Calendar Drift

Policy & Guidance for Branch Negotiators

A Calendar Year has 52 weeks plus one day in a normal year and plus 2 days in a leap year but Academic Years are based on units of weeks which causes the phenomenon of Calendar Drift.

Many Colleges start their Academic Year on the second Monday of every August; for such a College the second Monday in August falls on a range of dates between the 8th to the 14th August. It takes five or six years for the second Monday of August to move between this range of dates – depending if there is one leap year or two in the period.

If an Academic Year starts on 8th August, then it will have an extra college week during that Academic Year relative to an Academic Year that starts on 15th August, this extra college week occurs once every five or six years.

Year 1, first college week is the second week of August.

Year 2 (non-leap year), first college week is the third week of August.

Historically most Colleges gave this extra college week caused by calendar drift as studentand staff holidays. However, since incorporation management have increasingly defined the extra college week as an additional working week.

For teaching staff paid on a monthly basis this extra week of work does not generate any extra pay, but for hourly paid or weekly paid staff it does. The EIS believes that this isunequitable.

The EIS-FELA Executive is recommending the following ways to address Calendar Drift:

1. To agree that the extra week generated every 5 or 6 years by Calendar Drift is given as holidays for staff and students. 
2. To agree that the extra week generated every 5 or 6 years by Calendar Drift is worked but that all staff are compensated for the additional work.
3. To agree that the extra week generated every 5 or 6 years by Calendar Drift is worked
   but that all staff have an extra 5 days paid annual leave each leap year to offset the
   five additional days worked in each four year period.

Appendix 1: Calendar Drift for a College Using the Second Monday of August as the First Week of the Academic Year. This illustrative six year cycle has one leap year – and generates one extra College week within the Academic Year in the sixth year.