Head of Department (should probably be in the AIBU forum)

You said recently that as you’d gone back to work and done the school a big favour that your HoD was falling over herself to be nice to you?

Or was that a different senior colleague GagaJo? I’m confused!

Deputy Head Mistress.

GagaJo it depends if you think you will ever be offered work at the school again. If it's yes just bite your lip and keep stum. If it's no. be incredibly polite and friendly to her during the week you have to be in contact. Then when you are finished write a letter to all the senior staff listing your complaints including the costs you incurred and tell them that this isn't the best way to attract the best staff. Then let it go.

Just ask her for a reference then? Not your HoD.

When do you return to the U.K.?

Is it worth it? I don't know why you bothered to jump through those hoops in the first place.

A range of reasons, not all to do with the external pressure.

1) The oral exams. They're worth 20% of their IB grade and I felt very bad for the students possibly not doing them or having to do them online.

2) I have to work and didn't want to have to declare I'd been shielding to new employers. Would affect my employability, particularly at my age.

3) Didn't want to jeopardise my last months salary,

Also my sense of responsibility towards my job.

Let me get this straight.

You stopped shielding to go to WORK?? By plane, train etc.
Have you no fears woman?
?

And all so your students didn’t lose a percentage of their marks? Crikey. You’re either brave or foolish in my book.

couldn't anyone else in the whole country have marked their oral exams.
not being rude, but surely no one individual is that indispensable.
what if you had been hospitalised, what would the school have done then.
as for being shielding, surely lots of people are away from during this period. would prospective future employers really look into it that closely.
anyway, its done now. hope it all works out ok.
didn't the hotel cost more than the taxi would ?

Hotel was almost exactly the same as the taxi. Leaving a day early meant less rush. No 5am get up.

The oral exams are performed live to 2 teachers. They're also recorded. We mark them and send marks and recordings to the IB. We are the only 2 English teachers in the school that teach IB.

If I'd been hospitalised, the exams would have been cancelled. Which would have meant the need to redo work next year with their new teacher, in addition to next years work/exams.

It's 1/5 of their IB grade. A pretty big deal. Affects uni choices/offers.

Sure you did. You must be truly indispensable.

Nasty as always Sparkling.

Sparkling

Sure you did. You must be truly indispensable.

She has explained. Your response sounds unnecessarily sarcastic

Thanks Lucca.

I totally understand and appreciate your professionalism and dedication to both your students and your career; I'd feel the same way. But right at the beginning of the pandemic, you told us that you'd taken the decision to risk flying back to the UK so that you could isolate here with your daughter and GS. You've also told us that you didn't leave the house, not even for excercise or shopping, so that you could minimise the risk to your family. So I'm a bit as to why you would do it all again, in reverse, and at great personal monetary expense as well.

It sounds as though your HOD was mightily pissed off with you for leaving them in the lurch in March, even though you had good reason to do so, and she's still pissed off with you now and is making your life as awkward and difficult as she can. You have to decide whether you need a good reference from her, so that you can get another job, more than you need to tell her what you think of her. Only you know which is more important.

So, you left the school before Switzerland locked down and came home, you didn’t go back until 3 weeks before the end of term, even though presumably the school had reopened before that time.

I expect she thought that you went back just to collect your things that you had left over there, then, I imagine she overruled to you show you that, actually, you weren’t really needed after all, you were only needed to make up the numbers.

Then when she baulked at getting up at 5 am to take you to the airport, you left the day before term finished to get back to the UK.
No wonder she was snippy.

Oh dear, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I hope you never have to go back and work with her again but, in the meantime, just in case there is no other job available, it would be best to say nothing, put it down to a bad experience with an unpleasant colleague and move on.
You may need a reference!

What's said can't be unsaid.

Think you might have blown the reference anyway?

Hopefully you've got good referees you can call on from past jobs!

I’d bite my tongue and hope our paths never crossed again. Unfortunately in teaching circles it can be a very small world however so least said soonest mended.
Frankly after the end of term do there is nobody outside my immediate family I would get up to do the equivalent of an £80 taxi drive at crack of dawn! So that doesn’t surprise me at all.
It was your choice to return to the school and your choice how you travelled home, the school has no responsibility to you on those counts I’m afraid.
To use that awful term you will just have to “suck it up” !

I left originally when the school closed due to the pandemic. 8 British teachers were unable to get back. 4 of us eventually got back. The teachers that didn't return continued online teaching. I got a nice email from her today so I think she's a bit contrite. I'll grin and bear it and send a polite email back.