact I've never heard of staff being expected to set work when they''re ill. Are they expected to do it from a hospital bed?

At my school, we email before 7.00.a.m and set cover on the lesson plan page for each class. This is open to all staff, so covering staff can see it. I had to go into hospital suddenly recently and said I wouldn't be setting cover, but if they looked back at my lesson plans, they'd know what I was doing.

I'm sure it's also a test of the units of work........

Any way, no-one got in touch with me, except to ask how I was getting on.