HM Queen Elizabeth II's State Funeral - managing extra bank holiday

Hi All, 

I'm sure this must have cropped up in other schools, I've had several part time support staff who don't usually work a Monday ask whether they will get a day in lieu for the Queens funeral in recognition of the bank holiday. We gave lieu days for the Jubilee, however, this situation feels very different and schools have been told to close. What are other schools doing? 

Many thanks

Jen

In my mind I'm treating it like a snow day Jen. If we closed as a school because of snow, we wouldn't allow everyone who wasn't working that day to take a different day off. We're being asked to close by the DfE at short notice, for an entirely appropriate reason - so I'm only including anyone who would have been working that day. Hope that helps!

Although not a school, we are doing exactly the same Nina. In our minds this is different to other bank holidays where we would normally give part timer/compressed hours folks 1/5th of a week added onto their allowance, and then they'd book what they needed. Whilst it's a day off work, it is not the same as other bank holidays and I like your analogy to a "snow day", so thanks for that.

This is really interesting - we have treated it as we would any other Bank Holiday, which as this thread shows, has its own issues (particularly when it comes to part time workers). I'm interested to know why this Bank Holiday is different to the others - is it just because it is very last minute? It certainly makes sense to treat it as an 'emergency closure' in that sense, but in all other ways I'd say it's the same as any other Bank Holiday?

It has raised lots of comments hasn't it Maya? Our CEO/Director of Ops have decided against giving those part timers who don't work Mondays any pro rata time off to use another day as they say it is against the spirit of why the day was introduced in the first place. So far I have 1 disgruntled part timer who said it isn't fair out of over 20 other part timers who have accepted it.

That was my first thoughts too... and as you've said whatever you do, it has it's own challenges. These are my thoughts now:
* Our contracts are 33 days including bank holidays
* Full time staff work 8 hours on a Monday. 1/5th of the working week is 7.4 hours. We will pay full time staff 8 hours for the bank holiday.
* A part timer might work 8 hours on a Monday and Tuesday (16 hours). If we were to give them 1/5th of the week (like we normally do for bank holidays), then they'd only get 3.2 hours towards the Funeral day, which although is strictly "fair" doesn't seem to be in the spirit of allowing the day off to mourn the Queen/tune in to the funeral.
* It isn't (I totally accept this is my opinion) going to be a "lovely day off" for most. I'm not a Royalist by any stretch of the imagination, but the day hasn't been given to "enjoy". It's being given so that we can mourn our Queen and pay our respects - for most of us, it will be by watching our TV's.

* Actually most of our part timers/compressed hours folks work Mondays, so hopefully won't be a big issue, as they will be getting "more" than a full timer.

Let's see what push back we get - I can see that we are going with something different to most and against what is being "advised" as such. I know whatever we do, someone will be offended!

As the only part timer who doesn't work Mondays in my company I'm really not concerned about having additional pro-rated time off and won't be instigating it, particularly given how much time it actually equates to!

As the only part timer who doesn't work Mondays in my company I'm really not concerned about having additional pro-rated time off and won't be instigating it, particularly given how much time it actually equates to!