Flexible working being denied?

[TheHazelViewer]

Keeping this vague!

Made a FWR to share my job 50/50. It’s a job in a school that can easily be shared and the person currently covering my maternity leave would be interested in applying.

Two days a week I physically have no childcare.. I live in a small village, nursery places are scarce and despite reserving a year in advance, 2 days are full.

my manager and friend has given me the heads up that they’re going to suggest coming back full time or working 4 days a week (essentially saving them money as it’s a job where I’d have to do 5 days work in 4). They know I’d have no choice but to leave. Other people in different departments work part time, some as little as 2 days.

My meeting is next week. Any advice for if they sound like they’re rejecting? ☹️

You need to make a case that it's good for the school. What's the role-I presume it's not teacher or TA? Is it SENCo or office staff?

What's the role?

This isn’t the case anymore. The onus is now on the employer to show why it won’t work/provide suitable alternatives, rather than the employee to show how it will work.

Right, but if I wanted to make this work, I would be selling the idea to my head, even if the onus wasn't legally on me to do so, eg

I would like to return to my role as SENCo, but work Monday-Wednesday as this will still enable me to attend SLT on a Monday and attend the half/termly SENCo LA clusters on a Tuesday. My Mat Cover is also a qualified senco and she is also keen to work part time as part of a jobshare. Her specialism is in EYFS and KS1, whereas mine is KS2, so this would play to both of our strengths.

I can't comment on teaching, but if you're submitting a FWR then take a look at ACAS - they have a section which sets out the reasons why managers are legally allowed to reject FWRs. Work back from those, thinking about how you can mitigate each one and present as detailed a case as possible to show how they csn be addressed. Although the employer has to show why they can't accommodate a FWR, you should try and preempt each claim with a strong argument as to why it is possible. (Remember - it doesn't matter if other people have the arrangement that you want).

Yes but that doesn’t mean that employers actually adhere to that. It’s very easy to say that there will be a detrimental impact on performance or quality for the children by having more than one teacher.

OP, where I live many people sign their child up to nursery whilst still pregnant because of the high demand and I know someone who did so when they came off contraception and started trying to conceive. If it’s known that nursery spaces are so sparse, it’s not an excuse not to be better organised.

Hard to advise without doing the role but they could easily refuse on the basis that any overlap increases their costs.

As a governor we refused a teacher who was on the SLT who wanted to do 2.5 days a week. She was offered 4 days or a standard teaching role on a jobshare (3 days). She took the demotion.

Your childcare challenges aren’t your employer’s issue to fix, unfortunately. Can your partner change their hours?

It’s pretty easy to come up with a reason why it won’t work though

This makes sense.

At my place we've managed to make this kind of thing work like this. It helped that the maternity cover wasn't good so we were all grateful to have the decent person back, if fewer days!