Lunchtime one hour to thirty minutes

[mrsnjw]

Can a school insist you only have half an hour lunch break when the rest of the teaching staff get an hour? I’m m6 and no tlr. It’s to cover an EYFS class so they can implement safer eating requirements.

Google Burgundy Book lunch break. You can’t be required to supervise children in your lunch break.
It should be voluntary. There’s no length of time specified for a lunch break. NEU recommend 40 minutes.
There were strikes to protect lunch times in the 80s.
Speak to your Union Rep.

The only way that could be vaguely reasonable would be if your teaching day finishes 30 minutes earlier than everyone else's. Do you have a directed time calendar? How would an extra 30 minutes a day fit into that?

It also could be vaguely reasonable if you took it in turns, so depending on size on school once a week or less. (30 mins counts as legal for a school length day)

Legal minimum lunch break is 20 minutes.

If you're employed under the same terms and conditions, no.

Speak to your union.

If that whole hour is dedicated to lunch at your school then no, you cannot be required to supervise children as lunch is not directed time.

I'm starting a new (secondary) school in Sept where teaching staff are on the rota once a fortnight for lunch duty. It rang alarm bells at the induction, so I asked the union reps about it and they said they were "choosing not to fight that battle". I know it's only once a fortnight, but lunch is protected time and I'm disappointed that the reps haven't fought harder on it...