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

I had no anecdotes for physics, no deep knowledge. It's the kids that suffer, in the end. But until the public see it for what it really is, system failure, and not another "crap teacher", nothing will change.

@MasterGland

Ah, but as any biology teacher desperately trying to teach themselves how to do bloody ray diagrams(at midnight) will tell you... they aren't that fussed about specialists either. Most scientists are signed on general science teacher contracts. PE teachers teaching maths etc. If you have an A Level in it... you're good to go.

Absolutely. I wonder how much the general public is aware of this? I've previously taught subjects I don't even have GCSEs in, nevermind A Levels!

@bizboz I think we have to conclude that it suits the Tories to command an ill-educated, poverty-riddled, ground-down electorate because those are the sorts of people who won't have time for the sort of critical thinking that's needed to see through the Tories' claims of 'levelling up'.

I think there would still be a cost to schools of having a longer day even if the teachers are doing it for free. Certainly any TAs or admin on site are paid hourly. If schools run after school clubs or do lettings it would reduce the revenue as less people would need them. Caretakers would end up locking up later as it woukd shuft teacher prep and cleaning contracts would shift and that can put the prices up because ours charge more for later in the say as they do offices then.
So many school simply couldnt afford this anyway. Maybe a quick skeleton 30 mins twice a week of literacy catch up on pupil premium children. This is a primary school perspective. We make quite a lot from our external clubs that run til 4.

The last state school I worked at was always a bit "creative" with directed time, anyway. They once had a slide up during INSET which was like "this is the new compulsory initiative, but that other thing was only 50 mins, if you credit that, subtract that other thing, divide by the sum of this... it falls within directed time"

My school is the same, we attend 4 briefings a week, do a days worth of duty (before school, break, after school), department meeting and if you are one of the core subjects, you get the honour of being forced into running revision catch up session after school too. The other subjects don't have to but we aren't allowed to moan because it's part of the 1265...let's all ignore how unfair that is shall we OH! And if you teach year 11 you get to do double the amount of parents evenings So if you are an options subject teacher, who doesn't teach year11, it's a much better place to work.

Our 1265 has been challenged so many times by the unions but school always makes it so complicated we never bloody win.

@Elephantsparade

I think there would still be a cost to schools of having a longer day even if the teachers are doing it for free. Certainly any TAs or admin on site are paid hourly. If schools run after school clubs or do lettings it would reduce the revenue as less people would need them. Caretakers would end up locking up later as it woukd shuft teacher prep and cleaning contracts would shift and that can put the prices up because ours charge more for later in the say as they do offices then. So many school simply couldnt afford this anyway. Maybe a quick skeleton 30 mins twice a week of literacy catch up on pupil premium children. This is a primary school perspective. We make quite a lot from our external clubs that run til 4.

Our school can’t afford TAs in the afternoon, I suspect this will just be 1 teacher to 30+ children for as many hours as possible. Childcare.

@over2021

There will be little public support for teachers on this. Average Joe who works in an office with 28 days holiday will work closer to 1800 hours.

Whilst I don't think teaching is an easy job I also don't think it's the hardest by a long mile.

I think Average Joe can understand what it means to be forced to work longer hours for no extra pay.

@Viviennemary

Gosh it was only light hearted. I got a bit sick of all the multiple teacher moanings in lockdown which has eased off considerably. Thank goodness. Sorry.

Oh. It's you. Again.

I have a PhD in Physics and QTS status. I no longer teach and now work from home, fully flexibly 3 days a week and this was my contract pre-pandemic. I earn an equivalent wage to what I would be if I was teaching full time, except now I work 7.5 hours for 3 days and when I was teaching I worked 10 hours for 6 days.

There is a reason they can't retain physics and maths specialists. This will not help the problem in the slightest.

@echt

Exactly. My payslip says 32.5 hours a week. I usually do 55-60. Even when you average out holidays it doesn’t make up for it. I will work on average 3/5 days in a holiday. This isn’t me making it up, I have recently started to keep a log. I’ve done this job for ten years and I’m honestly getting to the point where I’m wondering why. Do I want to work in a profession where it’s just accepted that you won’t get a break between 8am and 4pm. Why have I accepted that I won’t get to eat my lunch until 4pm? I’m sure in any profession, this might happen every now and then but every day!?! In most industries, some of the days I’ve worked are completely illegal but it doesn’t seem to matter in teaching.
Perhaps it would be more acceptable with the odd thank you or the odd reward but nothing. Just relentless hours that don’t even get you to the point where you are on top of your workload. I feel like I’m falling out of love with a career that I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid. In just wish the dept of education would work with teachers instead of against us all the time. Part of my job includes monitoring other teachers and training new ones and there is such a wealth of knowledge and a real passion out there but it’s slowing being killed of by people in power who are clueless about the job and have unrealistic expectations with the parameters given. So sad and I desperately hope that the government get their act together on this and work out how to encourage those talented teachers who are considering leaving the profession (of which there are many) to stay.

Part of me thinks the gov like to put these sorts of ideas out there to reinforce the idea teachers work 9 til 3 only. In reality in all the secondary schools I've worked at the school day doesn't end at 3pm for all students anyway. In one school we were squabbling over which teachers could have year 11 timetabled for an extra hour after school once a week (different subjects each day, so most of the week year 11 were there until 4pm). With no additional pay or frees to accommodate that...but there we were making cases for why we should have the time allocated. Of course subjects like PE are consistently working til 4/5pm at fixtures a few days a week too.

This in my experience is commonplace, and of course ramps up in the lead up to exams - the dfe can't be that detached from reality to think teachers actually work their 'set' hours plus directed time only? I do wonder if there's some sort of other agenda for these sorts of plans. I can't work out what, but I can't see how they can think it's workable. The results will either be a worsening recruitment/retention crisis and/or poorer quality lessons begining designed due to lack of time.

I also don't understand why the media/public isn't up in arms about the funding for schools. It feels like there was a little bit of fall out after KC resigned then nothing. No fuss. Now there's talk of more squeezes on the education budget from the treasury and rumours the dfe didn't submit an application for catch up funding to the treasury. If true it's unbelievable! This level of incompetence isn't tolerated in classrooms - why is it tolerated from the dfe?

Lololol. Watch them crank up the begging emails to Irish (and beyond, I'm sure) teachers begging them to come work in the tip top education system of the world. We'll be flooding over to fill the vacant roles, I'm sure.

...all jokes aside, you English teachers have put up with far too much shit as it is. I don't know how anyone bears the system.

No one is considering the children at all. My Y11 ds does finish at 3 - but he starts at 8.30 and has 30 minutes for lunch. There’s no room for an extended day there, after an hour in the bus. It would properlycement any thought about voting non-Tory though, he’s far more political than I ever was at that age. So very cloud, I guess!

every

Forcing people to work for free is called enslavement.
I don’t always like teachers or schools - I think all professions have lost their way and forgotten what they are there for - but carry right on if you actually want to force a rebellion. Schools are bloody awful places to work in with all the demands for the pay offered, especially for newly qualified teachers and support staff.

This is a difficult one as clearly there are millions of DC needing catch-up support. Even if the funding was available, there just isn’t the number of private tutors available.

I think it therefore is perfectly reasonable to ask teachers to step up and provide this support- they are the ones who know their students after all.

I’m not sure it’s a good strategy for the unions to complain about removing the directed time limit.

I suspect the government may well say (accurately in some cases) that teachers have directed time to make up from the period when schools were closed on any event! I know from anecdotal experience that some staff certainly were not fulfilling the directed time requirement!

I suspect the government may well say (accurately in some cases) that teachers have directed time to make up from the period when schools were closed on any event!
Since directed time works on the basis of an academic year, that's not going to fly.

I think it therefore is perfectly reasonable to ask teachers to step up and provide this support- they are the ones who know their students after all.

And perfectly reasonable to be expected to be paid for the additional hours? Some people are already being paid money to provide catch-up tutoring by the government so why should anyone else then be expected to do it for free?

@GreenLakes

This is a difficult one as clearly there are millions of DC needing catch-up support. Even if the funding was available, there just isn’t the number of private tutors available.

I think it therefore is perfectly reasonable to ask teachers to step up and provide this support- they are the ones who know their students after all.

I’m not sure it’s a good strategy for the unions to complain about removing the directed time limit.

I suspect the government may well say (accurately in some cases) that teachers have directed time to make up from the period when schools were closed on any event! I know from anecdotal experience that some staff certainly were not fulfilling the directed time requirement!

I do about 25 hours of 'stepping up' for free each week. Why do school staff not deserve to be paid to 'step up?'

@BlackeyedSusan

The last strike I remember is when DD was in year 2. She is in Y11 now. Annoyingly, my school loving child's teacher was on strike so cried, but my school hating child's teacher was in and they cried too.

I don't think teachers can win this, the backlash would be horrendous after the disruption. I just can't believe anyone thinks this is acceptable.

Teachers will just leave. We need teachers to stay.

Quoting myself now I am less bunged up with a cold but the "this" I was referencing was making teachers work extra is unacceptable. (Sorry for any confusion and any pissing anyone off)

I think it therefore is perfectly reasonable to ask teachers to step up and provide this support- they are the ones who know their students after all.

For free when others are being paid to provide the support?

In which hours of the day? Because my life is full at the moment. More directed hours would mean worse lessons, not better.

Can't imagine why so many teachers leave the profession this is despicable

Since directed time works on the basis of an academic year, that's not going to fly.

I'd love to know where that person thinks the extra hours in the day to do the catch up will come from. Will English teachers live in some sort of strange limbo where suddenly, each day is 36 hours long?

@SionnachRua it sometimes feels like that already!

I worked for 28 years as a teacher, became a HoF, school governor etc. Worked up to 100 hours a week in term time and much of my holidays. I joined in the era when the unions had some integrity and clout, and all lessons had to be delivered by a QTS teacher.

In the course of my career, I saw the (carefully pre-planned) assault on education by the arch-hypocrite Blair who enabled non-QTS staff to 'teach lessons'. I saw straight away that this was the thin end of a dangerous wedge. I believe that this was approx. 2006?, correct me if I'm wrong.

I worked in the most deprived area of the most deprived town in Hertfordshire. I had some absolutely fantastic colleagues who were both QTS and non-QTS, everyone tried their level best to hold it all together, as teachers do.

By the time I quit the 'profession' in 2015, I had witnessed:

• the absolute destruction of any union power
• the widespread use of unqualified staff across the subject range to 'teach' subjects even as important as Maths, English and Science
• the destruction of supply teaching, and the absolute exploitation of the few supply teachers used
• an increase in SLT roles and numbers with no corresponding improvement in services for children and/or outcomes
• academisation being seen as the holy grail when in fact it led to outsourced 'services' in which catering and site staff were utterly exploited

My nearest secondary school currently has one qualified teacher of Maths, who is the HoD, all other teachers are unqualified. This suits the agenda of the school's 'management team' who view these staff as grateful to have a job, more familiar with the students and families, and more stable than qualified staff, temporary or permanent, and more malleable to their agenda.

I absolutely despair of the state of the 'profession' - oh no, I believe we were told by Mr Gove in approx. 2011 that we were no longer a 'profession'.

Schools WILL be able to fill these extra hours, but it won't be with qualified teachers. Many people are desperate for term-time jobs and are grabbed, interesting especially if they are male and have a pulse.

I would not recommend anyone to become a qualified teacher in 2021.