Experiences of 0.8 teaching?

[CJones11]

I'm considering requesting to go to 0.8 from September. However, I know there is a heavy pay decrease with this. Some have said it has kept them in teaching only doing 4 days, others have said it is not worth it in the slightest.

What is your experience?

If you are Primary, I wouldn't do more than 0.6.
Otherwise you just end up doing all the work for the class, for 4/5 of the pay.

Actually, the net drop in pay isn't anywhere near as bad as you might think, due to the way tax works. You end up with considerably more than 4/5 of your net pay. Plus you will possibly go below the threshold for repaying student loans.

I am in 3rd year of primary teaching. My parent was very ill in y2 so I dropped to 0.6. My job share was lovely, but AHT and pulled here/ there/ everywhere. I did all IEPs, parents evenings, reports, displays - found it almost more stressful than NQT year.

This year am 0.8. I figured if I was going to do F/T job for P/T pay I might as well get paid a bit more. Much more manageable. In perfect world, I would 0.6 job share, but in my school with current set up, this is the best compromise I can get.

I'm a secondary school teacher. I understand the functionality of part time work can be totally different in the primary settings.
I am hoping to retain a TLR which would improve the pay if a request for 0.8 were to be accepted. I am wondering if part-time helped with work-life balance and with having children. I'll have a 5 year old and 9 month old in September!

I'm primary and have taught 0.8 for 4 years. I've done full time, 0.4& 0.6 too in the past. I like 0.8. It gives me a day to myself (well mostly housework and doing stuff for school but sometimes I go for a coffee with friends or get my hair done)
I always found job sharing a class really difficult, so much liaising. 0.8 means, control freak me is very much in charge. Just someone else does the bits that are more stand alone. We don't have to have full in depth hand overs as no crossover in the work children are doing with my partner. We obviously still talk and plan together etc but it is much easier.
This year I have a Monday off and as nice as the longer weekend is, I preferred having the Wednesday or Thursday off as it broke up the week gave some breathing space and at least I got some washing done without the basket completely overflowing.

I am wondering if part-time helped with work-life balance and with having children. I'll have a 5 year old and 9 month old in September!

100%
Well, in secondary, it will depend how your timetable is worked out.
My friend who went PT in secondary had 2 very different experiences under different managers - in one school they maintained they couldn't offer her classes so she could have her non-working time together, or even in 2 solid blocks, so she was still in school every day, with trapped hours she wasn't being paid for.

I did many years in secondary as a HoD on 0.8 whilst I had young children. I was lucky to get a full day off which definitely helped with work life balance and I enjoyed having that one day at home with the kids when they were pre-school. However, I definitely did 5 days work in 4 days. I was always shafted by the timetable with far fewer free periods than full time colleagues and still did all the meetings, parents evenings, reports etc. It did grate that I effectively took a 20% pay cut to condense my hours into 4 days but in my opinion, it was worth it to have that day at home. Good luck. If you get a school who are genuinely supportive of part time then you may have a better experience.

I worked 0.6 in primary, I did mornings and my counterpart the afternoons. It did not work for me. All the class admin fell to me. I was met with a barrage of unhappy parents most mornings. I used to stay to hand over each day and ended up having just one hour to myself before getting my own children from school. It turned that opposite number was quite lazy too, never once put up a display.
i decided that I may as well do the full time job. If anyone is thinking of a job share I would advise that they ensure that they get at least one whole day at home each week to make it worth doing part time.

That is a classic technique of a shitty Head/DH determined to make part-time working as unpleasant as possible so women don't ask for it. A good union rep will support a teacher that happens to- the school has an obligation to try to meet staff requests for which day etc.

My friend works 0.8 in a secondary school and says she spends her day off doing all her prep and marking at home but it keeps her weekends free. She kept her TLR but gave it up after a year because she could not do thejob effectively if she was not there full-time - she felt.

Worth thinking that it will also affect your pension which will be reduced .

DH is a secondary teacher on 0.8. He gets a full day each week off and is only allocated 0.8 a teaching timetable (and wouldn't have considered it if he didn't). He and I both went down to four days a week at the same time and we've found it totally transformational for us as a family. He doesn't work at all on his non-working day - he's looking after two under 5s, so he doesn't get much chance! The one bit where it feels trickier, he says, is his TLR as he has to squash that all into 0.8 (and gets paid 0.8, which seems unfair to me because he still has to do the whole job of that, unlike his reduced teaching timetable). He'd really recommend it overall.

My boss does this.
The only mess she complains about is we work a 2 week timetable, and her day off is different each week - so she still needs FT childcare.

Thank you for all the insight.

Many staff members at my school are part time and even one member of SLT.
My initial plan was to reduce to 0.8 once I reached top of the main pay scale (Wales). However, if I am able to retain a TLR the reduction in pay would be manageable.
Also, I'm not sure if this is just Wales but if you are part time and receiving a TLR but doing the job in full, that is now to be paid as a full TLR and not have your reduced contract hours affecting it.

I assumd my request would be met with one full day off per week. I'm not too concerned about it being thr same day across the two week time table. A collateral benefit would be the saving in fuel costs from travelling only 4 days a week. But if my request can only be met with mornings or afternoons off here and there I don't think I would experience the benefits I intended and the pay cut wouldn't be worth the hassle. Its a hard one for sure because once you are part time, there is no certainty that a request to go back full time would be accepted.

Maybe I should still wait a year...

Honestly you could end up with being in school all day every day anyway. (Due to timetable.) Could mean you get all school work done at school and no more. Depends on your school and subject.

I worked 0.8 for years when I was teaching. I found it worked really well for me and my family. I would go in for parents evenings on my day off if needed but I was able to claim that time either back or as pay.

I had a number of different partner teachers for my different groups which was some times a bit of a stress but, the way my department did planning meant I could just say to them we are on lesson x of the scheme of work and they would crack on.

Oh and my school were great at making sure you had one full day off a week at 0.8 any thing below that it became more bitty and you would be in for mornings/ afternoons etc.

I teach point 7 but work 5 days a week and 3 late finishes. I work for an outreach service, so at least two different schools every day, so my service can get away with this way of working. I’m doing full time hours for part time pay.