Pre-existing cases: why it is important to be a current Edapt subscriber

Pre-existing cases are instances when school staff contact us requesting support with an employment case where the facts pre-exist their start of subscription. Typically this occurs when they are not a current subscriber of Edapt or a teaching union.

We receive many calls every week where a member of staff is seeking immediate support because of an incident in school but they are not a subscriber to Edapt or have access to support through a teaching trade union.

Unfortunately Edapt (as well as the teaching unions) are not able to provide support in pre-existing cases where facts and circumstances exist prior to the start of subscription. We are not even able to provide preliminary advice over the phone.

Even though it is not compulsory to sign-up to edu-legal support or a teaching union, the consequences far outweigh the inconvenience or perceived costs when deciding the best support for you.

Pre-existing cases: what are some examples?

Invite to a investigation meeting or a disciplinary hearing

If you are invited to an investigation meeting or disciplinary hearing and you are not already a subscriber, unfortunately we will be unable to support. Essentially if the facts of your disciplinary case pre-exist the start of your subscription we are unable to help. 

So for example, on the 1st November an incident occurred in your classroom and you subscribed to Edapt on the 2nd November we would be unable to support this specific case. Even if you received a letter inviting you to an investigation meeting after your subscription date, because the incident in your classroom occurred before you subscribed, we would be unable to assist.

Requesting immediate accompaniment from one of our caseworkers

You might want support from one of our caseworkers to accompany you to an upcoming meeting at school and you are not a current subscriber with us. This might be a grievance hearing, TRA hearing, support with redundancy, sickness absence meeting or any other employment-related meeting.

Unfortunately, if you are not a current subscriber with us, we would be unable to support you at these meetings.

Requesting support with a teacher support plan and capability proceedings

Similar to the examples above, if you have been struggling at school with meeting performance targets and objectives and decide to subscribe to Edapt and access our support straight away while being placed on informal capability procedures we will be unable to help. As the facts will most likely pre-exist before the start of subscription we would be unfortunately unable to support you throughout capability proceedings. 

With all the examples above, an analogy would be the same as taking out car insurance after you have had an accident. You would need to have a subscription in place with us first (and for the issue not to be pre-existing) before you can access the full support of our legal casework team. We are of course able to support you in any future, un-related cases.

Pre-existing cases: what can I do?

If you are requiring urgent support and you are not a member of Edapt or a teaching union, we would recommend contacting an education employment solicitor for support with your case, especially if there is risk of dismissal. 

There are a wide variety of firms and they wouldn’t need to be geographically close to your location. If you are struggling to find any support at all, you are able to contact us requesting a referral, and we can contact our own provider to see what their availability is like to support you with your case. This support would be independent from Edapt and you would need to negotiate a fee with them independently.