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.

Our school (state primary) does loads of extra curricular but not free (about £60 a term for each thing) and all external providers. They sell out immediately. We have art, drama, dance, coding, karate plus a load of sports options. Honestly never knew it was more normal for them to be free.

Oh actually choir is run by the music teacher - it's not free to use but it's less than the others (£10 a term) not sure if he's paid extra to run it, I hope he is.

Edited to add - if you're a FSM family then you get one free club a term.

• Reed Smith (UK): In 2023, UK lawyers at the firm worked 24,258 pro bono hours, with the average per lawyer being 77 hours.
• DLA Piper: All lawyers and trainees are encouraged to do at least 20 to 50 pro bono hours every year.
• Addleshaw Goddard (UK): Lawyers can dedicate up to 50 hours annually to pro bono work.
• New York Bar: Applicants must complete a minimum of 50 hours of pro bono work to be admitted to the bar.
• Bar Council (UK): In 2018, barristers contributed nearly 11,000 pro bono hours.

Does the government benchmark their companies based on how much stuff they do for free?

What's your job? Whatever it is you now have to work in a charity shop during your lunch hour and if you don't your firm will be named and shamed.

A teacher is contracted to deliver a certain number of lessons or a certain number of hours. They prep / mark outside those teaching hours, they also attend meetings, have training etc.

If they choose to they may run an extra curricular activity. They are not paid any more for doing this, they do not get any more time for prep / marking. All they get is that usually the school allows them to use the building / playground.

The school may fund some of the activity be supplying things like musical instruments or allow the use of PE equipment.

Yes you may pay for some activities but the teacher doesn't get any of that. In the same way if your child goes to scouts you pay subs but the volunteer leader does not get paid.

If your children go on a residential over half term then the teacher who takes them is doing it in their holiday time.

Slightly off topic, but this isn’t the case in all independent schools. I’ve never had to pay any fees for extra curricular clubs at the independent schools I’ve had experience of.

I work through my lunch hour, as does everyone else I know …“for free”… by your definition… I just see it as getting the job done and don’t whinge about it. If I have to work evening or weekends I do… it’s not an option not to get the job done. And the job is constantly changing as the world and customers change.

Perhaps I’m being exploited too. Maybe we are all being exploited. What shall we do?

I’ve worked for 12 years in teaching and now 10 years in the private sector. Absolutely love it when people compare them and think teachers have it easy. Go and be one then? You’re in for a shock.

‘But it’s for the kids!’ Guilt being piled on is one of the reasons I left.
Being expected to work for free is another. And when you do run them for free (or actually end up paying to run them as you need childcare for your own children) then parents pick their kids up late, or send them without equipment which you end up paying for (because you know this will happen and have bought - with your own money I stress - spares), complain and moan about how you run it for free because their kid hasn’t got in a team or whatever and then they post on social media about how horrible you are.

Interesting. We’ve been at four and they’ve all been extra unless it’s sports team training or in lunchtime.

No, you can't work through your lunch hour and get your own work done, like most teachers do, because you're now working in the charity shop and shame on you if you don't.

You can complete your own work later. Them's the rules.

I normally run a club most years. In only one school has it been compulsory (an independent one). At the moment I'm running a subject based club for sixth-formers once a week (which they wanted, and they do the presentations). In practical terms it means I don't get a lunchbreak and need to do a register and award everyone present a house point (this is so SLT can track attendance of disadvantaged students at clubs) and tidy the room quickly so it's ready for afternoon lessons.

I think the club's great for students and it gets year 12s and 13s talking - otherwise they can be a bit silo-ed. It lets me know them better too.

It does mean I'm working from 7.45am to around 4.30pm and then again for 2-3 hours in the evening. That's quite legal I suppose as there's a morning break. I guess the expectation is you can plan/mark work from 4-5 hours of lessons a day... in your one hour or so free a week (I rely on my unpaid day "off" personally).

A 35 minute break at lunchtime does make a difference to how I feel.

I would be annoyed to be told it was compulsory to miss lunch. As I'm 80% FTE I would also cancel the club every 5th week, because schools never take "indivisible" activities into account when it comes to part timers.

I haven't seen "directed time" figures for about 10 years.

I realise my post is mostly about me but it is also in my students' interests that I think long term and don't collapse. If I did, they'd be unlikely to be able to get a new subject expert as we are now very few.

I also don't get paid extra/at all/given time for looking after trainees but I make time as I am worried about the future.

And all of these firms pay their people a lot more and they're doing their pro bono work on the company time.
Running chess club on Tuesday at 3.30 is not the same.

I’ve just been listening to the BBC on the proposed changes. Some of them sound ridiculous.

Dropping the EBacc. This is bound to reduce the number of pupils taking foreign languages or humanities at GCSE level. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Apparently, Phillipson wants to broaden the curriculum so more pupils can do things like music/art etc. Since this government have come to power, they’ve cut funding for music and art in schools.

Science. She wants all schools to offer separate sciences, to free up curriculum time. How does offering 3 sciences, rather than double, free up curriculum time? Presumably she’s thinking that pupils will only take up one or two of the sciences. How is this good?

We do clubs in our lunch break or after school. We don't get paid for time we take the kids on trips which might run longer than the school day eg theatre trips and we definitely don't get paid for the time we spend on residential visits. The nature of the club I run means there are a few Saturdays during the year I have to spend with the students taking part in a national competition. I also put on booster classes for my Y11s and 13s which run outside of school time. I'm happy to give up my time as I want to run these things for the kids, for them to have all the enrichment activities possible and my SLT are very thankful that I and my colleagues do all this but it is exhausting. BP is talking out of her backside

So kids are charity now. Nice.

My DD chooses to go on all the school trips, but clubs after school or break time she will not do. She already has three extra curricular activities outside school. You cannot force the children to take part.

You could join a union. I'm sure they'll have opinions on this.

Is there a requirement for each school's teachers to provide the extra curricular activity, or can it be offered by external providers? That's a key question. When my DC went through school, a few clubs were offered by teachers, but the vast majority were paid for and externally provided.

Teachers went on strike in the 80s to get a protected lunch break.

So much teachers do for extra-curricular stuff is based around goodwill. Schools are held together by goodwill. If we start being graded on how much goodwill there is Bridget might find it rapidly evaporates.

I think I'm going to be emailing my MP to tell them that they now have to run a debate club at my school.

Isn't this a break for middle class parents whose children are more likely to attend them? The children from deprived backgrounds may simply ignore them therefore this policy leads to no advantage in terms of reducing social inequality.

We’ve never had to pay at primary or secondary level. Obviously we are effectively paying because it’s included in the overall fees, but there’s never been an additional charge. I’ve just remembered one where they charged - for an external golf pro to come in to offer lessons.

Even if they can be run by external providers, not everywhere has easy access to those. Fine perhaps in a town or city, but small rural schools will struggle.

Great, you've just offered to run a club for kids in your lunch hour. Regardless of how much of your actual job you have to do, that's the expectation now.

For the children.

So do I now in the private sector. It’s not the same. I now sit and eat my lunch when I’m at my desk working. My school banned teachers from eating in their classrooms but expected them to use their 30 minute ‘break’ to supervise children or run a club or detention. Does your lunch break come with 20 children to manage and no food?

It's giving middle-class mummy with a boy doing his internship in London, isn't it? "Of course it's unpaid but it's such great experience" tinkly laugh "Why teach if you just don't seem to like children!"

Must be so nice to live in a world where money doesn't matter. Meanwhile the TAs (the backbone of our school!) are already not paid enough to live on and it's impossible to recruit 1:1s for SEND children because working at a supermarket pays better and is less stressful. But sure! Let's blame a lack of museum visits for why the kids are struggling!

It's so out of touch with ordinary life it would almost be funny, if these out of touch wankers weren't in charge of the country.

I met a lovely youngish female lawyer via work once. I ran a hospital based charity at that time (paid employee) and she was a volunteer trustee for the hospital's charitable Trust.

I commended her for giving up her time and she looked slightly embarrassed and said "I don't think lawyers add much to the sum of human happiness. This does."

I've never forgotten that!