DfE considering making teachers work for free to make up for lack of catch-up funding

[noblegiraffe]

With the upcoming spending review looking like it will hit education hard with little extra cash for catch-up, the DfE is reportedly now considering simply making teachers do it for free.

They are considering a proposal to remove the 1265 hours cap on teachers ‘directed time’ which would mean schools could add hours to the school day and just timetable teachers to teach them for no extra pay.

This, to a sector which is already critically short of teachers, will only damage recruitment further, and push more teachers out of the profession.

They are flailing around trying to come up with solutions to problems of their own making that will, in fact, only make things worse. Absolute idiots.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/01/dfe-considering-return-of-sats-at-14-and-axing-teaching-hours-limits

Extraordinary behaviour from a brand new Education Secretary.

This is bad, however to be honest in practice I'm not sure how much it'll change as teachers already work way beyond their specified hours. But yes certainly not a good sign!!

I’m despairing. Like we haven’t had a shit 2 years, I love my job but the workload is already overwhelming as it is.

The acceleration of academisation and extra powers for OFSTED is also worrying.

We work way beyond specified hours already, I don’t think they’d be removing any of our current workload to add in this extra. This would be on top.

@Isabellabasil

This is bad, however to be honest in practice I'm not sure how much it'll change as teachers already work way beyond their specified hours. But yes certainly not a good sign!!

I was thinking that, but all the extra stuff we do won’t get less this is just adding more lessons to that as well so it will be worse

....and watch the education system collapse as teachers leave in their thousands.

It'll never happen though, the unions will see to that.

If they give me extra work to do as directed time I will stop doing some of the stuff I am already expected to do. I can do that though, as an experienced maths teacher, because I know my school can't replace me very easily so they'll let me get away with a lot more than teachers in non-shortage subjects.

This is ridiculous. As a school governor, I will certainly be resisting putting our teachers under any more pressure than they're already under. Things are hard enough as they are.

Parents should be up in arms about this and demand that the government funds any catch up provision properly. We will do our kids no favours by working their teachers into the ground.

@Isabellabasil

This is bad, however to be honest in practice I'm not sure how much it'll change as teachers already work way beyond their specified hours. But yes certainly not a good sign!!

The trouble is that the work teachers already have to do beyond their directed time will still be the same but they will have to work longer directed hours on top of this. It was suggested in the article that Zahari wants to emulate Michael Gove's position of taking a stand against the teaching profession. DH is a secondary school teacher and recruitment is already dire. He is Head of Business and Economics and they haven't been able to recruit a Business or Economics teacher for over a year, despite repeated advertising and offering the highest salary available. My eldest DC has just started secondary and I really worry about the quality of education if it becomes even harder to recruit teachers.

I just cannot understand a government that wilfully sets out to destroy its country's education system. Most countries are trying to improve the education of its citizens.

Wasn't extra hours in school actually a fairly unpopular policy with parents, particularly among the red wall constituencies?

This will just stop all of the enrichment and extra-curricular clubs that teachers already do for free in their lunchtimes and after school. If I get extra lessons added to my timetable I will stop my year 11 revision lessons that I currently do in my own time, for free (lunch time, after school and school holidays). In the end it will do more harm than good.

@bizboz

I just cannot understand a government that wilfully sets out to destroy its country's education system. Most countries are trying to improve the education of its citizens.

I don't get it either, it seems really short sighted to me too, you'd think they would want to be churning out well.educated kids who then go on to decent jobs and pay lots of tax

Very worrying!

I’ve been in the profession for ten years and love the kids and the heart and soul of teaching. However, I’ve regularly done 55-60 hours a week and work for a full day almost every weekend. Now I have my own child (about to return after may leave), I don’t think it’s fair that I’m expected to do all these extra hours unpaid, at the expense of spending time with my own child who will already been in nursery for five days a week.

Those 55-60 hours are not me acing my workload, they are me just about treading water! I’ve been considering leaving the professional to get my family life back of track for a while but thought I’d at least see how things go for a few months before making any final decisions. If this comes to fruition, that will be my mind made up and sadly the decision of many others I know who feel in the same position.

Strike strike strike

Zahawi was told that his priority on taking the Ed Sec job should be to attempt to repair the damage in the relationship between the DfE and teachers which has got a lot worse under Gavin Williamson.

If he's going to take that advice seriously, he needs to come out in response to this and say 'of course I'm not considering making teachers work extra hours for free, that would be ludicrous as their workload is already an issue'.

STRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE

I eagerly await the NEU & NASWUT statements.... Worthless crap unions that they seem to be becoming, I hope they actually stop this from happening.

Strike!

Teachers have put up with an awful lot of crap from the government in recent years, but this might actually be something they would strike over (and be allowed to strike over as it involves pay and conditions).

Strike

Disgusting.

The main problem is that the treasury, Rishi Sunak, won’t give the money needed for catch up funding. It’s needed. Our children’s education has been disrupted for two years.

Have people forgotten home schooling and crying that we couldn’t be teachers?! Teachers are professionals and should be treated as such.

I will support teachers if they strike. I hate the way this government has destroyed the morale of the profession. As a country we are one of the worst in how we treat our teachers.

How did we end up here?

I just cannot understand a government that wilfully sets out to destroy its country's education system. Most countries are trying to improve the education of its citizens

Because they’re mainly people who’ve not needed to use state schools.

This will just stop all of the enrichment and extra-curricular clubs that teachers already do for free in their lunchtimes and after school. If I get extra lessons added to my timetable I will stop my year 11 revision lessons that I currently do in my own time, for free

This. For most teachers there simply aren't any more hours so lesson planning, marking and what few extras are left will disappear.

@noblegiraffe

Zahawi was told that his priority on taking the Ed Sec job should be to attempt to repair the damage in the relationship between the DfE and teachers which has got a lot worse under Gavin Williamson.

If he's going to take that advice seriously, he needs to come out in response to this and say 'of course I'm not considering making teachers work extra hours for free, that would be ludicrous as their workload is already an issue'.

It isn't rocket science, is it?

We have a recruitment and retention crisis in teaching, partly because of the workload, and the government's response is to make teachers work more for free...

Daft idea. Won't happen. Teachers will strike at the first proposal.