Teachers and flexible working - thoughts?

[mids2019]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/dec/21/uk-teachers-should-be-allowed-to-work-from-home-education-secretary-says

I think this sounds like a good idea but it will have any impact on children's education? How will it be managed?

I think teachers being treated more like professionals as a matter of course would be a massive improvement. Less teaching hours and more ppa as a standard is also necessary. I would also like to see a conversation with the government about maximum working hours. Teachers are subject to direct time if 1265. There needs to be a mandatory ceiling on how much they are expected to do on top of that out of hours. Is it acceptable for me to need to work ten to fifteen hours more at the weekend and in the evenings to fulfil what is being required by the headteacher?

To make teaching attractive it needs to be a job that can be done between 8 and 6pm Mon to Friday.

Many schools don't have PPA at the same time for job shares, let alone for whole year groups.

We can work from home for our PPA and subject leadership times, unless we have stuff that needs to be completed in school such as lesson obs or carrying out pupil voice, etc.

ECT teachers, at my school, have to do their PPA and ECT time in school, so they have continued support.

We did our whole year group teacher planning afternoon (we have one a term which is in addition to normal PPA) at one of our homes as we didn't have a decent sized room available to us.

Works fine for us.

Our PPA time, for a full time member of teaching staff, is 2.5 hours.
HLTAs get half the allowance.
ECTs get an extra 2.5 hours.

An afternoon PPA slot is 1-3:30pm.
If your PPA is allocated for a morning session, you can often choose to have 8:30-11am, or 9:30 to 12. Sometimes it's selected for you, other timetable restrictions dependent.

We always have our PPA as a block. It's never, or very rarely, split.

Apart from planning, how can you work from home as a teacher, lessons on zoom?

Marking, admin?

The suggestion is specifically about PPA time.
PPA = Preparation, Planning, and Administration.

Less that half a teacher's time is used for actual teaching.

Many schools will not timetable PPA time as SLT are arseholes want to be able to get teachers to cover absences.

How are you working that out?
PPA is only 5% of the teachers total allocated time.

I have 75 A-level students so I can easily use a couple of days a week marking essays. I usually use my day "off" and binge mark every third weekend or so.

Much easier to do it at home. I don't have a desk at school even (when I'm not teaching, other people use the room).

10%. But I suspect the poster was commenting on untimetabled work.

sorry, yes 10%.

That would make sense.

In a school covered by STPCD, they have to.

That would be about right if anyone cared about teachers having to do most of their work during unpaid hours - 50 % creating the lesson and resources and reading and giving feedback on the 30 pieces of work created during it, and 50% actually delivering to pupils. But it's not, it's 90% in the classroom, 10% out and prepare at home for no pay.

Anyone else who had back to back presentations all day, all week, apart from one afternoon would think that workload too high if all additional prep fell to their evenings and weekends when they don't work (never mind marking what's produced).

I think more PPA is the only answer here (because that in turn would make it more likely that it comes in chunks that people could feasible leave site for). 20% would be much more realistic.

It does very much depend on the school and how unionised it is as to what PPA and workload looks like though. I used to be aghast at some of the stories I heard on here, but now I work in a school that has been untouched by union hands for several years and you really can see the impact of the liberties that the SLT have dropped in over time (pretending not to understand rarely cover rules and other such things).

My SLT like to pretend to be confused about STPCD, so I very helpfully emailed a copy to the head.

I'm wondering whether some of these schools have any union reps. Some things are quite shocking!!

MrsHamlet · Today 19:38

My SLT like to pretend to be confused about STPCD, so I very helpfully emailed a copy to the head

Many HTs just ignore it, at my last school we requested it for several years and it was told that they didn't have to do it, the union rep was useless.
But this was the same HT that refused to give out the directed time calendar when requested.

But then this is one of the reasons that HTs force older members of staff out.

That's why you need a school rep who is prepared to escalate issues - and if they don't or won't, go round them.

Reps have an additional layer of protection so I'm very unafraid of making myself unpopular.

A good rep is worth their weight in gold.

If yours is rubbish, consider doing rep training

Its too late for me now.

I have always thought PPA stood for Planning, Preparation and Assessment! Teachers are not supposed to be doing bulky admin tasks according to union guidance I believe.

You're right, it does.