Pay in school holidays for meals staff, crossing patrols and nursery workers

Three groups of school staff have their own holiday rules in the Green Book: school crossing patrol attendants and similar retained escorts, school meals staff, and nursery employees working with children up to age seven. The headline rules are a retainer of half your normal weekly pay during most school closures for the first two groups, and a 195-day working year with no pay reduction for school holidays for full-time nursery employees. Your contract may be on a different arrangement, because councils can agree local terms in place of these.

Who is covered

Appendix 2 to Part 3 of the Green Book covers school crossing patrol attendants, retained school bus attendants and other retained education service escorts, and school meals service employees. Separately it covers nursery employees who work directly with children in classrooms up to the age of seven, or in a special school, or with children who have statements of special educational needs.

Your own contract decides which rules apply, and a school meals assistant may instead be on the general term-time-only arrangements. The term-time-only pay guide explains that method, which spreads pay over the year. Check your contract to see which route you are on.

Annual leave and closure days

For the retained groups, annual leave is normally taken during school holidays, although other arrangements can be agreed locally. Pay for annual leave is pro rata to comparable full-time employees.

On top of leave and public holidays there is a right to full pay for days the school is closed in term time for exceptional reasons, such as an election, a visit or an emergency. School meals staff, and only them, can be granted up to three more days a year for closures on account of half term and other permitted official holidays. Those days are paid at the full rate, and anyone required to work on one gets equivalent time off in lieu later or, if that is not practicable, double time.

The retainer in other holidays

For the rest of the periods when the school is closed, retained staff get a retainer of one half of their normal weekly pay, calculated on what they earned immediately before the closure. The Green Book attaches conditions:

• You must undertake to return to work at the end of the holiday.
• If you are asked to work during the closure you are paid plain time for the hours worked, and the retainer stops for that part of the holiday.
• If you take other holiday work with the same council on the same or better pay, you do not get the retainer for that period.
• Half of the retainer is paid before the holiday starts and the rest after school reconvenes. It can be withheld if you do not return at the start of term, unless you were off sick, on public duties or had a reason your council approved.

Sick pay stops when the holiday starts and the retainer takes over. If you fall ill during the holiday you do not get sick pay on top, and the Green Book says nothing should be deducted from the retainer for social security benefits you receive. The council sick pay guide covers the normal scheme during term.

Nursery employees

Nursery employees are regarded as full time if they regularly work ten sessions or more a week in term, including lunch breaks where worked, or 32.5 hours where sessions do not fit. Hours beyond the standard week are paid at plain time based on 1/32.5 of weekly pay, or at 1.5/32.5 as overtime.

There is no abatement of pay for school holiday days when they are not required to work. Full-time nursery employees must be available for 195 days a year, of which 190 are days when pupil contact is needed.

What to check

Look at your statement of particulars for the words “retainer”, “retained”, “term-time only” or “52 weeks”. Ask whether your pay is spread evenly over the year, or whether you are paid for term weeks plus a retainer. Find out how many days you are expected to work, and whether you can be asked to work in holidays and on what pay. Your payroll team or union representative can tell you whether Appendix 2 applies to your job or has been replaced by a local agreement.