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

What about all those teachers who work in FE who work as hard but earn so much less?

I love my job and am HoD but in the last few years time has become a real issue and staff where i work are constantly stressed and strung out with low morale.

My personal experience. I have no time in the working week to talk to my co HoD, no time to discuss anything. I have about 20 minutes for lunch between classes - that is getting out of one class and setting up another - and if I am lucky getting to go to the toilet.

I teach 7 and a half hours on a Tuesday (eve class too) and then start teaching again at 9am the next morning. All different classes with differentiation needed and ILPS etc etc.

It is hard work. But i agree with other posters, it is not teaching time that needs to be cut - the best bit of my job is being in the classroom - it is the endless paperwork that usually has to be done 'just in case' for inspection.

I wish sometimes that we could just get on with our jobs of teaching instead of being bombarded with so much paperwork and so many targets.

I don't want less teaching time, I love teaching. I want less paperwork.

Starlight - I am finding, this year, that the majority of my "paperwork" comes from:

1. Data analysis - as outlined above, approx. 45 mins of creating of pivot tables in Excel and analysing progress for each teaching group (I have 12) and year group (I have 7) per half term. It is meaningless because no one ever looks at it, so it's for my own benefit but I am not allowed to just do what I see fit - the argument is that OFSTED require this kind of evidence of progress.
2. The fact that I am teaching 2 new KS4 courses this year. This is a direct result of the government messing around with exam specifications. I teach level 2 BTEC and GCSE at KS4. Both have new specs for teaching this year. The new BTEC is so completely different from the old BTEC that I can use neither planning nor resources from the old one.
3. New OFSTED framework with its emphasis on increased differentiation ("outstanding" requires "personalised learning") I teach 310 different children every week. That's an awful lot of "personalised learning" to plan for.

I don't have to create lesson plans in the detail given by posters above - it seems that the demands depend on different schools. However, we are all driven by the constant changes the current government is making in policy. We all know that OFSTED could drop in with no notice, and I'm quite sure that every one of us on the this thread knows of schools whose grading has dropped under the new framework. In my area, a lot of schools have had OFSTED in since September, and only one (widely known as one of the best state (grammar) schools in the country) has retained its Outstanding grading. It's a pretty unpleasant cloud to be going to work underneath, and I believe it's the main motivation for many HTs giving out these onerous tasks. We had a review (not OFSTED) in just after Feb half term. They didn't look at my sodding data analysis when they observed my lesson. But I have still been asked to do the same analysis at the end of the term we've just finished.

No whokilled - as an example, I teach secondary English.

This year, I teach 1 x year 11 group, 1 x year 10 group, 2 x year 9 groups, 1 x year 8 group & share another, & share 3 x year 7 groups.

If our school hired another teacher, the whole dept. could each 'drop' a part group (eg. I could lose the year 7 group I teach twice a week, or the two year 7 groups I teach once each).

This would reduce contact hours to the level the NUT are advocating, & I'd then do a better, more thorough job with the remaining classes.

However, it would obviously cost the school an additional salary.

(...but I agree with everyone else that I'd rather keep my current teaching load & radically reduce the pointless paperwork!)

I have worked in the private sector and state sector. The private school was a highly sought after, high achieving one. The only difference between that and the state- smaller class sizes (22 in lower school and 15 at GCSE), parental involvement (if you rang a parent about behaviour they responded) and as a main scale teacher I had six hours of prep time a week. Now as a HoD I get three a week. And I was trusted to teach. And in many respects the teaching wasn't as high quality as state sector, lots of textbook lessons and lecturing by other members of staff.

But there was time to adequately plan for he needs of your students. You knew your class and could mark work regularly and effectively.

I teach 450 students a week. I cannot possibly effectively differentiate and mark for those students every week.

I think what most people don't realise about teaching is how draining constantly being with children is. Of course they are lovely and a joy etc. but it is this part of primary teaching I find the most exhausting - the constant dialogue and of course each child has their own specific needs which must be met.

All parents understand how tiring their own children are, yet when it comes to teachers all of a sudden being with 30 children all day is perceived as not the most difficult part of the job and all focus is on paperwork. I don't really get this.

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.

Apart from the TLR payments, you are describing your average state school primary teacher.

I can't believe you think state school teachers don't do these!

I keep hearing about the burgundy book - and I am coming from a senior school perspective.

Do state school teachers do exam invigilation or not, lunchtime supervision or not, cover week-in-week-out or not?

No exam invigilation, lunch time duties in return for free dinners.

I stopped reading when I saw the first mention of gold-plated pension tbh. I'm sure there's a lot of independent thought on this thread so apologies if I'm ignoring yours, but when people start trotting out bollocks word for word that they've read in the media, their argument has been immediately undermined and I know that they know not about which they talk.

Do state school teachers do exam invigilation or not, lunchtime supervision or not, cover week-in-week-out or not?

KS2 test invigilation - absolutely. Lunchtime supervision - as SMT, yes. What do you mean, cover - you said you taught an 80% timetable, so do you teach 80% or lose that to cover absence? I am often pulled in my management time (10%) to cover colleagues' absences, yes.

I didn't realise that teachers holidays were unpaid. However the recent press coverage about pensions made me very . I'd love to have that sort of pension. I'd also love to have a job that gave me access to that amount of unpaid holiday. Unfortunately I'd be a rubbish teacher.

Just leave us alone to teach. Stop requiring me to spend more time proving that I am doing my job than actually doing it.

50% of teachers leave within 5 years citing workload as a major reason.

As a non-SLT secondary, it's no to exam invigilation, lunch duties and/or clubs in return for free lunch (not that I want to eat the canteen food...) cover - allegedly not, but in reality yes.

Rules are different for SLT. Once you're on the leadership pay spine, the terms and conditions are different.

I am HoD and HoY. I teach 38/50 per fortnight. Standard teachers do 43/50. We all have tutor groups. I also have a timetabled mentor meeting with the NQT in my dept once per week (taking out 2 of those 12 non-contacts) plus a mentor meeting with a Yr 11 girl once per week (2 more gone) I run after school clubs on 2 days (currently - when we're doing school shows it's 3 days) until 4 or 4.30.

I don't mind any of this. I have been teaching for longer than all but 1 of the SLT at my school but have no desire whatsoever to go up to SLT as it will take me out of the classroom. I love teaching, and am very fond of almost all of the 310 students I currently teach. The paperwork, I could happily leave behind.

I moved into SLT this year and I really love the days when I have a full timetable - no one can get to me!

"I'd also love to have a job that gave me access to that amount of unpaid holiday."

I absolutely LOVE teaching but there is no way I'd do it without the holidays. If I didn't know I could collapse and get some sleep at the end of each term, I'd quit tomorrow.

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

How many students do you teach in total out of interest if you don't mind me asking?

I thought it was illegal not to get holiday pay? So what you are saying is if a teacher is on 24k per year then the three months they don't work they get docked the 6k and receive no pay for the weeks they are not working? So really there annual pay is not 24k but 18k

I don't need to look at their photos when writing reports

No, Ivy, teachers get a paycheck for each of the 12 months of the year.

"Not getting paid for holidays" is political bollocks. Ignore it.

heggiehog exactly what you said. I'd quit too!

Yes, ignore every single other person other than PollyEthel - she clearly knows more that everyone else put together.