Four day teaching week

[Ralphiethedog]

Jenny Gilruth has said that the Scottish government could cut the amount of time teachers spent in the classroom at the same time as delivering better outcomes for pupils.

Can someone please explain how this is supposed to work? It seems illogical to me. Surely having their class teacher in the classroom is always going to deliver a better outcome for children than them NOT having their class teacher in the classroom?

Am I missing something here, or does our esteemed education secretary think that she can say what she likes and we’ll swallow it like gospel?

The idea is quality over quantity. If teachers had less contact time they would have more time to prepare for lessons/mark/differentiate work.

Seems to be two main suggestions?

1. PPA is currently 10% of teaching time. This is much lower than many countries. I taught in Japan many years ago and full time teachers had a 50/50 ratio of contact time and PPA. 10% doesn’t really touch the sides for what needs to be done and teaching and learning most likely would improve if this was increased.
2. High school PPA a teacher does not have a timetabled class during those periods, would need more teachers to be able to timetable all classes. Primary PPA is covered by another member of staff - HLTA or SLT usually. The suggestion seems to be that PPA be timetabled in a block, giving whole days for dedicated planning and CPD which would be more productive than an hour here or there. Also could be done away from school.

Doesn’t mean pupils wouldn’t have a teacher in front of them. Might help with retention of teachers meaning that actually pupils would be more likely to have a permanent qualified teacher in front of them.

Can’t we have quality and quantity at the same time? Can’t we have a qualified teacher in front of the class for whole time that my child attends? It is after all only a paltry 4.5 days. Why should they be minded by a TA or the janny or a distracted / disinterested SLT member?

What has changed in the things that teachers are being asked to do that means they are unable to cope like they used to be able to? Endless unnecessary paperwork? Let’s get rid of that first please.

Parents choosing not to instill boundaries
parents choosing not to toilet train their children
Poor resources for SEN children
Poor pay
Too little time to prep, mark, complete training
Too broad a curriculum
Too bigger class sizes

Thats just a very small number of problems

Also, what paperwork would you like to get rid of?

Teachers need PPA. 10% is not enough but teachers understand that they will do most of their planning outside school hours. In secondary there is no cover needed for PPA as the teacher has a ‘free’ on their timetable. You sound very dismissive of staff who cover PPA in primary school, pupils aren’t ‘minded’ they are taught, usually by internal qualified staff, sometimes by sports instructors, specialist music teachers etc. Your first post asked questions like ‘am I missing something?’ and several people have answered, but it’s now clear it was a thinly disguised teacher bashing thread, hoping to get others joining in . Never understand why people don’t want the best prepared and valued professionals in our schools.

When I used to teach primary in England, we had 10% PPA and it was always blocked.

In the time I was out, the children had PE and either Music or Computing with qualified specialist teachers. I also taught PE once a week and depending on the rotation would teach either Music or Computing (whichever specialist they did not have in that term).

I actually think the biggest difference between Scotland and my school in England was the blocking of the time. Having it all in one go was so much more productive than 20 mins here, 30 mins there etc. It also meant when it was cancelled for staff absence etc, it was very obvious and I would get the time back. Whereas, when you miss the odd 20 mins it isn’t really considered an issue, but that really builds up over the weeks! Also, key that the children were being “covered” by qualified specialists.

I can’t really answer your final question, but I notice a in what the children receive in terms of teaching and resourcing here, where there is limited preparation time, and elsewhere. <insert rant about how poorly Scottish children are being educated > The 20% should help with quality of planning and teaching, but a sticking plaster on a ruptured blood valve won’t hold.

My DS’s school have blocked all the PPA time together into a morning or afternoon for each teacher and they can now wfh then if they choose. Works well.

Is this to reduce the cost of employing teachers? Knocked on to their costs of retirement in due course.

It'd be good if people read this, and @simonjt's post before commenting- it does a lot to clear up the muddle of an OP and could lead to a sensible discussion.

We are losing teachers faster than ever. It costs a lot to train and replace them and is awful for school cohesion and continuity for children. Most jobs don't involve over 20 hours of presentations a week in front of a group of people who haven't chosen to be there, sometimes don't want to learn and sometimes aren't ready to... and then are judged on how well that audience progresses. 10% PPA doesn't touch the sides and teachers leave when they realise it's unsustainable.

To break down PPA time into a realistic scenario. Teachers get 10% non contact time to plan, mark and assess work. Sounds like quite a lot.

In a different context: you have to deliver a 60 minute presentation to 30 people. 3 of them can’t reed so you need to prepare visual or audio support. 1 can’t speak English so you need to translate your presentation or provide visual prompts and pre teach some of the English they will need. You need to research your content, present it in an engaging way, design an activity so that the people you are presenting to can show their understanding, read all 30 of their responses and give them some feedback to make sure they have understood it all.

In business, this would probably take days to prepare. Teachers get 10% which equals 6 minutes. And you have to do that 5 times a day. None of that is needless paperwork that can be cut out either. That comes on top of all that!

If I'm understanding properly, the kids will still be in 5 days, but there might be a teacher covering at certain times so the main teacher gets their admin time. So good news for the many many qualified teachers who can't get jobs - anyone who says Scottish schools are 'crying out for teachers' needs to do a fact check!

I would have no concerns whatsoever if the teacher was going to be replaced by a teacher. But - call me cynical - I find that extremely unlikely.

In Scotland classes most be taught by a qualified teacher. If this was to be changed there would be an enormous backlash from teachers and the unions and I would imagine this would lie as to striking. With the numbers of teachers we have currently unable to secure contracts, this would not be accepted by or palatable to the profession.

Chn not being parented in the same way is a major change.

So if teacher’s contact time is being cut are most teachers going to be recruited? This would be good but can ANYONE see it happening???

Yes I can. We are absolutely on the ropes in schools and something has to change.

I really hope you’re right.

At the moment my Dd who is a teacher has had one hour of her non class contact time recently. They’ve had a massive staff absence and she’s needed in her class to keep continuity. So she’s already in work 7am to 5pm and feeling the pressure as she’s often only told on the day and has to suddenly have stuff organised at the very last minute.

There are so many brilliant teachers on temp contracts or supply and this would create new jobs.

Agree that the number of out of work teachers is terrible. But I cannot believe a government that stood by while the likes of Glasgow council slashed teaching jobs will all of a sudden fund more roles. It’s not going to happen.

It's to help teacher retention too as at the moment lots of great teachers leave. Simply put, you can't plan the lessons you need for a whole week in 3.5 ish hours, let alone sort the SEN plans, marking, parent queries and demands, extra curricular bits, school trips and experiences etc.

In a week most teachers will need to plan for:
5 maths lessons
5 MOT (maths booster lessons)
5 English lessons
4/5 spelling lessons
7 topic lessons (history, science, pshe, language etc)
3/4 reading lessons
2 PE lessons
1 SPAG lessons

That's rather a big ask to plan for in such a short amount of time. Especially on top of all the other stuff.

Apologies if this is a stupid question, but is it possible to have a database of ready-prepared lessons, which all teachers in the school / region / country have access to? I appreciate that these lessons would need to be adapted to suit each individual class of children, but is it necessary to design every lesson from scratch? So there could be a ready-prepared lesson for younger children based around The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch, a ready-prepared lesson on how basic fractions work, a ready-prepared lesson on medieval castles, etc. Does this exist? The more experienced teachers could contribute to this database, to ensure high quality.

There are “ pre prepared” lessons available but the majority of teacher would probably say it takes as long, if not longer, to adapt someone else’s lesson than it does to plan your own!

Exactly.

They do exist but when when you finally finish the process of adapting it, differentiating it etc... you might as well just try and attempt it from scratch. It takes ages. Lesson planning and the workload was the main reason why I recently quit teacher training.