TEACHERS’ WORKING TIME AND DUTIES – AN NUT GUIDE
CONTENTS PAGE
INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………….……..3
SCHOOL TEACHERS’ PAY AND CONDITIONS DOCUMENT (STPCD)…………………..4
SECTION 1 – TEACHERS’ WORKING TIME…………………………………………………...4
The STPCD and Part Time Teachers…………………………………………………….6
Examples of a Directed Time Budget……………………………………………………..7
Discharging Professional Duties…………………………………………………………..9
The Teacher Decides……………………………………………………………………….9
Work/Life Balance………………………………………………………………………….10
Absence……………………………………………………………………………………..10
Morning and Afternoon Breaks……………………………………………………………10
Non-Contact Time/Planning, Preparation and Assessment Time……………………..11
Leadership and Management Time……………………………………………………….11
Headship Time………………………………………………………………………………12
SECTION 2 – PROFESSIONAL DUTIES………………………………………………………...12
Reasonable Direction……………………………………………………………………….12
Professional Duties – Teaching……………………………………………………………12
NUT Policy on Schemes of Work and Lesson Plans……………………………………12
Professional Duties – Other Activities…………………………………………………….13
Professional Duties – Staff Meetings……………………………………………………...14
NUT Policy on Meetings…………………………………………………………………….14
Professional Duties – Assessments and Reports………………………………………..17
NUT Policy on Performance Management Bureaucratic Burdens……………………..18
Teachers’ Professional Duties – Cover……………………………………………………19
Gained Time………………………………………………………………………………….19
Duties of Head Teachers as they Affect Teachers……………………………………….20
Administrative and Clerical Tasks………………………………………………………….21
SECTION 3 – OTHER PROFESSIONAL ISSUES AFFECTING WORKLOAD……………….23
Written Documents/Policies/Reports……………………………………………………….23
OFSTED/Estyn………………………………………………………………………………..24
Monitoring Visits………………………………………………………………………………24
Target Setting…………………………………………………………………………………25
National Curriculum and Assessment……………………………………………………...26
The Foundation Phase in Wales…………………………………………………………….31
Excessive Class Size…………………………………………………………………………32
Changes to School Session Times………………………………………………………….32
E-mail Overload………………………………………………………………………………..33
Classroom Observation……………………………………………………………………….33
SECTION 4 – CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………34
INTRODUCTION
The NUT has campaigned tirelessly over the years to seek to establish effective limits to teachers’ workload. There is no shortage of evidence about the extent of the problem. Each year the School Teachers’ Review Body undertakes a diary survey to obtain a picture of the average total hours worked by full time teachers in a particular week in March.
The 2009 survey revealed that most categories of teachers report that they are working more than 50 hours a week.
It was against this background of excessive workload and the NUT’s campaign to reduce teachers’, workload that changes to teachers’ statutory conditions of service in England and Wales were introduced as part of the Workforce Agreement.
These include:
· no requirement routinely to undertake tasks of a clerical or administrative nature (introduced September 2003);
· an entitlement to at least 10 per cent of timetabled teaching time for planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) (introduced September 2005); and
· teachers to provide cover only rarely (introduced September 2009).
The NUT did not sign the Workforce Agreement, because of its emphasis on the use of unqualified staff to take whole classes. The NUT, however, remains determined to ensure that its members benefit from their contractual entitlements and to protect their professionalism.
In addition to these more recent provisions, teachers’ working time has for many years been governed by the working time provisions of the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD).
This guide[1] includes both a detailed summary of teachers’ conditions of service, as set out in the STPCD, and NUT policy and advice.
April 2010
1. Advice and support on any of the issues raised in this guide is available from NUT regional offices in England, NUT Cymru in Wales or from the appropriate NUT division or association.
ACTION SUPPORT
2. The NUT will provide advice and assistance to school representatives and members seeking to have NUT policy implemented. In most cases, as a result of negotiations, agreement will be reached. Where negotiation fails to resolve the problem, and where there is sufficient support amongst members, the NUT will consider a ballot of members for industrial action to seek to achieve a resolution.
The School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD)
3. Where the STPCD applies, there is a legal obligation upon school management to give NUT school representatives access to it. This is best effected by schools keeping up-to-date copies for reference purposes. Additional copies can be downloaded from www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/payandperformance/pay.
4. The provisions are statutory and schools cannot choose to ignore them.
5. The STPCD contains the statutory requirements for teachers’ pay and conditions for maintained schools in England and Wales and local authorities and schools must abide by these. It applies to teachers employed by a local authority or by the governing body of a foundation or voluntary aided school. Academies and independent schools may have different arrangements.
6. The STPCD also contains guidance on salaries and conditions of service issues. Local authorities and governing bodies are required to have regard to the guidance and a court or tribunal may take any failure to do so into account in any legal proceedings. In effect, this means that any school not following the guidance would need to have good reason not to do so and would need to be able to justify any departure from it.
SECTION 1 – TEACHERS’ WORKING TIME
7. The provisions described below apply to teachers other than head teachers, deputy head teachers, assistant head teachers and advanced skills teachers.
How Many Days?
8. The STPCD states that a full time teacher, “shall be available for work” for 195 days in any school year, of which 190 days shall be days on which the teacher, “may be required to teach pupils in addition to carrying out other duties”. The 195 days shall be specified by the employer or, if the employer so directs, by the head teacher.
9. The STPCD states that teachers must be available for work for 195 days in any school year. It does not state that teachers must be present at school for 195 days. There is room for employers and for head teachers to exercise flexibility.
10. A head teacher cannot direct a teacher to undertake duties on any of the 170 calendar days, 171 in a leap year, not specified as working days by the employer.
11. The NUT believes that there should be no variation from the working days specified by the employer for schools generally or within individual schools without consultation with the teachers concerned. NUT members facing variations which do not meet with their ready agreement should consult the Union.
12. The STPCD states that a full time teacher “shall be available to perform such duties at such times and such places as may be specified by the head teacher…for 1265 hours in any school year,” those hours to be “allocated reasonably” throughout those days in the school year on which the teacher is required to be available for work. It is important to remember that the 1265 hours is an absolute maximum and that teachers do not have to be directed to work right up to that limit.
13. The STPCD also states that ‘no teacher may be required to work on any Saturday, Sunday or public holiday unless their contract of employment expressly provides for this’.
14. Under the STPCD, the 195 specified days do not have to be identical for all teachers in the school. If they are different, however, individual arrangements must be made for the time to score against the 1265 hour and 195 day limits.
15. These limits must not be exceeded. Members who are called upon to undertake directed time which would exceed these limits should consult the Union as soon as the situation arises or, preferably, as soon as it seems likely. It is essential that schools keep accurate records of the demands upon their teachers, in terms of directed time. Indeed the STPCD sets out that the relevant body should ‘consult with all staff and their union representatives on the teaching timetable and an annual calendar which includes staff meetings, parental consultations and other activities’. In advance of each academic year, teachers should be provided with a directed time calendar or diary, setting out their commitments in terms of teaching, PPA time, leadership and management time and meetings. NUT members should contact the Union if they believe that they are likely to exceed 1265 hours of directed time or pro-rata if part time. Two examples of such a time budget are set out overleaf, one for a primary school, the other for a secondary school.
Flexibility Within Limits – A Summary16. To summarise, under the terms of the STPCD, as indicated above, the contractual working time of teachers is subject to specific limits:
· the number of days on which full time teachers shall be available for work in any school year is 195;
· the number of days on which full time teachers may be required to teach pupils is 190, i.e. 5 days as non-contact;
· teachers cannot be directed to undertake duties on any of the 170calendar days, 171 in a leap year, not specified as working days by the employer – this includes holidays and weekends; and
· the number of hours within which full time teachers can be directed to undertake teaching or other professional duties is subject to the absolute limit of 1265.
The STPCD and Part-time Teachers
17. The STPCD provides for part-time teachers to be paid, on a pro-rata basis, the pay rate they would receive if employed full time in the same post. The percentage of the full- time pay rate must be calculated on the basis of the ‘school’s timetabled teaching week’ (STTW) – its total weekly teaching hours – and the proportion of those which the teacher is deemed to work.
18. The STPCD provides that full-time classroom teachers (ie all those except leadership group teachers and ASTs) are required to be available for work for a maximum of 1265 hours of directed time.
19. The percentage obtained in the pay calculation is also used to determine part time teachers’ directed time obligations. They will be required to be available for work for the same percentage of 1265 hours as the percentage of full time pay.
20. This percentage of 1265 hours of directed time will cover both the total teaching time and the non-teaching duties undertaken by the part time teacher.
21. For example, a part-time teacher who works 15 teaching hours in a STTW of 25 hours will be entitled to be paid 60% of the appropriate full time pay rate. That part time teacher would be expected to be available for work for a maximum of 759 hours of directed time (60% of 1265 hours). Of this, there would be a maximum of 570 hours of teaching time (15 hours for 38 weeks of term time) and a maximum of 189 hours (759 hours – 570 hours) for directed time for non-teaching duties.
22. These provisions on working time do not apply to part-time leadership group teachers and ASTs, as they are not covered by the STPCD working time provisions for classroom teachers. The STPCD advises only that the workload of part-time leadership group teachers and ASTs should be reasonable and that they should be treated fairly in comparison with their full-time equivalents.
23. NUT members who work part time are strongly urged to consult the full briefing ‘Part Time Teachers: Pay and Working Time’, available in the school teachers’ conditions section of the NUT website www.teachers.org.uk.
Examples of a directed time budget for a full time classroom teacher in the primary sector without additional responsibilitiesPlease note this is simply an example. The way in which the time is allocated for different aspects of a teacher’s working day will clearly vary between schools. What is important is that the issue is given careful consideration and that the total directed hours, including contingency time, does not exceed 1265 hours. Note that the teaching time figure is what remains after PPA time has been allocated. Prior to the introduction of PPA time, teachers in this school taught for 22.5 hours per week. Their allocation of PPA time is slightly over 10per cent of this figure.
Use of Hours Number of Hours per Year
Registration ½ hr x 190 days 95
Mid-Session Break ¼ hr x 190 days 47½
Teaching Time 20 hrs per week 760
(4 hrs x 190 days)
PPA Time 2½ hrs per week 95
INSET days 5 hrs x 5 days 25
Supervisory duties 30 mins x 190 days 95
(includes 10 minutes before the
start of the morning session,
5 minutes at either end of the
lunch break and 10 minutes
at the end of the school day.)
Parents meetings and 3 hrs x 4 days 12
Open evenings
Staff meetings 1 hr x 37 days 37
Other duties of the 25 mins x 190 days 79 hrs 10 mins
Teacher (e.g. individual
pupil issues, e-mail
correspondence)
TOTAL
1245 hrs 40 mins
Contingencies (a cushion of 19 hrs 20 mins
time available for unforeseen
circumstances.)
Note that the head teacher in this school has not allocated 1265 hours of directed time to this teacher. A cushion of just over 19 hours has been reserved for emergencies and unplanned events. It is only if the teacher is directed to work during this cushion of time that the 1265 hour limit will be reached.
Example of directed time budget for a full time classroom teacher (with a form group) in the secondary sector without additional responsibilities. Please note that this is simply an example. The way in which time is allocated for different aspects of a teacher’s working day will vary between schools. What is important is that the issue is given careful consideration and that the total directed hours, including contingency time, does not exceed 1265 hours.
Use of hours / Minutes / HoursRegistrations / 25 mins x 190 days / 79.2 hours
Mid session breaks / 5 x 20 mins x 38 weeks = 3800 mins / 63.3 hours
Teaching time (includes PPA time) / 25 lessons x 55 mins = 1375 mins x 38 weeks / 870.8 hours
INSET days / 5 hours x 5 days / 25 hours
Duties
· 10 mins start/end of day
+ 5 mins either end of lunch / 30 mins x 190 days = 5700 mins / 95 hours
Parents’ Meetings / open evenings / 3 hours x 5 days / 15 hours
Staff Meetings / 1 hour x 37 weeks / 37 hours
Pupil support / individual pupil issues / 1 x 55 mins x 38 weeks = 2090 mins / 34.8 hours
TOTAL / 1220.1 hours
Contingency / 44.9 hours *
OVERALL TOTAL / 1265 hours
* can be adapted for teacher with TLRs and management and leadership time, for example.
24. Head teachers have the power to direct teachers in the school on every one of the 195 specified days to undertake duties, “at such times and in such places as specified”. This is the significance of the word “directed”. Hours devoted to all such duties qualify as directed time and count towards the overall limit of 1265.