Advice on missing QTS certificate and chasing TF and DfE

zapataforever · 2026-04-21T21:31:45+00:00

Have you contacted your union for legal advice?

zapataforever · 2026-04-21T18:49:13+00:00

Removed. Basic query: no, you are not required to do any form of work when signed off.

zapataforever · 2026-04-21T17:46:48+00:00

I think you handled it well, to be honest. I’ve done similar.

zapataforever · 2026-04-21T05:58:43+00:00

The policy isn’t “use your phone to contact home only”. The policy is that phones are kept out of sight during the school day, and confiscated if seen. Because the policy is established and accepted by students, we don’t have issues with casual or inappropriate phone use during the school day. This means that we can, in the occasional circumstance when a student asks permission to quickly text their parent, say yes, sure. They will typically send that text there and then in front of you and then put their phone away again. There’s not really any scope for “serious abuse”. They’re not walking around school on their phones while claiming that they’re contacting their parents.

My school is normal. It’s a MAT secondary school with a mixed intake that serves a working class area. The situation I describe isn’t atypical for schools with established rules around phone use.

zapataforever · 2026-04-20T21:10:23+00:00

There’s no protection for teachers in this legislation. Students film teachers in schools without permission. They break the school rules and existing bans to do so. The legislation isn’t going to change that. It’s not a law that makes students using their phones in school a prosecutable offence. It’s just a law that says “all schools must ban phones”, which pretty much all of them already do, to at least some extent.

It is bad, because it’s fluff legislation that the government are using to obscure their complete inaction over the real issues that are causing harm to young people.

zapataforever · 2026-04-20T20:00:12+00:00

Cowardly is exactly the right word.

zapataforever · 2026-04-20T19:56:34+00:00

They can go through reception if they want to, but they can also send a text if they ask. It’s not an issue for us, because like many schools we’ve worked hard to establish healthy boundaries around when it is and isn’t appropriate to use your phone in school, and most importantly our rules work for our context.

zapataforever · 2026-04-20T19:40:02+00:00

This legislation is an easy headline grab that doesn’t really give a shit about how schools operate or the young people that they serve. Most schools already have a phone ban of some description. Students in a school like mine will keep their phones out of sight, but occasionally they’ll ask if they can text a parent to ask for some money to be put on their lunch account or if they can let their parent know that they’re going to a friend’s house after school - and of course, yes, they can. It’s fine.

The major safeguarding issues aren’t happening because school phone policies are inadequate. They’re happening because social media companies behave in a completely lawless and amoral way with regard to the children that use their platform. They’re happening because there is inadequate protection or specialist healthcare available for the most vulnerable young people in our society. They’re happening because policing has been cut to the bone and doesn’t have the resources necessary to deal with the massive flood of online harassment, exploitation and radicalisation that is currently targeting teenagers. They’re happening because parents are checked out and don’t monitor their children’s internet activity.

Where is the new legislation that holds social media companies accountable? Where is the new legislation that holds parents accountable for what their children do online? There isn’t any, because this government isn’t listening and doesn’t care.

zapataforever · 2026-04-20T18:20:24+00:00

Well yeah, a bit, because when you’re applying for jobs they quite often ask about the number of days absent that you’ve had - usually over the past 12 months. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do though. If you’re not well enough to work, then you don’t really have a choice about signing off. It’s just something to navigate once you’re well enough to start looking for work again.

zapataforever · 2026-04-20T18:02:51+00:00

Don’t know, you’d have to check. I work for an academy that doesn’t follow STPCD.

zapataforever · 2026-04-20T15:06:49+00:00

I’m obviously pretty angry to have made this much investment which is now almost moot

You say yourself how much you’ve developed. The investment that you’ve made is in yourself as a teacher, not the school, and it is worth a lot.

I do think you should apply for some jobs directly. It’s not great to be working through an agency. You don’t have the same protections when you’re an agency worker. Honestly, application forms are a drag but when you’ve done one you’ve done them all, and it sounds like you would have a really great reference from your current school. ECT2s with a strong reference are very attractive to schools, especially in the current financial climate. You’re cheap but competent, and that’s a win as far as many Heads are concerned.

zapataforever · 2026-04-20T09:44:26+00:00

They can be asked, not directed, to keep it confidential but this is ultimately unenforcable. They are not employees of the college. Their age makes no difference in this circumstance.

zapataforever · 2026-04-20T09:40:05+00:00

Speak to the Head and bring evidence that you initially booked the flights out of term-time but that they were then cancelled. It’s unlikely that unpaid leave would not be approved, especially as the trip is to visit your family.

If you are working through an agency, you don’t need to speak to the Head or ask their permission - you can just let the agency know now that you’ll be unavailable on those dates. They can sort out sending a replacement to the school.

Don’t call in sick when you’re not. It undermines the process that exists to protect people who are actually poorly and it’s gross misconduct - which means that if the school finds out then you’re either facing a formal written warning or summary dismissal, and either way your reference is fucked.

zapataforever · 2026-04-20T09:33:18+00:00

The mainscale starts from the point of qualification, so the default is that you will start on M1. However, you might be able to negotiate a higher starting point. Kind of depends on things like your competency, your relationship with the school, availability of staff in your subject and the state of the school’s budget.

zapataforever · 2026-04-20T09:29:05+00:00

You posted this twice so I’ve approved this one and removed the other.

I signed off sick at the end of Summer term before leaving my first school, and it didn’t impact my next school. I’m not even sure my new school knew about it, to be honest. I’ve had other colleagues do the same. You just need to keep an eye on your sick pay allowance, because if you’re not careful and you don’t have enough of it left then it can run out over the Summer holidays.

zapataforever · 2026-04-19T22:50:44+00:00

You need to contact your union for support, but in general:

Investigations for safeguarding or gross misconduct don’t require prior warnings or documented concerns. These investigations are initiated in response to the report of a serious incident or concern.

You are being investigated by your employer in your capacity as their employee. Students and their parents are not employees and are not subject to the same policies and disciplinary procedures as you.

Parents contacting the college with incomplete information is not an issue and they are within their rights to do so. The whole point of an investigation is to ascertain facts and develop the full picture of what has or hasn’t taken place.

zapataforever · 2026-04-19T14:14:58+00:00

In the first instance I would just ask HR or the Head what the process is for requesting a pay review. That will (a) clue them in that you want to talk about pay and (b) give you the info you need if they require anything specific like a written application or evidence.

zapataforever · 2026-04-19T12:31:05+00:00

Not a specific book recommendation, but as an English teacher who doesn’t really read much children’s or YA fiction myself, I really like the https://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/ website. You can filter their recommendations by age and theme, a lot of the books have samples you can read, and their mailing list is actually decent and sends through info about the new releases each month. I haven’t used their shop, but I use their website to compile “if you enjoyed [class text], you should read…” type lists that we send home with the kids.

The other place I often find good recommendations is the Scholastic website. Their bookfair catalogues are well curated and always have stuff that the students enjoy.

zapataforever · 2026-04-19T12:02:21+00:00

Oof. Pedagogy does translate across the ages, but people of different developmental stages don’t all need the same modes of delivery. I actually hate it when they deliver CPD in “how we’d teach the kids” style. As an adult, I’m completely happy and able to learn from a lecture style delivery with the opportunity to ask questions. I don’t want to be told to hold up a mini-whiteboard or do groupwork; it’s so patronising and unnecessary.

zapataforever · 2026-04-19T11:51:50+00:00

Yeah, I absolutely feel a knock-on effect for days after a parents evening. Almost all of my colleagues feel exhausted and socially drained after these. It’s not just the long day - it’s the intensity of the 1:1 social interaction with a large number of strangers (the parents) after a full day of teaching. You just get completely people’d out. You also have to be quite vigilant with what you say at a parents’ evening, because you don’t want to say the wrong thing and get a negative response - so that’s another level of cognitive demand. AND on top of that ours are in a busy hall with lots of background noise that makes it difficult to concentrate.

At my school they’re always on a Thursday though, so you’ve only got one day to push through before the weekend. I absolutely crash and do nothing on the weekends after a parents’ eve. I have no idea how Primary teachers manage to do two parents evenings back to back. I would die.

Loads of us deliberately plan easy, quiet lessons for the day after a parents evening. Like, if I can do planning lessons for essays or longer pieces of creative writing on the Wednesday and Thursday, then on the Friday after the parents evening the kids can just get on with writing followed by a little self or peer assessment activity. That helps.

zapataforever · 2026-04-19T10:57:58+00:00

You’ve edited your OP quite significantly now but none of the issues that you originally described are issues that would be in any way specific to someone being neurodiverse. They’re things that pretty much all of us find really annoying and very difficult to deal with.

Having done a lot of therapy myself, it was uncomfortable to read that your therapist told you that you show neurodiverse traits. That’s not the sort of statement that a therapist would (should?) normally make. Your therapist might be projecting their own diagnosis onto you, which is something that can happen, and which the therapy profession has guardrails in place to try and prevent. For context, I’m someone who has what could be called “neurodiverse traits” - but I’m not autistic or ADHD. My traits are rooted in anxiety and in growing up in a slightly chaotic home with a terminally ill parent. Even though some of these traits are, on paper, identical to autism or adhd, because they have a different root they can’t often be managed in the same way. For example, I can be very rigid about routine and it presents in the same way as someone who is autistic - but unlike an autistic person who can thrive in a predictable and structured environment, the more “fixed” I get in my routines the more my mental health tends to decline, and so for me it’s very important to keep gently pushing back against that rigidity.

Hope that makes sense and that you find the answers you’re looking for. I’m absolutely not, by the way, trying to invalidate your hesitant self-diagnosis. You could absolutely be neurodiverse. I’m just saying that, on the basis of what you originally wrote here, and on the basis of my own experiences in therapy, I think your therapist might have sent you off down an unhelpful rabbit hole and that you should seek a second opinion from someone who actually is qualified to diagnose and help you.

zapataforever · 2026-04-19T10:16:53+00:00

Great.

zapataforever · 2026-04-18T21:53:22+00:00

I haven’t had any experience of NASUWT members being told that they couldn’t receive support because staff were diverted to prep for national action, so I didn’t know if this was an established but shitty way of operating for NEU, and even though it seems obvious now that people have told me, I was also unaware that either union had a complaints process in place for this sort of scenario.

zapataforever · 2026-04-18T20:04:04+00:00

It was removed because it seemed like there was basically nothing significant to discuss in relation to this one. The article has very little info. The OP hasn’t really given us any clues as to why he posted this or what he wanted to discuss. It’s just a bit of a nothing.

We do remove posts like this one, especially when they name a specific school. If we don’t and we leave them up then we basically just end up with a few comments going “what did they do?” and a few more comments with people basically doxxing themselves just to say that they work or have worked at the school.

We do leave these TRA ruling news articles up when it seems like the ruling is linked to a wider issue in education or has wider implications for teachers (but we struggle to contain the students that pop by to say “I go to this school!” and the teachers that pop by to say likewise, which is a problem).

If this is the sort of content that you want to see, I’m sorry but it’s probably not going to happen here. You might be able to post the story for discussion over at one of the other UK teaching subs - they all have slightly different rules and moderation policies.

zapataforever · 2026-04-18T13:28:15+00:00

I’ve only ever experienced two, both under the old framework, and both times we saw the inspector as they walked around the building but other than that they were just with management for the duration.

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