Work in a school office-how much do you do above your working hours?

[Oodie8662]

I've been working in a primary school office for 5 months. Not worked in a school before. On the whole I'm enjoying it but I am gobsmacked by the amount of unpaid time all of the staff put in.
This would not happen in any other job and I wouldn't mind if 1. You were paid a decent wage but I'm on minimum wage and 2. You could claim overtime but I can't.
There is myself and my colleague in the office, plus an office manager. The office manager leaves at 2 every day. My colleague has been there over ten years and is close to retirement. She is in her words knackered so has decided to leave.
Working there for so long so knows how to do everything and is relied upon a lot by staff.
For example she organises discos and parties, does everything from the tickets, goes out and buys the food, plans the entertainment and then stays behind after school to help set up and help in the party then clean up afternoons often not leaving until 8pm. She finishes at 4pm.
She also organises everything for Xmas and knows everything what needs to happen. Stays behind for parents evening, goes and minutes meetings that are after school , goes and does banking in her own time, and buys things for school with her own money.
I think she is really taken advantage of and staff have just come to expect this from her over the years but also probably don't realise she's not getting paid for it.

Now I've wanted to work in a school for a long time, and I will help within reason, for the benefit of the kids, but I cannot and don't want to take her place once she leaves.
I have children and a sick husband at home and I finish at 3pm. I need to leave there on time to pick my kids up from school.
I don't want to be thought badly of but I need to say no to a lot of things. Am I within my rights to do this?

Don't do this. If running a disco is not in your job description don't do it. If you do this you'll just get "sure Mable left all the instructions can you not do it".

Stand firm.

Organising the Disco, like a school trip is bound to come under Admin - Or the all encompassing, any other tasks X sees fit

Exactly this!

Everyone needs to start doing their job and working their hours because things only get fixed when they break.

Sounds like your school needs to set up a PTA because disco's and anything like that are organised by the PTA. Obviously if any staff wish to help and lend some of their time then that is appreciated but the PTA take on the bulk of it. Id float that idea with the head and see if there's any parents out there willing to set up a PTA.

When I worked in a school (pastoral) I started and finished on time. The pay is so poor that I am not working for less than minimum wage and I started as I meant to go on. Just because other mugs do it, doesn't mean you have to! When people start saying no they will then have to offer overtime, toil or it doesn't get done.

@Oodie8662

1. If you are paid NMW then you must be paid for extra time. No ifs no buts. Start keeping a record of your working hours.
2. Leave at 3pm. This is what your colleague who finished at 2pm does. No guilt, no working over by 5-10 minutes.
3. Start taking notes of what your retiring colleague does. You will never know everything but making notes gives you a good place to start.
4. At the right opportunity, point out that the job description for your retiring colleagues replacement may need more hours to cover all the unpaid work she does. Possibly even suggest the PTA could take some of it on.
5. Be proactive and organise your retiring colleagues collection. Prompt her managers to organise a retiring do. I strongly suspect this kind lady normally organises collections and leaving dos and it would be awful if hers was left until the last minute.

You also need to get the parents to set up a PTA, no school staff should be running discos etc, if it is fundraising for the school it's not your job.
YANBU but it is hard to say no, please stand your ground.

Trips should be up to teachers to organise and admin to send out letters and liaise with parents regarding collecting permissions and money. That's how my school does it, which I think is fair.

Kindly, OP, you need to speak up.

”Can you come in 30 mins early to cover Hat Day?“

”Sure, if I can leave early on Friday to get to my ladies’ football match”

Or whatever.

It’s interesting to read this. I am a HT myself of a secondary school so the set up is similar but different.
From what I read, I think it’s more so the dedication and the enjoyment and the loyalty of the role and your school seem to have definitely taken advantage of that!! I certainly would not expect my office team or any member of staff to be working those long hours nor buying things for the school out of their own money.

I’m guessing the Office Manager has a set agreement to leave at 2? Do they start earlier?

School office in my school is open from 8am to 4pm. The staff usually get in at 7.30am and finish at 4:30pm. If we require them to stay longer, then the start time is staggered or they take TOIL/paid overtime.

I’d be having a conversation with the Office Manager or the SBM (who is your line manager?) and mention that you have personal commitments outside of work.

Lots of people do jobs where they do unpaid overtime and work out of hours

It's what you are prepared to accept...or not or whether you feel valued by your employer when you do it that makes the difference

Personal commitments outside of work are irrelevant. There should be a culture, set by the HT of appropriate workload and hours.

@good96 is that the office opening times or the staff set hours? As otherwise they are working 5 hours a week unpaid . It quickly adds up.

Our office manager only works 25 hours a week so much less than us. Noone ever asks her to do anything extra as her leaving times are quiet periods and she just goes
My start and leaving times are manic where there are parents coming in, late children, phone ringing off the hook etc . It's very hard to leave at that time.

From now on I shall be writing a list of all the time I have worked over and then towards the end of the half term I will give it to my manager ( the office manager) and ask her when can I take that time

The school need to pay.

I kept being told it’s for the kids….. well fine but the cost is somewhere in time, money, resources etc so it’s coming from somewhere.