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

[Grockle]

Starlight, I have to disagree with your post about TAs being nothing more than babysitters.

Mine are highly skilled & I couldn't teach without them. They are experienced and knowledgable and I have great respect for them. I also know that they are paid appallingly for what they do & go to great lengths to thank them & show them gratitude. I know our parents feel the same.

[MrsHeggulePoirot]

I work three days a week. I am a HoD, but get no time for this as my school has no money or time to spare. I teach 12.5 hours a week so just over 4 hours a day. I am likely to cover a lesson a fortnight and I have a tutor group which takes up a further 1.5 hours of my time. In my 20 minute break which follows straight on from tutor time I will be dealing with some issue of some description to do with someone in my form, or sorting out the registers, who wasn't there and when and amending all the bloody codes which need amending within three days of any absence. At lunchtime I am most likely to be running an activitiy (2 out of the 3 days) - this generally means I don't eat regularly or eat it on the go, or have to sneak bits of it during a lesson.

My classes are big and getting bigger, last year my 6th form classes were 13, 15 and 22 this year they are 17, 22 and 23. That is A-level students, some of them seriously struggle and it is almost impossible to spend the time needed with them in every single lesson. It is impossible to mark their work regularly as there are so many of them. It is impossible to get round to every student in a lesson to ensure they are all on track. Next year our A-level teaching has been cut by one lesson per fortnight, and we will have bigger classes again and we have to keep improving results

In any non-contact time I will be planning or marking - as others have said this takes up a massive amount of time, I choose to plan more and mark less but this is a risk and I can't do it all so something has to give. I have to fill in grades on our data management system for assessments and reports home to parents. These have to be updated on a regular basis as parents access them online so if they arent there then we'll get told off. I have to write tests for others in the department to use and collect this data, analayse it, run catch up and support classes and provide all manner of intervention to support weaker students. I have to keep their parents updated at all times about this. And their form tutor and head of year, and log it on our management system.

There is always some initiative going one that is supposed to be our focus and that we need to 'write into all our SoWs', or something where we need to be filling out forms saying where we cover such things in our SoWs. We are constantly getting berated for the amount of paper that we use and the cost of this, yet we are also expected to teach differentiated lessons with exciting groupwork using appropriate resources for each student/group.

I don't know that capping teaching at 40 hours is helpful, I think it would be more helpful for the teaching unions to stand up agains the ridiculous ever changing ofsted criteria and ridiculous amount of information about feedback and assessment that is supposed to take place every single lesson.

Other than all that, I love my job!

[tethersend]

Starlight, having done both 1:1 teaching children with complex SN and mainstream classroom teaching, I think that although some of the principles are the same, each requires a different set of skills. Depending on the class, the lesson, the child and the nature of the SN, one is not necessarily easier than the other.

[TheNebulousBoojum]

OK, in school 8-5.30ish during term time.
Work extra for up to three hours a night 5 days a week.
5 INSET 9-4
Three evenings a term from 5.30-8

195 days x 9.5 hours = 1852.5 hours
39 weeks x 3 = 156 hours
5 days x 7 =35
9 evenings =22.5 hours

So in a 40 week year, I work 2,066 hours which is around 52 hours a week.

[Greythorne]

I don't understand the argument re holidays.

If you are a teacher on a salary of 30k pa, do you receive 30k (gross) pro rata-ed down to 38 weeks of work time?

Or do you get 30k gross?

[heggiehog]

Teachers receive a salary for the year which is spread over 12 months. We are not paid for holidays, which is one of the reasons (I think?) why our salary is low compared to other jobs which require the same level of education, skills and stress.

Essentially the holidays are an important part of our terms and conditions because we are not paid for them! And they are used to justify the long hours over contract that we work during term time.

I think many members of the British public are under the illusion that we work short hours during term time and then get all these lovely paid holidays on top. It's not like that at all.

[AuntySib]

Just listened to one of the speeches at the conference, by Richard Rose. he mentioned that in Netherlands, teachers will do an hour's teaching followed by an hour prep/marking - it is possible, it does make sense. I left teaching because fed up of not having time for my own kids, not even time to put them to bed properly. Something has to happen, the time pressures on teachers are not sustainable - even experienced teachers ( ie those who can prepare/plan quickly) are regularly doing days of 8-8, plus more at home in evenings and weekends. Holidays nearly all spent working or recovering from exhaustion.

[ravenAK]

You have a contracted number of hours (1265) over 195 days, Greythorne.

I've already done my hours for the year (as has every teacher I know), so I'm knocking off now....

[JassyRadlett]

Heggie - sorry, was doing bedtime. Honestly not trying to be antagonistic or make a 'point' beyond saying that the general public tend to view teachers' quoted salaries as annual salaries, therefore including holiday time (which according to the terms if your contract is unpaid). Expressing that salary as effectively not an annual salary, but for (a large) part of the year only invites anti-teacher types such as the Daily Mail to do the maths, express your salary as a a higher FTE for the full year and use it as another stick to beat teachers with by overstating your true salaries in that way.

Honestly, I think it's just not an argument that will be terribly helpful to teachers in the long run. I have massive sympathy for teachers. Long hours, huge class sizes and a ludicrous amount of admin. But some people will look for any stick possible to best teachers with - unfairly in my view - so perhaps don't hand them this one as well.

I have now worn out the stuck metaphor. You would never guess mr job involves working with language all day.

[JassyRadlett]

STICK metaphor. Gah.

[MrsHiddleston]

I'm going against the grain here by the looks of it where the majority of posters are defending the teachers and their demands for a 4 hour teaching day.

But seriously what do you think the rest of the employees in this country do for similar if not less renumeration?! So you all work 60-70 hour weeks, so do a lot of other people. You don't get time for lunch, neither do a lot of people. You experience hostility and violence in your employ, so do a lot of people.

You don't like it, do something else, stop holding the education of our children to ransom with your inappropriate, wild demands.

[TheNebulousBoojum]

Can't see anyone here asking for a 4 hour day, just less paperwork.

[mumnosbest]

I teach primary ks1 and yes a lot of this does resonate with me. In particular the working Sundays and nights (3 young dcs means work only happens after bedtime). I do find it impossible to plan, prepare and assess 22.5hrs teaching in 2.5hrs but don't think it's teaching time that needs to be cut. More proffessional judgement and less formal assessment and levelling of children, less recording, reporting and lengthy planning would all help.

[EvilTwins]

MrsH - have you read the thread? Very few posters are "defending demands for a 4 hour teaching day".

The majority are talking about the cutting of bureaucracy and saying that the NUT is doing itself no favours by focusing on this particular (non) issue.

[orangeandlemons]

I don't know anyone outside teaching who has to cope with what teachers deal with every day.

Dh never suffers abuse, nor works a 70 hour week. Neither does dp or sil, or bil and sil, nor the other bil and sil. None of them

[Wishiwasanheiress]

Like many roles (police, nursing etc) those in the public have little to no understanding of the actual intricacies of the job, just what they see. So, if it waddles quacks and flies its a duck.

You need better marketing people because the NUT are ridiculously bad at it leaving u open to the DM types all the time. It's sad as generally the public support you and then a headline like this suggested comes out and all we public just think "you have to be effing jeffing?!?!?" and don't read further to see the issue behind the facade.

[PollyEthelEileen]

I think this latest motion from NUT makes most teachers cringe.

They really know how to put the nut into nutters.

I teach in an independent school, where our full-time teaching load is 80% - actually what NUT is asking for. It feels about right.

However, we do all our own cover, invigilation, duties, admin, display, prep, etc, etc. We don't get TLR payments. It's expected that you will be involved in the full life of the school.

A typical job "in industry" will nominally be for 37.5 hours per week with a 45 minute lunch break - so 9 till 5.15. If you based teaching duties on these hours, you would have 4h15 for lunch, registrations, PPA, clubs, meetings. With these figures, it would be hard to convince hard-working professionals in other sectors as to the onerous nature of teaching - especially when in reality they are working 45 - 50 hour weeks.

Of course, they are getting paid a lot more than teachers with equivalent qualifications and experience, but then don't get the same holidays.

I would be interested to hear what other teachers are finding is so consuming about paperwork. Resentful paperwork, that is. I am Director of Studies in my school and I do all the data analysis - the subject teachers provide it, though. All the major paperwork tasks are carved up by SMT, so subject teachers and HODs just do what they need to inform and improve their own teaching (which they are happy to do)

[mousebacon]

Look again, MrsHiddleston. Most of us have said the 4 hour cap is unrealistic and would prefer a reduction in paperwork.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

TheNeb How would you reduce the paperwork?

I can see that ever changing 'new strategies' as a result of new governments coming in and attempting to pretend they are 'doing something about the state of education' whilst blaming schools and teachers for all of society's ills to deflect criticism of their own policies is paperwork-creating.

Perhaps we can stop that for starters. But what else?

[heggiehog]

"You don't like it, do something else, stop holding the education of our children to ransom with your inappropriate, wild demands."

Dear me, that's a bit of an exaggeration. How am I holding the education of our children to ransom?! Silly me, here I thought I was, turning up to work every day and doing my job as normal.

So, MrsHiddleston, you are effectively advocating slave labour. Some people work long hours for no pay, so teachers should too. Is that really the society that you want to create?

Last time I went to a union gathering, the unions were advocating equal rights for private sector workers too.

This isn't about us vs. them. Divide and conquer, and playing into the hands of politicians. It's about deciding what kind of society we want to live in and fighting for it. I don't want tired, stressed out teachers any more than I want tired, stressed out ANYONE in ANY job. (I certainly don't want to be operated on by tired and stressed out doctors and nurses!!)

People are much more likely to do their job effectively if the terms and conditions are reasonable, and we know from looking at other teachers in our teachers that our system is rather silly.

Nobody is saying that other jobs don't have it bad too?

[PollyEthelEileen]

Mrs Hiddleston

My headmistress at school was called Mrs Hiddleston. :). Very inspirational woman.

[missorinoco]

Sorry if this has been answered, but I couldn't see it when I scrolled through.

Is the 35 hour week what teachers are theoretically paid for? As in 08.30 to 15.30 five days a week? Or is that a figure I have mistakenly latched on to.

Clearly teachers work more than this, and yes, to some extent all professionals do, but there should be a sensible balance between teaching time and other professional activites required by the job; if teachers are having to work one of every weekend day in term time to keep up with their work then the balance of teaching and other professional activities is wrong.

If one is not going to increase the non teaching hours of the working day, then job descriptions should clearly state a more realistic working week, which will reflect less pay per hour.

(I'm not going to be as unrealistic as to suggest a pay rise to account for the hours worked, but I totally think you are worth it.)

[mousebacon]

I do all my own paperwork polly from the assessments themselves to the updating of the files to the inputting onto the ict system and then the analysis afterwards. No admin support in our school.

Our ht has decided she likes a nice Venn diagram to go with the step grid to show who is/isn't on track for each subject. Oh joy.

[heggiehog]

Oops, pressed post too early.

We're just saying that teachers would be better at TEACHING if there was less unnecessary paperwork. Is that such an unreasonable demand?