Part time and parents evenings (teacher)

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I work three days a week. Parents evenings and other school events are always on a Tuesday and this is a day I work.

Shouldnt this be worked out on the basis of directed time, in other words since I don’t work full time I shouldn’t have full time directed hours?

You need to do 0.6 of the school events. I usually do all parent evenings, but not all meetings.

I did all parents evenings on a 0.6. They're important for all parties.
Like the pp, I didn't do all meetings.

In my school parents evenings don't count, and we are expected to go to them all even if they are not on a day we work. Things like meetings/insets are different

You don’t do 0.6 of school events
you should have an individual directed time calculation which shows what you do which isn’t the same thing

Yep. I forgot to say that I did parents evenings even on days I didn't work.

I'm generally strong on employment rights etc, but professionalism overrode any temptation to put my foot down over parents evenings..

But I also had a very appreciative HT who was happy to 'reward me' with a flexible attitude to other things, such as allowing me to go to a friend's funeral, which of course my contract didn't allow.

Are you suggesting that you shouldn’t attend some parents’ evenings? Although I understand how annoying it is and that you can feel you do more than you’re paid for, if you don’t go to 40% of them, lots of your kids and their families will miss out on the feedback that’s really important.

I think generally it is just other things like meetings which might be done on a pro-rats basis.

Where I am, we attend all parents evenings regardless of day they fall on. We also attend all meetings on days we work. As no Meeting s happen after school on Friday, if you do t work Friday (which many part timers don’t) you probably lose out a bit. We also do the same amount of duties as full timers.

I take the view that you win some and lose some. Depending on when terms start and finish and the days you work, sometimes you end up effectively getting more days off and some years it’s less. There’s no working out Bank Hols in a pro-rata way for a teacher is there. Actually only first May Bank Hol tends to fall in term time. If Monday is your usual day off, you lose out, but that’s just how it is!

That is not necessarily correct.
OP, you need to do 0.6 of the FTE hours. How this is organised in terms of directed time should be decided between yourself and your employer. You cannot be made to work on any day that you’re not contracted to work.
However, if school want you to attend every parents evening, those hours have to come out of your directed time.

Those who are passively aggressively suggesting the OP is unprofessional and the children are missing out if she doesn’t work additional hours should hang their heads in shame. A very very simple solution is to ensure that parent meetings only take place on the days that the teachers involved actually work, and that it is accounted for indirected time calculations.

You realise that that's impossible when different p/t teachers work on different days?

For the record my post wasn't intended to be passive aggressive. But I wanted to be there. I found parents evenings really valuable for me, as well as the parents. And like I say, my HT gave me flexibility in other areas in return.

When I was part time I always did parents evenings as did partner teacher. I chose insets and other meetings though.

Can you and the 0.4 teacher split the parents evenings or appointment slots between you?

I have to go in on my days off for parents evening, I could kick up a fuss about it but the alternative they would give me is I do individual phone calls or emails to parents another day which would take longer than just going in!

If you only work 0.6 of the time, don't you only have 60% of the usual number of parents to meet? If that's the case, can't you do the parents evening but finish earlier than your full time colleagues? Or if you're in primary and it's effectively a job share, then your job share partner should be doing 40% of the parents evening.

But I do also think a bit of flexibility is a good thing all round with part time working. The proportion of your total working time in parents evenings really isn't big.

@ZooMount that should not be the case m in my school we never had to do parent evenings in days we don't work, unless someone wanted to. Poeople would them take that time in lieu of your not in on the day, you're not in. I know though that HT would try to guilt trip people into coming
At times when feedback is super easy to email or arrange otherwise, I'm not sure I find parent evenings that valuable, and I'm also saying that as a parent. I had better feedback from teachers at school gate then random 5 min crammed in between other parents.

Are people thinking of this in terms of primary teaching, where usually there’s a job share?

What about secondary teachers? They often don’t class share, just teach fewer classes. The parents evening is arranged for parents to see all of their kids’ teachers. It wouldn’t be possible to arrange it so it definitely on the day of part time teachers - often over 100 teachers are working at the parents’ evening and multiple evenings happen during the year. There is no way they could be organised so they were days that every part timer worked because there wouldn’t be such a day.

The reality is that teachers do lots of things in school that aren’t in ‘directed time’. I guess you could total up the hours you’d be at parents’ evenings and reduce the number of meeting attended to meet directed time exactly. Does anyone actually do that though?

I guess I find it all a bit odd. I work in an independent school. We don’t have directed time and I know it’s a totally different employment contract. Much of this kind of thing works on goodwill…clearly open to abuse I know. But teachers here will do evenings after school for fixtures (whether games teachers or not) and regular Saturday and weekend activities. There can be multiple after school evenings and stuff beyond parents evenings which involve parents. There’s a large expectation to be on residential trips in holidays. Part -timers would certainly be expected to be at parents’ evenings of all classes they teach. In Boarding schools the expectations can be 18 hours per day with some of it on-call, but ‘calls’ certainly come 24/7. And yes, the holidays are certainly longer and sometimes the pay is better (or worse).

I must say I find the directed time thing rather odd, especially as teachers spend multiple hours non-directed anyway doing their prep and marking. So when you might be working 10 hours over week outside school on marking and prep anyway, I find it surprising that people feel out out about a 2 hr parents evening that maybe happens once a year.

I totally understand that teachers need protecting and workload is terrible. My workload is terrible. But actually it’s not terrible particularly because of ‘directed time’ but the other stuff that needs to happen outside of directed time. Or is anyone suggesting they work their directed time and don’t need to do other stuff outside of this? That would be truly amazing.

You should attend 0.6 of meetings but in my school when I was 0.6, my co teacher and I both attended parents evenings no matter which day they were on. However, we were primary and so only had 2 a year so it wasn’t a problem at all.

Can you chat with your ht? I know not all HTs are great to talk to but maybe they just haven't thought about it! In my school job shares can take turns (one does the long evening and the other takes the shorter friday meetings) or they tag team over the nights- which means being in work but on the meetings you're not in you can be getting stuff ready for next week saving you time at the weekend. Ultimately the parents need to be seen so it's going to have to happen. But it's worth a conversation to find a balance so you're not doing it all by yourself if you're only 0.6.

We do ours in one night and i get talk drunk by the end! I can barely string a sensible sentence together by 9.15!!!! (And that's saying something because I could talk for Scotland)

If your school isn't an academy and follows the burgundy book then you can't be required to go in on days you don't work. You could have immovable other commitments. You can be asked to attend and be paid (or Toil).

In the past when job sharing, I used to be flexible and attend things on my non-working days, especially things like parents evening. However, a new headteacher said we shouldn't be doing it as it becomes an expectation for every part timer. I saw her point when a new pt teacher was appointed who had caring responsibilities and could not be flexible even if she wanted to.

Long story short, don't attend without being paid if it's your non-working day. It makes things difficult for others.

I think I need Parents' fortnight not Paerents' night because i chat so long!

Hope you get it sorted OP

My current school has several part time teachers. We are able to meet parents on our working days because we don’t have parents meetings all on the same day. 6 hours of directed time is allocated to each class teacher for parents meetings. It’s up to the teachers to arrange to meet parents if they are not working on the general meeting day - meetings can be held face to face or on Zoom, whichever the parents prefer. It’s been a game changer. Parent attendance at these meetings has increased, staff with young children in childcare don’t have to stay late at school if they don’t want to.
It seems that far too often part time staff get the raw end of the deal. Leaders need to be saying ‘how can we manage our school around our part time staff’ rather than ‘how can we shoehorn our part time staff into our school’. Or even worse, they won’t consider allowing staff to work part time using the excuse that it ‘doesn’t fit our business model’.

You do not need to do all the evenings. However it is one of these things where I think you need to choose your battles. First find out what is the correct answer. I think you need to do 0.6 of all the directed time but should not do any work on the days you are NOC. Then email your line manager nicely with this is the requirement and these are my plans. If you do intend to do more than your share due to goodwill or whatever say so. It is important that this is known and acknowledged. Many people do extra stuff and the head will take it for granted or in many cases have no idea that the staff member is in fact doing more than they need to. You could also offer to do all the parents evenings but suggest time in lieu. Whatever you decide, put it in writing in a friendly email. In my experience many schools take the piss and either don't know the rules or have got so used to having staff work when they shouldn't that they have no idea what is fair anymore.