Hi, am posting this question on behalf of my mother. She works for a childrens centre where children go after school and all day during holidays. She was asked to go on a training course to get her level 2 qualification which she started 5 weeks ago, even though at her age she did not really want to do it but agreed to.
Anyway, her manager spoke to her this week and said they would no longer be paying her to attend this course, even though it is done during her own time and she has to travel from Bedfordshire into Buckinghamshire so obviously has petrol costs involved.
They have paid her for the 5 weeks she has already done but are refusing to pay for the remainder of course time, so my mum told them she did not want to continue with the course as she would be out of pocket, her manager told her that she had two choices, either continue on the course or lose her job! as according to this manager Ofsted have said all staff have to be qualified now, i know for a fact this is incorrect and they only require half of all staff to be qualified and as there is only 4 of them inc mum and the other 3 are qualified she does not legally have to be, and her manager told her if she had any problems with that to send a letter to the committee.
Her manager has also said it is in her contract of employment that it is mandatory to attend training courses, we checked that out and it says she may “choose” to go on training courses.
What we would like to know is, 1. can they just sack her for not continuing on this course? 2. What should she do now?
Sorry it is so long winded! Hope somebody can help
lorraine kemp