There will be times when you may need to take a day off work due to sickness. Please follow the following guidelines below so you know what to expect and so your sickness does not have negative impacts on your students, clients and Westcountry SEN as a whole.

Firstly, ask yourself if you can work online.

If you are too unwell to come into the practice or visit a student’s home, but you are well enough to work online that day, with some notice we can arrange this.

Please contact the main reception desk on 01747 859102 and let the receptionist know you are unwell. If there is no answer, your message will be automatically forwarded to whoever is on call.

The receptionists are trained to try and cover or reassign your students. Cancelling the lesson is the last resort.

If you are unwell, they will first of all look to see if any tutors that are appropriately skilled have a gap at the time of your lesson.

They will also look to see what gaps you have during the week.

If you are wanting to offer an additional time to cover your sickness, please make this clear when you phone.

“Hi, I’m feeling very unwell today with a migraine, I cannot work online or see any student’s this evening. I am free this Thursday evening if any students want to see me then”

In the example above the Receptionist or client manager on call will phone the client and let them know you are unwell that day. They will give the client a choice between another tutor that day, or a lesson with you on the Thursday.

Sickness and holidays are always good opportunities for another tutor to meet the student. This is really important for the student to have that additional layer of support. It is also an opportunity for the two tutors who have now met the child to talk and communicate about the child and have shared ideas.

Some clients will be motivated to only have one tutor and not have any other tutor involved. Whilst to have a main tutor is beneficial for the student as that tutor will be able to intimately track progress and can build a zone of learning safety for that student, only ever having one tutor creates a significant layer of vulnerability under that layer of safety.

Due to Westcountry SEN tutors being trained and taught how to use the relationship with a student as a teaching tool and to build safety, a strong relationship is forged quickly. However, life is unexpected at times, and we have some tutors who unexpectedly had to take a long leave of absence due to family ill health, spouse suddenly losing their job or personal reasons that were equally unexpected.  All of these students felt abandoned, and the clients felt betrayed. It is natural and normal to feel the loss of a tutor who made both the client and student feel so safe.

Therefore, sickness and holidays are when we will do our best to introduce another tutor as a safety net under yours and your student’s professional relationship.