Schools to be judged on their extra-curricular activities. Get in the bin, Bridget.

[noblegiraffe]

"The Department for Education will publish a new set of enrichment benchmarks for schools across five categories: civic engagement, arts and culture, nature, outdoor and adventure, sport and physical activities and developing wider life skills.
Ofsted will consider whether schools are meeting the expectations as part of its inspections, with information made available to parents through new school profiles, the Department for Education added."

This is nothing to do with the curriculum review that has just come out.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/another-expectation-schools-to-be-judged-on-enrichment-benchmarks/

Fuck off. Extra-curricular activities are put on by teachers for free and in our own time. They cannot be an expectation when they are voluntary and unpaid. Should we publish a league table of how MPs meet benchmarks of volunteering and charity work on a weekend and in their holidays?

And if you are cutting school funding (schools are going to be told they have to fund future teacher pay rises out of their budgets by making 'efficiency savings' like there are any possible savings left to be made after the Tories cut everything), then you cannot demand that we do more.

Phillipson is apparently also unhappy that some schools are closing before 3:30pm. Yes, because they can't afford to keep the lights on that long.

You want extra stuff, you have to pay for it.

More absolute nonsense from someone who has no idea how schools actually work. Why should teachers give up even more of their unpaid time for nothing?!

Can I ask - when you say they’re put on for free and in your own time, what does that mean?

Do you mean your salary only covers you for school hours eg 9-3.30? Or your teaching hours, or you’re using up more planning time, or something else?

Otherwise it’s hard to judge whether it’s unreasonable…

I’m a big fan of extra-curriculars but this is very unreasonable, I would expect the primary focus of school should be actual schooling. I get this may be a way to ensure that children have equal access to opportunities but it seems impractical. If teachers want to do it after school then it’s reasonable to expect either central government funding or for parents to be charged for it.

It is unpaid time. A recent survey found that on average teachers work around 50 hours a week, though the pay is for 32.5 directed hours. It is salaried, which means extra hours are often expected and actually the job wouldn't be doable without doing extra hours.
Interestingly, most teachers are happy to try to offer a club once a week, this policy completely and very unfairly takes advantage of that. Teachers are already leaving, it's mind-boggling that this is considered at all appropriate. Extra curricular activities and life skills should not fall solely on schools to provide.

Our school does masses of After School clubs, so nothing new for us. The library is also open until 16.30 every day for study, homework club and help with reading. Most teachers also run GCSE top up sessions every week. There are nightly rehearsals for the school musical and Christmas concert. PE have fixtures after school and numerous team training sessions. There is a chess Horticultural club, Science for Fun club, Art Club, Craft Club, Business Enterprise Club, Band and Orchestra clubs, Jumior choir, Board Games, Cadet Club, Textile design Club - I could go on and on. And when I arrive at 7.50, the staff car park is filling up. We run loads of visits to various places and several overseas trips every year. I don’t think we will need to change anything.
And unlike NHS workers, no one gets overtime or unsocial hours payments…..

Teachers already work long hours, if they do a club (prep, delivery, clear up) that is either an additional task or they stop doing something they are already doing.

People like to pretend teachers only work school hours. This is not true - outside the school day they have prep, marking, organisation, meetings etc. etc.

Bridget “thick as mince” Phillipson strikes again. “Extra” means “outside” in the phrase extra-curricular, Bridge. As in: keep your snout out, nowt to do with you and your shitshow of a department. You want all that to be mandated, then put it in the curriculum, and pay for it.

Seriously? Ours are either external providers, or teachers, but very much paid! Teachers get about £3 per hour (£2 go to school and include a snack) and child, so quite a nice extra (between 10 and 25 children - rarely less than 15), so about £30-£75 before tax), we are in the southeast. Not all teachers do them either.
Its really your schools problem if they don’t pay teachers!
The only exception are lunch time clubs, they are free.

Well done to your school. I've worked with many schools over the years amd never come across one that pays teachers for clubs, sadly I suspect it is incredibly rare as most simply couldn't afford it.

This is not the norm.

The latest from BP has made me so so cross. What more does she think teachers have left to give?

I won't be voting Labour again after this. It's like they took everything anyone said, ignored it, and did what they liked.

The sort of thing that the independent schools that she hates are particularly good at basically.
IMO all schools should be doing things.

Same for us. My DD has been at two primary schools because we moved, and both have paid for extra curricular activities. For example, both schools have PE run by an external provider, and that external provider ran after school sports clubs that we paid for. At her old school they also had another company offer after school drama club. I wouldn’t expect free extra curricular clubs.

Independent schools get fees to pay for them. Where are you expecting state schools to produce clubs from? The magic money tree?

You pay extra for any clubs outside school hours at independent schools too. Usually around £8-10 per session either before or after school.

It means that you get paid nothing extra for running clubs, trips, societies.

See my post - they’re not included in fees. Oh - and parents have to pay VAT on them too, and on holiday camps where they’re “educational” in nature rather than childcare.

So I assume there should be VAT on any paid for provision in state schools too…

I think all these things are very very important. Drama, music, art, sport, dance, culture. But it should be PART OF THE CURRICULUM.

our schools after school offerings are supported by parents. So it'll just be another measure of class (are there parents who have time to teach chess)

Please do keep in mind that just because parents are paying for clubs does not mean the teaching or support staff who run them are actually getting paid. Schools have been encouraged to charge for clubs as part of creating 'self-generated income' in order to balance their budgets. I do not know of a single school that pays teachers or support staff anything out of this pot.

I knew this was coming. My Head is an inspector and it is now on our School Development Plan and DDP (and our appraisals) that all staff must run a club.

Yes I appreciate that. In our school the clubs are not run by teachers. We pay the school, and they pay the external provider.

Parents might pay for it.I doubt the staff see the money in most state schools.

I agree they are important, but all of those things are already in the extremely overloaded curriculum.

Even the teacher hours aside, do children really need more activities?! The cirriculum is already extremely demanding on children, even compared to when I was at primary school in the 2000s. Kids need down time to just be kids, and not subjected to more organised activities.

I do think this is something that all schools should have on offer as there are clear benefits for the children.

I find it quite sad that the first reaction from teachers on here is about your pay not about whether it’s good for the students and if so, how it might be made to work.

There's an academy chain near us that has so many extra curriculars and trips
on offer. But parents pay for them. A lot of money is involved.

Ofsted praise them for all the opportunities and trips and plays etc but it really winds me up. Because they are paid for activities and quite pricey, so the children who participate and those who don't are 2 distinct groups.

It's private school on the stealth really. If you get in multiple private businesses to run flash plays and musicals and offer exciting sports etc, but the cost falls only to parents and then Ofsted bigs it all up and says that makes you a better school...

The same academy chain has much higher directed hours requirement too. So it's the teachers footing the bill for the 'free' clubs at lunchtimes and before and after school in thise cases. Some might call that exploitation.