To think that my teaching timetable might be against legal number of hours?

[TypicallyEnglishMustard]

Hello, sorry this is in the "wrong" place, traffic on the staff room looks very slow.

I teach in secondary as an English teacher. This is my fourth year, but the first time this has occurred. Not sure if this is right, so posting for advice!

My school operates a week A/week B timetable. Initially, I had one PPA on week A, and three PPAs on week B. I've just been informed by SLT that one of my A level lessons has been moved into the PPA on week B. So, I now have four PPAs on week A, but none at all on week B.

Is this allowed?? Obviously, I'm slightly bricking it at the thought of an entire week of teaching with no PPA, and if it's legal, I'll just have to learn to cope. Does anyone know if this is okay?

Fuck off Reality

It's not a competition.

Any 6 hour teaching day is certainly accompanied by at least half that again at home planning for the next day's lessons.

Happy to share with you an outline of how I spend my days, evenings and weekends. My own children don't see me until 5.30 most evenings, and I leave the house before them.

Not a teacher, but I have to deal with timetabling in my organisation. What your school is doing doesn't sound to me to be illegal (unless there are very specific teaching-related laws which I don't think is the case) but it does sound like very bad practice. Not only is it grossly unfair to you, but not in the best interests of the school and the pupils - I would have thought it's pretty hard to teach well when you're on the floor with exhaustion. Do you have a line manager you can speak to? Or is this a stupid/irrelevant question in a school context?

Reality....if we don't know we're born, why haven't you joined the profession?!! most weeks teachers will do 3+ hours an evening, several evenings a week. a teacher very rarely relaxes for a full holiday. Most of mine are taken up with next term's planning. You're sounding very bitter but also very ignorant.

What's the abbreviations? Unless your I that profession I'm struggling to understand.

I'm a ex social worker and now work with the most vulnerable people in our country, So quoting teaching abbreviations, you've lost me.

MsJamieFraser

The OP is looking for very teaching specific advice, from those with experience, so the use of (very common to those in education) acronyms is totally understandable.

The DFES guidance <a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DfES%200788%20200MIG884.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here states on page 4 it can be organised weekly or fortnightly based on your timetable, so sounds perfectly legal.
I think it should be 4.4 rather than 4 however as it is a minimum 10%

Sounds shit, but sadly it's legal. I would suggest when you tell work about your pregnancy, and they do your risk assessment, flag this up. They have to address it a bit more in that instance!

Agree re risk assessment. You need time to wee drink and eat

Legal or not, it is not what decent employers do. There is no way you can get all your admin, planning and marking for a fortnight done (or even make a dent in it) inside 4 hours over two weeks, whether that time is broken up or not, and good schools treat 10% PPA as the joke it is.

This is what happens now that union presence in schools has started to disappear. Head's are finding their budgets tight and pushing their luck to see what people will take. Because, you know, we already buy resources out of our own pockets, give up lunch and after school unpaid to run clubs and trips- why not accept shitty, unworkable timetables and extra duties.