Teachers' 35-hour week rejected

Teachers will not get a limit to the working week

Teachers in England and Wales are expected to get guaranteed time within the school day to prepare and mark lessons - but not the limit to the working week they have demanded.

A long-awaited report on workload from the School Teachers Review Body, which advises the government on pay and conditions, has apparently gone along with ministers' wish that there should be no limit to the working week.

Non-teaching duties

photocopying

chasing absentees

collecting money

processing attendance figures

doing exam timetables and results

sorting out work placements

basic computer repairs

stock-taking

taking minutes at meetings

arranging cover for absent teachers

producing class lists and standard letters.

Teachers' unions are demanding a limit of 35 hours, as won by Scottish teachers last year.

The Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, has described the idea as "potty" - but union conferences this Easter voted to ballot for industrial action on the issue.

So the scene is set for possible action in schools in the autumn.  

The review body's report is due to be published on Wednesday afternoon. 

Joint-union campaign

It stemmed from a work-to-rule a year ago by the two biggest classroom unions, the NUT and NASUWT, over the issue of covering for absent colleagues as the staff shortages in many parts of England worsened.

The then education secretary, David Blunkett, commissioned management consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers to report on teachers' workload.

That study endorsed the claim of primary school teachers, in particular, that they were working up to 60 hours a week - although it said that, once their long holidays were taken into account, teachers worked similar hours to other professions over the course of a year.

Estelle Morris said a 35-hour week was "potty"

A survey just published by the NASUWT of teachers in Wales - mostly in secondary schools - suggests that almost all work more than 40 hours a week, with 37.5% saying they do more than 50 hours and 12.5% more than 60.

Almost all said they worked in the school holidays and at weekends.

The new review body report is expected to back ministers' views that teachers should have so-called "non-contact" time - time away from children to do such things as plan lessons.

The unions had argued that this meant, in practice, that there had to be a limit to their working hours - because what use was guaranteed preparation time late in the evening, for example.

Education ministers said this did not necessarily follow.

But it is understood that the review body report does say the planning and marking time must be within the school timetable - between the hours of 0900 and 1600.

Shift to primary schools

The earlier workload study said secondary school teachers typically got three hours a week, but primary school teachers only 50 minutes.

Secondary schools are concerned that the new recommendation might signal a shift of funds from them to the primary sector.

Much will depend in any case on the outcome of the government's comprehensive spending review later this summer.

The review body is also expected to list the sorts of duties that teachers should not have to do.

This is thought to include such things as photocopying, chasing absentees, collecting money, processing attendance figures, taking care of exam timetables and results, sorting out work experience placements, basic computer repairs, stock-taking, taking minutes at meetings, arranging cover for absent teachers and producing class lists and standard letters.

'Cutting red tape'

A spokesman for the Department of Education and Skills said: "Freeing up teachers to teach by cutting red tape and using support staff to back up teachers is a core part of our mission to raise standards even further.

"Teachers and parents both want teachers spending more time teaching and less time doing routine administration and red tape."

Head teachers' leaders say heads would regard that as good practice anyway - if they had the resources to be able to employ enough support staff.

The government says there are 26,000 more support staff now than a year ago.

But a recent report by the inspectorate, Ofsted, said that having to manage support staff could actually increase teachers' workloads.

The study found that assistants in England now spent more time helping children with literacy and numeracy leaving them with less time for helping teachers with administrative chores.