Extra hours

morrissey: A tricky one this as many teachers envy my school its Friday 12.30 finish. SMT added 35 minutes to four of our working days in the week to “pay” for the Friday afternoon off, an arrangement we’ve had since last August. Come spring there is a planned full-day in-service on one of these Fridays - one of Le Russell’s “CfE Days” - ostensibly meaning we’ll be working three hours extra in school that week. Debate has raged over the contractual validity of being asked to work this. I’d love to hear opinions.

airy: I always thought the whole argument for the half-day Friday was so that the school could get staff together for whole-school stuff.

morrisseyritual: Well, if you can find more than a handful of teachers in our place after 13.00, you win a watch. We have post-school Monday meetings which have been accepted, while Fridays are “rewards” for working all week. We have “long Mondays” every month to make up for not having collegiate time on Fridays.

catmother: If having the Inset is adding extra hours to your school’s working week, could your school not get back the same amount of hours by not having some of those long Mondays?

Harryhausen: LAs that have many schools with asymmetric timetables do place in-service days in the calendar on, for example, “early finish Fridays”, as it usually mops up two to three hours’ on-site contact.

www.tes.co.ukscotland.