Stories

‘It’s the way the cookie crumbles’….

I work at a prestigious school in London. It’s an all girls’ school which promotes a career-family balance to the students as they make their A level choices. The was very accommodating when I chose to drop down to part time, following the birth of my child. I was scheduled to do 0.4 over two days. When I returned to work it became clear that I had been given a much heavier timetable than all the others in my department, even though most of them were full time. I had very few frees to prepare lessons/mark/meet with students, plus all my previous responsibilities such as being a form tutor and break time duty. The workload soon picked up and became unmanageable. I would be working an additional 7+ hours a week, trying to squeeze this in when looking after my little one on my own, or forgoing previous family time at the weekends. When I raised this with the School, they told me I should have arranged 0.6. childcare if I wanted to work 0.4 – and that I was expected to take home work over the school holidays, too. When I pointed out that the expectations of my out-of-hours work were very different to those of a full timer, I got told that ‘it’s the way the cookie crumbles’ when you choose to return to teaching part time. I’m now deciding whether I can afford a third day of childcare or whether I’ll be forced to leave my job (after ten years at the same school).

Stories

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