Work have pulled a fast one here.....

[PriorityOne]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

I'm so pleased P1 and sending big hugs

Thank you IF x

That's great news P1, lets hope the letter arrives soon. Half term would be a nice cut off point. How much notice do you have to give?

God, I hope so. I'm meant to give 2 months notice to coincide with the end of term..... but that's not going to happen. Under the circumstances, I doubt he will kick up a fuss and I will get my GP to support an early departure, if necessary.

[tastyjane]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

Great news, by then you should know the position of the new role I would think To be honest if you find yourself towards the end of the month and its still not resolved I am sure your GP will sign you off again.

I hope this all works out OK for you honey.

Jane x

[PriorityOne]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

Great news, by then you should know the position of the new role I would think To be honest if you find yourself towards the end of the month and its still not resolved I am sure your GP will sign you off again.

I hope this all works out OK for you honey.

Jane x

Thank you Jane..... I will update when I hear more.

I scanned the certificate across to my boss last night and he replied (eventually) with "Thank you for letting me know"

T*sser....

[PlanB]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

P1 I've followed your thread from the start. I haven't had anything useful to add until I started to watch 'Educating the East End' on Channel 4 which summed it up in this trailer: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/e...st-end-trailer

I'm now hooked on the series because I can't believe that kids can behave the way they do in school. 'In my day' (I'm old) we wouldn't dare do some of that stuff.

And now I'm torn.

Is it kids who are bad or is it the parents who dump their responsibilities on the school?

Last night's episode had me in flood of tears. The 'badly behaved' boy (and he was so unacceptably badly behaved) was excluded and sent to a Pupil Referral Unit. The reason for his meltdown was his parents' splitting up after 20 years.

The head teacher of that school is a one-off in the way she handled both staff and pupils. Give that woman a MBE.

[PriorityOne]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

Hi PlanB......

I've also seen bits of this programme but it's not a patch on some of the things I've seen or experienced. Having said that, it's not the kids who make the job stressful; it's the kind of management that a provision has. When there's good management, then kids are aware of the boundaries, a lot of progress can be made and staff feel supported but where there are few boundaries and weak management (as I have at the moment), then kids will do what they like because there's no effective comeback for them and staff feel stressed and demoralised..

There are many different scenarios. You have women who've spent years on their backs popping out children to claim benefits and not socialising them properly..... which means we have families in the area who all behave in a similar way; anti-social, disruptive, aggressive, no moral compass, getting into crime and so on..... while often having an ADHD "I can't help it" tag which has allowed parents to claim a range of additional "disability" benefits.... for as long as they carried on acting this way in front of the professionals sent out to observe them. This never does them any favours once they leave the education system and need to find work but by this time, these kind of behaviours are normalised because these kids have never really had to take responsibility for any of it..... I know someone who is just starting to experience this kind of scenario now with her son. I also know someone else with an ADHD child on the autistic spectrum which is completely different but unfortunately, has been judged the same because ADHD is bloody everywhere! Big subject.... don't get me started..... lol! Not all badly behaved kids are labelled with ADHD however; just to confuse the issue further...... they just have very bad role models, or none at all.

Then you have kids who've had traumatic experiences like you've mentioned; where they need heaps of pastoral care in order to get through it and heal because they can't do it alone and don't really understand their own reactions to things anyway. When you first start working alongside behaviour kids though, it takes time to sort out which behaviours stem from what, if you know what I mean..... in conjunction with parental influence, labelling and so on..... and in a lot of cases, management don't care what the cause is because they're under so much pressure to get results.

Which brings you to my situation..... I work in an area of deprivation and poverty, with a big benefits culture. Under previous management, it was an excellent provision; staff were trusted to think outside the box, teaching groups were small (8-10 kids), pastoral care was handled well and students made progress...... but somewhere along the line, it was decided to make it into a different kind of provision for A*-C students to satisfy the ambitions of someone in authority..... so groups are now more than double that now, lessons are way too long, there is too much time spent in class, loads of disruption, kids are allowed to keep their mobile phones (FFS!)...... and results are cack. Having worked with a fantastic team and a fab management in the past, I am now working with a couple of plonkers who are mainly concerned with PR....... but this will bite them both in the bum eventually because it's clearly not working. The sad part about it is the number of kids who slip through the net with few qualifications because of it.

Not sure if that helps or not or if it's just confused you even more..... lol. If I had known what the place was going to become, I might have looked for something else earlier but although I could see the changes happening around me, I couldn't believe they were being serious!! A*-C? Really?!!

[tastyjane]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

How you feeling lovely? Any further forward with the new job?

Jane x

[PriorityOne]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

How you feeling lovely? Any further forward with the new job?

Jane x

Hi Jane..... I'm better than I was but as the time grows closer to my sick note running out, I can feel the old anxieties starting to return. I haven't slept well for the past 2 nights and that's not good.

The new job is taking ages to come together. I chased them for an update on Monday and things were still being discussed apparently..... It's really not helping me at all because I need to know when it's all going to come together and I can move forward but there's nothing I can do about it. I've been assured that everything will be done and dusted by the end of this week (tomorrow) but I doubt I'll hear anything more concrete until next week.

My sick note runs out the week after..... Not sure how to approach this with the GP at the moment but know that if I do go back to that place, I'll be back to square one within a week!

Messy......

[Pixie]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

Sorry I've only just caught up with this P1...it was wonderful to be able to have a holiday in term time!

Your health is more important than going back to that place...and we both know how stressful teaching is even with fantastic management, well-behaved, eager-to-learn, engaged kids and supportive parents.

I don't really see what grounds your current "boss" has for initiating capability procedures. If anyone needs to go through competency it's him!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that your new job gets sorted soon. If not, get back to the doctors and get signed off again. It's clear the job is making you ill

[IF]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

Sending another hug P1, I agree with Pixie, don't go back.......

[PriorityOne]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

Thank you Pixie & If....

I want to get signed off again but feel a fraud..... I'm normally such a strong person.

What if the GP refuses? Or suggests a phased return again like last year? It's worrying me already thinking of what to say.....

[Pixie]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

I understand how you feel P1.

I've been brought up to have a strong work ethic but I haven't worked for more than a year because I haven't been well enough. Sometimes I feel like a fraud because I look well but I know I wouldn't have been able to dash off at a moment's notice and teach a class I didn't know. Even though I've had another DBS check done and re-registered with the agencies I'm not sure I'll return to teaching. The thought of it was making me ill...just like the thought of returning to this job is making you ill.

You're not a fraud, the job IS making you ill. I'm not sure if the GP can refuse but I think even being out of work is better than being so stressed at work that you're ill. Besides, you don't know what the GP will say until you ask.

[tastyjane]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

You are not a fraud - if 10 days before your note runs out you are feeling this anxious - make a diary and take it to the GP with you - are you close enough to them to explain you have another role in the offing? I would tell the GP and I would hope that they would just give you another month to give the new job a chance to come through.....

Jane x

[PriorityOne]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

I know I can't go back there......but I've never had this much time off work.

I will make a diary..... I didn't think of that. I just hope the GP can see where I'm coming from, as I don't see the same one; it's a different face each time.

My boss will be fuming if another sick note goes in...... ..... but there's nothing he can do about it. In fact, I'm getting a twisted kind of satisfaction knowing that it's costing him to get supply staff in.....

Amid the anxiety, that is.....

[cymruambyth]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

Hi P1, any updates? When are you back to the GP? More importantly, how are you feeling?

[PriorityOne]

Re: Work have pulled a fast one here.....

Hi P1, any updates? When are you back to the GP? More importantly, how are you feeling?

Hiya Cym..... I am feeling more positive about my decision not to go back to where I work...... but still anxious about asking for another sick note next week. I will make an appointment with my GP on Monday and fingers crossed that he sees for himself that going back is not an option.

The new job is progressing but they still can't give me a start date due to red tape their end, which will not be an issue providing I can get signed off again. It feels like I'm taking baby steps and feeling my way with this whole situation to protect my own interests but until I have a start date, there's nothing more I can do.

I emailed my union this morning with a hypothetical question though..... If I continue to be on long-term sick leave but hand in my notice at the end of October to leave at the end of term (Dec), could my employer just tell me to go on the basis that I haven't been there anyway, so I lose out on November/December's money? Logic tells me "no"..... but he's a slippery mo-fo, so I need to know if there's any possibility he could try and do that.