Full marks for Education Forum

The afternoon of Thursday 8th October saw the launch of a new event for the Employment team, as they hosted their first Employment Law in Education Forum. St Mary’s Stadium was the venue of choice for this inaugural event with HR representatives from over 30 schools, colleges, universities and academies from across Hampshire in attendance.

Sarah Whitemore, Employment Law Partner, commented, “Employment Law is a complicated area for any business, but for those in the Education sector they will face extra challenges. The additional variety of employment contracts such as term only contracts, shared services agreements, differing sick leave policies are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their additional responsibilities.”

Shared parental leave was the topic for this forum. “Shared parental leave was introduced at the end of 2014 applicable to parents of babies born after 5th April 2015 to give mothers and fathers the option to share leave after the birth or adoption of their baby so the fathers can have more than the standard two week’s paternity leave,” explains Sarah. “Due to the term time nature of the establishments, education employers can be left open to tricky situations involving teachers potentially arranging their leave to coincide with holidays and therefore miss the term time completely.”

Following the success of this first event, the Employment team are now planning the second. “We asked those in attendance about their wishes for the future of the Forum; how regularly they wish to be held, the venue and the topics, so that we can tailor an appropriate event for them,” concludes Sarah. “There doesn’t appear to be another event in Hampshire specifically supporting HR Managers in this sector, and we’re keen to be that support for them.”

If you are working in the education sector and would be interested in attending a future Forum, you can contact Karen Hill at karenhill@warnergoodman.co.uk or call 02380 717478. For more details on how the team can assist, you can call them on 02380 717717 or visit their section of the website here.

ENDS

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