I have no experience of HR in a teaching environment ( although I have done some part time - evening- teaching in the past)
I would have thought that what needs to drive the decision making on this is the curriculum time table. So, if morning lessons / teaching finish at 12.30, your suggestion of 20 hours per week would make most sense. If alternatively the morning teaching sessions finish at 12.00 then 17.5 hours per week might work better for the educational establishment.
I can't imagine that doing exactly half time hours ( 16.25 hours per week /3.25 hours per day ) ie finishing each day at 11.45 am is going to fit particularly well with the curriculum timetable ...or is it?

In reply to Kevin Elvidge:

Thanks Keith, it does sound an obvious question and you are right to suggest that it is dependant on teaching requirements but thought I would check what others do as schools are so different to any other establishment:)

We would calculate on the proportion of a timetable being delivered - so we currently have a 40 period timetable, and a full time member of staff would be expected to deliver up to 33 periods per week. If someone was part time it could be sorted strictly by day - ie 3 days per week, so a 0.6 FTE contract (which could be up to 20 periods per week). However if they work part-days it's much more based on the timetable - so if they were contracted to deliver 18 periods per week, they'd be on a (18/33) 0.55 FTE contract.

Hope that makes sense.

In reply to Nina Waters:

Hi Nina, thanks for your response. I am meeting the teacher tomorrow and know she will ask about parent's evenings (and any other 'outside of hours' activity) and how this works with her pro-rated hours. What would your normal practise be in this case. Many thanks

In reply to Sharon :

Our view is that the expectation is that you attend, unless there's a good reason why you shouldn't. As our teaching staff don't have contractual hours defined, the expectation is on everyone to participate in these kinds of commitments. While we'd look at specific problems on a case by case basis, our template letter wording for this is as follows:

"We appreciate the needs of our employees for flexibility, which obviously must be balanced against the needs of the school. While we are able to accommodate your request for part time hours, I must be clear that in so doing we must not compromise on the education provided to our pupils. In the same way as full time members of staff, you will be expected to participate in parents’ evenings, co-curricular activities, meetings and events. These may not always fall on your usual working days, but we will endeavour to give as much notice as is practical of these core commitments. You may also need to check and respond to emails to a reasonable extent."

In reply to Nina Waters:

I've never worked in a school setting but I love this!

In reply to Sharon :

Hi Sharon,

If the teacher's contract of employment incorporates the STPCD then you may need to be mindful of paras 51.9 and 51.10:

51.9. Subject to paragraph 51.10, no teacher employed part-time may be required to be available for work on any day of the week or part of any day of the week on which the teacher is not normally required to be available for work under their contract of employment (whether it is for the purposes of teaching pupils and performing other duties or for the sole purpose of performing other duties).
51.10. Subject to paragraphs 51.6 and 51.11, a part-time teacher may be required to carry out duties, other than teaching pupils, outside school sessions on any day on which the teacher is normally required to be available for work (whether the teacher is normally required to be available for work for the whole of that day or for only part of that day).

I'm guessing that if your contracts don't define the normally working week then it may be a matter of 'custom and practice'.

Gavin

In reply to Gavin:

Yes, I discovered this when researching expectations for part time teachers. As a school we do not pay additional hours for attendance at school events which are expected as part of teaching contracts. Some of our part time staff choose to attend events on days that are not their usual working days and are happy with this as would rather do this than have to rearrange another time. Some staff do not attend on these dates and are therefore expected to undertake the work at an alternative time. This primarily relates to parents evenings which are all held on a Thursday. Having come across this issue with a staff member about not attending, going forward we are not agreeing to a Thursday as a non-working day when recruiting or reviewing days. Our HR consultancy advice was that you could deduct the hours from pay as the staff member is not fulfilling all of their duties, however this is not the line that we wish to pursue so have agreed that the duties are undertaken on another date instead.