Teachers to get marking time

Teachers will not get a limit to the working week

Teachers shouldn't be given a 35-hour working week - but they SHOULD have time set aside to do marking and prepare lessons.

That's the recommendation that the School Teachers Review Body is expected to make to ministers when it publishes a major review of the profession's workload later today.

A range of measures aimed at freeing up teachers to teach, and reducing their workloads are to be outlined later today.

So just how demanding is the job? Breakfast spent the day with one teacher to find out.

We spoke to Chris Woodhead, the former Chief Inspector of Schools and Ray O'Neill, who is a science teacher in Hounslow.

"I'm against national bodies imposing conditions...it is a matter for individual schools."

Chris Woodhead said:The announcement today deals with the symptoms not the causes, the problem is a deep rooted political interference, there are too many initiatives pouring into schools for the teachers to deal with...it is a matter for individual schools to deal with their workload, I'm against national bodies imposing conditions, the debate needs to shift to disruptive pupils, it is important to exclude them and provide alternative specialist teaching for these pupils.

"You can't have our Scottish counterparts being treated better than teachers over here."

Ray O'Neill said: A limitation on overall hours would allow prioritisation. We're getting overloaded with initiatives, we are in a situation where our Scottish counterparts are being better treated than we are, teachers getting vast holidays is a misnomer, we probably get the same as everyone else, as we do alot of preparation during some of the school holidays...

And we also spoke to David Hart, the general secretary of the National Association of Head teachers. He said:

We don't support a 35 hour week...it isn't possible we think there should be an annualised week, with Head Teachers having a regard to annual week and an appreciation to work/life balance. There should be guaranteed non teaching time, it will relieve pressure...hours should be brought back to some reality...cutting of bureaucracy would help.

(Click on the video icon on the top right hand corner of this page to watch the above interviews)

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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 have been demanding a limit of 35 hours, as won by Scottish teachers last year.

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

The scene is set, therefore, for possible industrial 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 industrial action 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.