in fact I almost posted this on the 'am i being unreasonable' thread... I'm in a real dither. Basically, a colleague of mine who is currently on maternity leave, wants to come back to work part time. (We're both secondary school Maths teachers). That's fine; she's been through the proper channels and requested it with senior management, but the problem comes down to this. She wants to work 3 full days a week, and if she does, it will have a direct negative knock-on for my role. We'd end up having a lot of shared classes - obviously every class has maths throughout the week, so being in 3 days she'd pick up some of the lessons and I'd get the others. There are all sorts of reasons why this isn't good practice: eg lack of continuity for the pupils (biggest issue in my mind) greater workload in terms of marking, preparation, parents evenings, because although I'd be teaching the same number of lessons overall (I'm full time) it would encompass many more different pupils. From an off-the-record chat I had with the Head Teacher, I feel that whether my colleague is granted flexible working wil depend largely on whether i agree to the impact on my role. Which puts me in an awful position! On a personal level, I can see why it'd be much better for my colleague to do 3 full days (childcare issues etc) but on a professional level I don't think the pupils will get the best deal. My own kids have been taught like this with a subject split between 2 teachers and tbh it threw up all kinds of problems. oh gawd...advice please. Part of me wants to champion the rights of working parents, but then I'm a working parent and i have rights too!!