Work wants me to do more hours. I don't know what to do/say.

[upjacobscreekwithoutapaddle]

I've posted this in chat too.

I'll try to keep this brief. I have 2 ds's. I work one day a week at a school in a non-teaching role. I was employed by the SENCO who has worked with me previously and knows me well, that I am reliable, good at my job etc. The school has been going through a lot of change recently, amalgamation etc and has a new Head who is not a big fan of part timers. She did however make my role permanent after learning that I am a decent member of staff.

The school have been brilliantly flexible with me, and there was always a very loose kind of agreement that when my oldest ds starts school in Sep and my youngest starts pre-school I can give more hours. My mil and sil share my kids the day I work. I am on minimum wage so not prepared to pay for childcare as I will be paying to go to work.

The Head asked me last week when I could give more hours, she was quite 'forceful' about it. I explained my situation and she replied "So you will be free an extra two mornings then?". My issue is that my littlest wont start pre school until 9.15, I am about a half hr drive from where I work and my school want me to be in by 8.20. My mil still works part time and has had a rough time recently, family difficulties etc and I do not want to ask her about helping with school runs/looking after boys anymore than she does, I don't have anyone else who can help at the moment.

Even though it feels like blackmail I almost want to say to the school that if they are prepared to carry on being flexible with me when my boys are both in full time school I will give them as many hours as I can back but I don't want to come across in the wrong way. Equally I felt that the Head was saying 'I don't want you unless you can do more than one day a week.'

So how best do I deal with this?

What does your contract say? IF it says you work 1 day a week for whatever hours it is, then you need to say that you can't work any more hours. (or state that you would be prepared to increase your hours to doing 10-2 on Mondays and Tuesdays or whatever it is). I personally wouldn't go into any great reasons why. Just say you can't do it. I don't think the school will be that interested in the fact that in more than a year's time you might be more flexible. Of course you should bear in mind that the school might then employ an extra person to cover the extra hours, which means you won't be able to increase yours when your DC at both at school...

There's no point doing the 'blackmail' thing - firstly it won't go down well and secondly they may not stick to it.

Why would you not give them as many hours as you can anyway though? Why only if they say they will be flexible in the future with you? That seems strange.

Anyway, I agree with redsky, just say what you can do and either they are happy with that or they are not, and if they need more, you risk them employing staff to cover those hours reducing your options later.

Thanks for your responses, its very tricky to explain clearly but to all intents and purposes I was employed to do a job I'd like to think I'm fairly good at by,well, a friend I guess, though our relationship is totally professional at work. There has always been a clear understanding that they would VERY much like me to commit to as many hours as possible and actually that WAS one of the reasons they gave me just one day. Normally in my role this wouldnt happen tbh.

Flowery...I didn't mean that I would only give them more hours if they were flexible. Badly worded. I meant that IF they are prepared to be accommodating to me only being able to do one day then I will up my hours as soon as I feasibly can. I would not have an issue with them hiring someone to cover the other hours but in truth I do not think they will due to the state of flux the school is in.

My contract is just for one day but they will simply write to the lea and up it when I give them the nod.