School Holidays

Well, we broke up on Friday and now have six week of holidays. Except we don’t!
In a school, there are three types of contracts.
  1. Teacher. You are employed on a full time (or part time), 52 weeks per year contract and get 13 weeks holiday.  You are not expected to work in the holidays (although to be fair some do).
  2. Full time support staff. You are employed on a full time, 52 weeks per year contract and get roughly 6 – 8 weeks holiday depending on length of service. You have to work in the holidays.
  3. Part time support staff. You are employed on a part time, 39 weeks a year contract (term time) and technically get no holidays as you are not employed for those weeks. However staff are paid over the full year.
The majority of non teaching staff are part time. In fact there are only 4/5 people, including me, in my school who are full time (one person remains to be seen!).

So why is it the majority of non teaching staff are part time? Cost of course, it’s a lot cheaper to not pay people for 13 weeks a year.
The other side of the coin is why are teachers paid for 52 weeks a year? I guess it’s all down the power of the teaching unions and the lack of power and interest from the unions representing the support staff.
Oh well, at least I’ve got a few quiet weeks before my hols!