Flexible working hours request

[Sunny56]

I am reducing my working hours at a primary school as a teaching assistant.
I am struggling to make my request more appealing by answering these two questions as I can only come up with less appealing ideas. Any help would be appreciated.

-What effect do you feel the change will have on the team/school?
-Please suggest how in your opinion the school could deal with these effects.

I suppose I will be more of an engaged employer, can be flexible with working across all year groups if needed, but how does this relate to the second question.

I think they are looking for you to highlight adverse effects and how these could be mitigated. It's an opportunity to address objections before they are raised, so you should try to foresee what they might raise to challenge your request.

I don't know anything about the TA role but the obvious one to address in any hours reduction is how your work will be covered during the hours you will no longer be there.

I would be answering something like the effect this would have on the team/ school is that there would be one less teaching assistant on Thursdays and Fridays so the teacher would not have that support. A way the school could deal with this effect would by implementing a job share arrangement and employing another TA for those days or by using agency teaching assistant staff.

Agree with @FrivolousTreeDuck this is about acknowledging the business need and potential impact on that - so they’re looking at you for suggestions as to how they might cover your additional hours or any other concerns they might have. Eg, Job share or part time to ensure continuity that could bring new ideas:ways of working to the team thus enhancing performance? Be careful how you word that though, you don’t want to pitch it as though you’re not good enough! I don’t know how it works for TAs but one of my concerns when someone in my team requests to drop hours is how I will schedule all-team meetings and training - if that’s a consideration for you then you might want to address how to would ensure that’s not an issue.

You’re basically looking to cut off any negatives with the positives, and give them solutions not problems.

Do I mention the negative then replace by a positive?

You need to state the negative and then say how this could be resolved, which could include any positives of that solution, as in the example @SirChenjins gave.

I would list any standalone positives separately - is there a section where it asks why you want the change, as that would be a good place to include positives for the school such as the greater flexibility across year groups that you mention.

Yes agree with posters above, you don’t need to find imaginary positives, you need to justify that your request won’t have a negative impact on pupils, colleagues or your performance.

so things like highlighting opportunities where you might be attending regular meetings that allow to keep abreast of changes in your absence

I basically answered it as “it would have a much more positive effect on the team if I was able to be a part of it”.

Because I wanted them to know if they didn’t grant it that I wasn’t going to be working there anymore.

Worked for me 🤷‍♀️

I would exercise extreme caution with this approach!

If it is the case that you'll be leaving if your hours can't be reduced, for me that's a verbal conversation to have with your line manager in the first instance,

I’d be careful of that too! They might think ‘yass, if she goes we won’t have to worry about the negative impact of her reducing her hours’!

Yeah...that won't work in a school! 🤦‍♀️

In a school it all comes back to impact on the pupils- so I’d focus on things like good working relationship with class teacher, excellent staff knowledge of the rewards and sanctions policy so it’s used consistently across all staff whether you’re there or not, attending regular meetings to keep abreast of changes, what is the impact on duties? If you’re requesting half days will that leave them short at lunchtime, or can you show the hours you’ve requested have considered that impact?

basically present solutions before they can present problems

I got my flexible working request approved because I highlighted the negative impacts and mitigation for these. They don't want you to sugar-coat it they want you to be honest and think about the impact

That's a discussion topic for the meeting not the application

I answered a similar question on my flexible working application.

I answered it would have a positive impact on my workplace as it would enable me to have a work life balance which would motivate me to perform better at work.

I think you’ve got to think about the impact of your reduction of hours on the wider team/school and how you would address that. Tbh, if one of my team said I’d have a better work life balance and they would perform better as a result I’d be questioning their performance to date as a full time member of staff and whether the impact of one person having that better balance meant others would have an increased workload (and a resultant reduction in their balance). I could actually end up with more problems as a result . A work life balance for one person is great but it can’t be at the expense of others - so if you were going to use that as an argument you’d have to be clear how you’d ensure no-one was adversely impacted by your improved balance.