Welcome to UNISON

Just over a week ago schools minister Jim Knight spoke at a UNISON schools seminar in London and confirmed that a new national negotiating body for school support staff will be in place by September. This new body will provide national guidelines for pay and conditions.

UNISON’s head of education, Christina McAnea, confirmed that this is a crucial step towards fair pay for schools staff. She said that the efforts of schools staff have been undervalued for too long, and that UNISON has campaigned long and hard for a fair system to recognise the very positive contribution made by schools support staff. She pointed out that the government’s plans for extended children’s services will depend on schools support staff and to make this work there will need to be fair and equitable pay and a robust training and career structure to apply in all schools. The setting up of a national negotiating body for schools staff is a crucial step in this direction. UNISON will bring you more news about these proposals as they are developed.

Extended Services in Schools

By 2010 all schools will be expected to provide or allow access to extended services. Extended school activities include breakfast, after school study support and holiday clubs, providing support for family learning and offering access to ICT equipment outside school hours. In addition, many primary schools will have children’s centres attached to them in order to provide a range of services for children under five and their families.

All this has major implications for the staffing of these services. Whilst extra activities in schools offer opportunities to those staff who want to extend their contracted hours or to develop their careers in new directions, headteachers cannot expect staff to automatically take on enhanced or extended roles or additional hours. Staff are under no obligation to take on new responsibilities outside school hours.

UNISON is clear that any changes to contracts should only be made after detailed consultation and with the agreement of the person taking on additional responsibilities in the extended school programme. This affects premises staff as much as cleaners – changes in hours or rotas must be done in agreement with the staff concerned. Some schools are cutting ‘core’ hours for teaching assistants and are offering casual add-ons in the “twilight shifts” of breakfast and after school clubs. That means pay arrangements are often arbitrary and the hours worked are not being counted towards pensions.

UNISON believes that extended services delivered like this are unacceptable for staff and will have knock-on effects on service quality and sustainability. UNISON will continue to raise these issues at national and local level. By becoming a member of UNISON you will have access to our support and advice.

This government initiative will bring radical changes to education, schools and how people are employed.

The annual leave allowances for our full time staff are shown below:

Full Time Annual Leave Entitlement
Grade	Annual Allowance	Annual Allowance after 5 years Local Government Service
1 - 4	24 days	29 days
5	26 days	31 days
6 - 7	27 days	32 days
8	29 days	34 days
9 - 11	30 days	35 days
SM1/2	35 days	N/A

If you work part time you can calculate your entitlement as follows:

Full time entitlement / 37 x Part time hours x 7.4 = Part time annual leave entitlement, in hours.

New employees can agree with their manager whether their leave runs from their start date or from 1st April - 31st March each year.
There are 8 Bank Holidays each year which are in addition to the table above. This needs to be pro rata if the employee works part time.

Please note if you are on Youth Service or Soulbury terms and conditions please read the Annual Leave Scheme Guidance attached as your entitlements are different.

Extended Services in Schools

Annual leave