National Union of Teachers calls for lesson teaching time to be capped at four hours a day - what do you think?

[JaneGMumsnet]

Hello,

We've been asked by Metro to find out your thoughts on the news that the National Union of Teachers (NUT) has said that teachers should spend no more than 20 hours a week taking classes (four hours a day).

The NUT called for new limits on working hours amid concerns that school staff are facing "totally unsustainable" workloads. In some cases, teachers are left with little time to eat, talk, think or even go to the toilet, the NUT's annual conference in Liverpool heard.

The NUT passed a motion demanding a new working week of 20 hours' teaching time, up to 10 hours of lesson preparation and marking, and five hours of other duties. Other duties include time spent inputting data and at parents' evenings. This marks a drastic reduction in teachers' hours, the conference heard.

NUT Coventry representative Christopher Denson claimed that official figures from 2010 show that a primary classroom teacher works 50.2 hours a week on average, while a secondary school teacher works an average of 49.9 hours. "The same data tells us that four in five teachers have worked all through a night to catch up with work and spend every single term-time Sunday catching up with lessons," Mr Denson said. He added: "It's essential that we act to ensure that what's already NUT policy - a maximum working week of 35 hours - becomes a reality for teachers."

Do you agree with the NUT's position?

If you are a teacher, do Mr Denson's comments resonate with you?

We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Many thanks,

MNHQ

You remind me of myself in my probationary year, getting up at 4.00am to plan my classes, and falling asleep at table in the evening, in the middle of a meal, waking up with food in my mouth. Poor you. I hope things get better for you.

Happy days. Not. That was over twenty-five years ago, and I don't have to work anywhere near as hard now, though I still end up working most Sunday evenings

Teachers in Denmark have 150% PPE time (i.e. 1,5 hours prep and marking for 1 hour of lesson). 10% PPE seems not enough to do the job IME.

Yellow house: I now work for a public sector/voluntary organisation. Love it!

Hours are normal, I switch off from work at the end of the day and I have not missed a day of work through sickness in over a year.

square I work around 11 hours a week over 3 days. I come in over 2 hours early on one of the days and an hour early on the other 2. I work through my lunch hour and breaks (which equates to nearly 2 hours over the 3 days). I have to leave when I finish teaching to collect DD from family whom I rely on for childcare.

I don't think that anyone wants less time with the children- that is the part they like and the reason they became a teacher- it is all the paper work that they want to cut down on. It is such a waste - so much is written and it is rarely read- no one has the time to read it. It isn't even a help to the lesson- a few cryptic notes are as much as you need.
You can tell what is wrong with the profession by the fact that I now work with schools occasionally on a voluntary basis- and the other people who do the same are ex teachers. Where else do you get people doing the job for free in their own time for sheer enjoyment when they don't have to? You don't find lawyers saying ' I'll come and work for 4 hours for fun' but I don't want to be a paid lawyer!
All the ex teachers that I work with say the same- loved the classroom but fed up with the paperwork and the constant government changes. It wouldn't be so bad if we could have ten years or so without a other initiative.
The week before last I worked with a class of yr 4 children. It was very relaxed. I arrived, greeted the children and staff and helpers that were with them and explained the day. They went off on an activity. I set mine up- it takes a while because it is practical and hands on. I then had about 10 children and ran my session. Then the class went off for lunch and I was able to have a relaxed lunch with my two colleagues and then I did the same session with another 2 groups. It wasn't boring because although the same activity different children made it a very different session. I had a great time, the teacher thanked me and said they had a great time. They went off, I packed away and went home. No paper work.
A teacher with a class obviously needs some paperwork but I can't see why they need so much except for Ofsted and they would do the job so much better if they had time for a simple thing like a lunch break.

I meet ex teachers everywhere- all saying the same - they got out because of the workload, otherwise they would still be in the job they loved.

And if I had to do paperwork and records for my voluntary work then I wouldn't do it. I am quite prepared to talk to anyone about what I do, but I have no written work.

I get so fed up with the endless harping on about holidays.
Yes we get a lot of holidays.
No we don't demand them. It is the nature of what we do. We teach CHILDREN.
CHILDREN need holidays.
Therefore we get holidays (and only when we we are told we can so forget family occasions, spontaneous trips, holidays that don't cost an absolute bloody fortune because we can only go at peak time).

Supply teachers or peripatetic teachers don't have contracts with schools, therefore their pay is only term time. They have no choice but to be out of work for the school holidays. Not their choice.

We get paid for a year, it is divided, like everyone else, over the weeks of the year. It effectively means there that yes, there is pay going to our accounts during the holiday but it is part of a whole. We could NOT be paid during the holidays and only get paid during the term but that just means our weekly pay during term time would be greater and we would still receive exactly the same amount per year. It makes more sense for it to be spread into smaller amounts over the year.

What do teachers do after 3.30 each day when they don't have kids at school? Surely planning and marking can be done then?

And do they get paid for 52 weeks a year? If so then they need to stop moaning. I would happily work extra each night to have 13 weeks off a year. Do they also get full time wages or part time?

I work in the NHS and am shocked at how public sector workers don't realise just how easy they have it.

Most private sector workers work 8 hour days and often don't get a lunch break and often do unpaid overtime or take work home at night.

Yet again a union picks the worst possible moment to whine about working conditions to a public who already think teachers get an easy ride.

I want to work in denmark.! I'm not great at languages though. What does Sweden do? They're often held up as being amazing.

Do Danish classes alternate teachers then? Do they teach a reduced time table?

Madame have you read this thread? Aris,bottle gives a good account and she is happy with teaching. She starts about 7.30 and works until midnight stopping for an evening meal.
Of course the planning and marking is done after 3.30 it can't be done while the students are there! So its roughly 8-4 at least in school and then several hours out of school. Plus parents evenings (I taught 5 year groups - that was every Thursday evening for 5 weeks in a row. Then come home and mark.

I love teaching but I do um and ah about going back. It does make it a lot harder when everyone is teacher bashing and thinks we clock off at 3.30!

50 hours per week = Monday - Friday 8am to 7pm with an hour for lunch. long hours and not well paid, but at least the commute is usually short.

Where does all this working through the night and working every Sunday come in?

It is posts like the one by Madamecastafiore that make me thoroughly glad that I have left teaching.

'You can't work those hours without the breaks'

You can work those hours in a different kind of job without the breaks. I did it easily, I actually had 2 full time jobs in admin once, started at 7am and finished around midnight, it was fine. Try that in teaching and you'd last a week. There are other jobs I think would be similar. I would not fancy call centre work for very long days as it wrecks your voice like teaching does, or something like casualty work I imagine to be very high stress as well. But if you happen to have many other types of job, don't imagine teaching is the same. It's very draining. I always think it's like performing, and it's always interesting to see the number of comedians and actors who are ex-teachers.

You'd all love the french attitude - they're barely in school most of the week.

Why do people like Madamecastafiore bother posting if they haven't bothered to read a single word of the thread?

Really.

"Most private sector workers work 8 hour days and often don't get a lunch break and often do unpaid overtime or take work home at night. "

Just like teachers then? Except we work longer hours than that.

Oh and one more thing... those nice long holidays. If I'm not catching up with work I'm often in school anyway. This Easter I've spent one day already clearing out stuff and getting resources ready. I'm planning another day next week to go and put displays up :(

I went in yesterday to help my a level students. Am marking tomorrow and Friday. Planning next week

The 1265 hours are what is called directed time:

Teachers also have non-directed time which is basically time spent working outside directed time. This will be any preparation, marking etc which needs to be done in holidays, weekends or evenings. I've never heard anyone, other than on here, say that teachers don't get paid for holidays. Teachers are salaried which means you get an annual rate, not payment for contracted hours.

What ever the rights and wrongs off this, it's going to be seen by non teachers as ridiculously Lazy.

I know it isn't, I've spent time helping in school, I know that primary teachers end up working through break and into lunch time. You are basically putting on a show for 5 hrs. a day, with an audience that doesn't necessarily want to be there and are quite capable of damaging themselves or others if you let your eye off the ball. It's mentally very tiring.

If some one throws in a lunch time or after school club it's easy to have six or seven hours with no chance to switch off at all.

Trouble is we all remember secondary teachers who throw the text book at us and said do page 4 and get your partner to mark it.

Teaching just isn't like that anymore.

However, this is not the time for the NUT to raise this issue in this way. Everyone is seeing their wages fall in real terms. Teachers campaigning for better pensions, pay and conditions is one thing. Shorter hours, especially in a school holiday is not going to gain public support.

Madamecast I actually said I was happy to work every evening because I do not work in the holidays. It is a trade I am willing to make . I also posted quite clearly what I am doing between 3.30pm and 6pm.

I have a child with autism who has to go to mainstream as the LA has closed all the alternatives. The teachers have no time to get to know him (he rarely speaks except in 1:1 so making time for him is essential). They don't have time to come to meetings with visiting professionals (eg speech therapy). They don't have time to plan work for him. They don't actually teach him much at all - all his teaching is delegated to his 1:1 helper who is not a teacher. Evidence shows this is very common and leads to much poorer outcomes for children with additional needs. As the Govt has decided children like mine have to go to mainstream they must also recognise the specialist training, planning, assessment and 1:1 time that will require. There should be recognition teachers need ongoing training. I have worked in private and public sector and every job has included time in meetings, training, supervision etc outside of my core work probably taking up a third of my time. Teaching is no different. At the moment I have to in effect home educate my son outside school hours and just send him to school to mix with other children, I have no confidence he is actually being taught properly while he is there. Not because of any lack of will by the teacher but because of all the other demands on their time which will always take priority when my son is seen as having 1:1 to take care of him.

Agnes, I agree with your post - it also reflects my experience. mainstream is exactly right for some, not for others.

As a teacher, you could have a third of your class with different sorts of special needs - all of whom need specially designed learning activities. Hence the prep time.

At my direct-grant grammar - in the 1970s - teachers taught for six hours a day. They were certainly busy the rest of the time, and did way more than an 8-hour day on average.

There's more to teaching than sitting in front of a class. Four hours of that, plus all the other stuff, sounds reasonable.

Perhaps before starting a campaign like this it would be good the show people what preparing a lesson means. To show how much needs to be written down. How much ofsted and the like expect teachers to do.

Because having worked in quite a few industries, I have never encounter an industry that was so inflexible. And I have never seen someone doing a talk having to write down south in the first place. Actually some one who be writing so much and sticking to it would be likely to be the most boring speaker ever.