Work refusing to let me leave

[Summerreid]

This has happened twice now where I have needed to leave during the day and work have refused, saying there is no one available to cover (secondary school teacher.) Just wondering if anybody knows what my legal position is.

Whilst this sounds quite convenient when your child falls sick during the working day, it actually means they are in an environment where there are more likely to be sick children, so increasing the chances they will get sick themselves and require you to be off school looking after them more.

There are good reasons schools, childminders and nurseries want sick children picking up ASAP. You don't want your kid in a childcare setting that is laissez faire about having sick children there.

It’s so sad to think of a poorly child being left at nursery, not collected straight away.

Surely the parents should have to arrange for someone else to collect them if they can’t themselves?

Nurseries, schools etc all require a second and sometimes 3rd emergency contact for this reason.

I have no suggestions @Summerreid but It’s one of the reasons I left teaching. I work 9-5 flexi time for a private company and I gave up my summers just to be able to walk out of work when needed…funnily enough I have only had to do it once in the last 2yrs but my workplace are very much family and health come first and that is worth so so much. I hope you can get sorted soon

Nice try @stratforduponavon but not quite.

We are older parents: I had turned 40 when I had my first. By that time, my mother had been dead twenty two years, eight months, ten days. Dad dead six years, seven months, ten days. She had cancer, he had a heart attack. She was 51, he was 69.

I do have a brother but he works full time, two hours away.

DH has a brother who also lives two hours away (in the opposite direction) with two small children of his own.

DHs parents are alive but are not local.

We have friends but in the real world, you don’t ask your friends to leave work to go and collect your unwell child from nursery.

Teaching isn’t for women that are parents? That sounds… sexist?

It's no wonder teachers are leaving teaching in they're droves with that attitude from parents.

Teaching isn't for women that are parents with no support network. It is part of being an adult to set up your life in such a way that it functions adequately under everyday circumstances, barring the inevitable curve-balls. In a dire emergency people are, in my experience, very willing to rally round and cover. But for the everyday ups and downs of child-rearing (which sickness is a part of) you have to plan in some contingencies. Where there are two parents, between them they need to work out how they are going to cope with this sort of thing, and if there is no other family nearby then you have to work really hard on building a support network around you if you both want to continue doing jobs where you are inaccessible during the day.

So because the OPs parents are deceased and her in laws far she cannot teach. Christ alive, some of you need a reality check.

There are plenty of us in schools who have no support network or are single parents too and you know what it's fine. That's because we work in schools run by reasonable people.

Anyone who thinks this school is reasonable clearly has an axe to grind with teachers. The dad dying example was terrible. And before another one of you pipes up we aren't surgeons etc. SLT could step in and cover, or someone else free. The school should be prepared for these sorts of eventualities, and most are.

I have no idea of your sex but that sounds like the biggest, sexist, mansplaining, stinking pile of claptrap I’ve heard in a long, long time. It’s so bad it’s given me a good laugh.

OK so what is your solution then?

I wouldn’t have posted if I’d known the solution.

It sounds as if you’re annoyed that I’ve explained why it wouldn’t be practical to follow your suggestion and I hope not, as I appreciate the helpful intent and I’m sure in smaller settings and if you were on PPA when nursery called it could work. But we are a secondary of some 1700 pupils and hundreds of staff. I don’t even know who they all are!

Of course the cover manager has to decide/ask. But if my child needed emergency pick up and I was told ‘no one available’… I’d want to be able to present facts to refute. ‘Rarely cover’ would permit the cover manager to ask colleagues in this situation.

Of course this is unacceptable @Summerreid There has to be provision for staff to leave in an emergency. Whether you NEED to leave is a different question.

I think you really need to speak to your hr if this has happened more than once. I’d explain that you’re worried something really bad will happen and you won’t be able to leave. You weren’t the person denied access to their dead father but you were witness to it. This is distressing in itself as you feel you cannot trust management so it is a hr issue even though it didn’t happen to you.

On a more practical note, are you answering your mobile when nursery ring? I’d tell nursery to ring school when you’re at work. That way they have to bring you out of your lesson and down to the office. When you say “I need to leave” you’re already out of the classroom and cover is no longer really your problem.

I also agree with gathering evidence from Sims. If they’re saying there’s no cover when there is then they’re at best lazy and at worst uncaring liars.

I agree with you. What's unfair is the teacher themselves having to scrabble around for it. The CM should do it.

@MonteStory - no hr as such in schools, she'll have to make an appointment with the headteacher. It's their discretion.
As pp have said, there has to be a rota for emergency cover.

Teaching is a very inflexible job, and I've known people quit for that.
In most schools, it's unacceptable to miss any lesson at all throughout the school year. It's very heartening to hear of schools with a more humane system, and it sounds good in Scotland.
Set up a meeting with the headteacher, OP. Explain your circumstances and ask for special consideration.

Wow. What a load of absolute bollocks 🤣🤣🤣

Most of the teachers I know are married to a non teacher, and essentially have an understanding that the non teacher parent covers most emergencies in term time using annual leave, and the teacher parent covers all the school holidays.

However I do think schools are ridiculous for not allowing for a certain amount of slack in timetables to accomodate this sort of thing.

Of course there is, what an odd thing to say. I dealt with our hr, in my LA run state school, when I complained about a colleague.

As other posters have said it is not at the ‘heads discretion’ whether they allow staff to leave in an emergency. It’s in employment law.

It's not an odd thing to say.
It's my experience of 40 years teaching in state schools in England. Your experience may differ, but I won't call it "odd"

It does sound like the school are disorganised and very unsupportive.

However those posters who say that building a support network is bollocks Ali do think are in the wrong. In my kids school there are loads of teachers/doctors etc. Im a farmer and regularly help them out in the term time when im free in exchange for a day in August when im stuck on the combine. Works really well.

It is factually in accurate to say state schools do not have HR ‘as such’. They do have HR. That’s why I said it was an odd thing to say.

Obviously in the first instance issues would be dealt with through managers, perhaps this has been your experience.

Teaching isn't for women that are parents with no support network. It is part of being an adult to set up your life in such a way that it functions adequately under everyday circumstances, barring the inevitable curve-balls. In a dire emergency people are, in my experience, very willing to rally round and cover

Being an adult is having a job that pays the bills. That's all. It's not about working out a plan for 18 years that covers every scenario. Even if you do have grandparents or relatives locally, they probably have jobs as well, unless they are older. We don't have all loads of #lovelyfriends who will drop everything to collect ill kids. In fact I doubt very many of us do at all, because they are mainly working themselves, and they aren't going to put their own jobs at risk for taking time off for someone else's child.

The alternative is that we pay more taxes so schools are better funded and can afford cover supervisors for the odd time when a teacher has to leave.

if there is no other family nearby then you have to work really hard on building a support network around you if you both want to continue doing jobs where you are inaccessible during the day.

I completely agree with this for situations like asking a fellow parent to pick up because you are stuck in traffic, or taking turns to car pool to ballet/swimming/brownies etc. I've had to cultivate this sort of network myself as a working parent.

But it just doesnt apply for sick children, because only really relatives are willing to have a child too poorly to be at school, and you simply can't control whether you have many living relatives and whether they live near you.

I do think where parents both have very inaccessible jobs there does have to be a consideration of whether it might be better for one to go part time etc, as what isnt acceptable is to simply refuse to collect a sick child when school ring.

OP, I am definitely not annoyed at you, I am annoyed at your school as I think it is ridiculous you cannot leave when your DC is sick! When I was a midwife on LW I couldn't leave my shift however I was lucky to have a support network to help me out. You don't, so I think it is horrendous you couldn't leave. Believe me, I am on your side. The law is on your side. However SLT aren't, so I guess my point is you may need to find a way round this as a team. It is shit though, I really really feel for you.