Short staffed

[Foodieforever]

We are extremely short staffed and I’m currently covering a member of staffs classes who left in January as they still haven’t found a replacement! Not only have I lost planning time, but I’m covering classes that aren’t mine, and that I really haven’t invested as much into because again, they’re not my students and the teacher left everything in a mess. It was very sudden and it’s been going in for a while and I’m now lagging behind severely on my work.

My lead has effectively said we need to do this potentially until the end of the year as it doesn’t look like a replacement is happening. Which is not great.

Now, I’ve been planning to leave, as this isn’t sustainable and I can’t do any of my own work as I’m losing so much time. However, my team lead is now approaching me with an unconfirmed proposal about a tlr role which may or may not be there. He is now telling me that it is unlikely that it going to happen as the deputy head has already said the powers that be would probably not authorise another senior member in the team. He (my team lead) then says, we’ll talk about that later and see what we can do.

Almost trying to dangle a carrot to make me stay but it’s becoming far more difficult with the increased work load.

Should I hang on until there’s some confirmation of a tlr or just do what’s best and keep searching for a suitable post?

Just checked. I was on 22 before. Now on 27, so I know it’s not in the realms of crazy. But I’m battling so much behaviour that my lessons aren’t as good, I have no time to do my own work, and I’m not enjoying it because surely cover would be more helpful!

22/30?
Does that mean you were under allocation before?

I was , however I do Monday-Thursday after school revision sessions for an hour and have done since September.

If you're under allocation you can be asked to do cover. Are the after school sessions directed?

Yes the after school comes under directed time.

You really need to speak to your rep.
3 sessions a week after school is a lot of directed time
If you're under your allocation they can use you for cover

Are you sure about that? I'd be surprised they can squeeze that in along with duties, meetings, parents evenings etc.

Go off sick with stress?

Are these timetabled twilight teaching sessions? Otherwise I can't see how it could be fit into directed time unless you do no meetings, parents evening etc.

Do you have a directed time budget/calendar?

If you do 3 twilight sessions as teaching, then you're surely at 25/30, not 22- because you're being given the time back in the day when you would be teaching but you're teaching after school instead. In a previous school that used this system, this was timetabled with a blanking code, as it wasn't part of directed time and you could actually go off-site for it if you wished.

If you're now at 27/30 + 3 timetabled after school sessions, you're actually at 30/30, which is, of course, unacceptable.

In which case, you and your union rep basically need to be sitting in the head's office until the situation is resolved.

If this isn't the situation, and the after school slots aren't actually treated as lessons, then you're almost definitely over your directed time, and that needs raising. And also it means you could easily just say no to these sessions.

I think the first step is to discuss with your line manager how the after school sessions are actually treated, and go from there. If your line manager doesn't know/is unclear, keep going up the chain until you get a clear answer.