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

RavenAK put it very clearly- I can't believe that anyone can't understand it after that.

Sorry, should have said, that would mean that the contracted teacher actually got £53.42 per day if you divide it by 365.

Also, I would love to know who all these people are working 70 hour weeks like everyone is claiming? As a teacher I am a graduate (obviously), which means I have a lot of graduate friends.

I have amongst my friends - teachers, bankers, journalists, accountants, lawyers, GPs, nurses, charity admin staff, managers, company directors. Etc etc etc. NONE of them work the hours that I do. Except the bankers, who make a heck of a lot of more money than I do. Tens of thousands more.

heggie don't go there. We do ourselves no favours claiming that no one works as hard... DH and I have similar qualifications. He is a management consultant. He does as many hours as I do, if you even it out over the year. He gets paid 3x what I do, of course, but he works bloody hard.

"We do ourselves no favours claiming that no one works as hard..."

That's not what I'm saying. Why can't you even talk about these things without someone taking it the wrong way? It's madness.

I am asking a genuine question. Because I either have a lot of lucky friends or there's a whole heap of jobs out there that I know nothing about.

I am ignorant here, please enlighten me as to what these jobs are, so that I can avoid them if I quit teaching, ha. My Gp trainee friend has to pay horrendous training fees and works long hours but she was surprised by how long I was working for.

Makes me wonder, what else is out there?

"He gets paid 3x what I do, of course, but he works bloody hard."

Ah, so he does get paid more then? Are there jobs similar to teaching pay levels? What hours do retail managers work, is their pay similar?

Etc.

I think that the difference is that when you are in the classroom it is like being on stage, everything is concentrated on the teaching and the children- there is no moment to yourself. There is no time to do any other part of the job and yet they all need to be done.

I see where you're coming from, but having been involved with discussions about teaching both on MN and in RL, it is pointless (and a bit arrogant) going down the "no one does as many hours as me" route. The obvious retort is "get a new job then" DH does work as hard as me. He gets paid more (I spend it on shoes ) but I get more time off. I have plenty of friends who work similar hours to me, and plenty who don't. I have plenty of friends who earn more than I do, and plenty who don't. Go back over the thread - lots of people who are ignorant about teachers' day to day routines, and getting criticism for it (along the lines of "don't comment if you don't understand") So don't fall into the same trap.

Reads thread and thanks her lucky stars that she is no longer a teacher...

Out of curiosity, I went up to the PC and opened up a set of planning from my last year as an infant teacher (a few years ago now). Planning for 5 mathematics lessons? Ooh, 1537 words.

Tethers has it spot on - the stuff that most other people call work is what teachers are expected to begin at 3.30pm each day.

On my working days now I reply to emails, have informal conversations with colleagues, think, read documents, assimilate information, plan and manage activities... As a teacher, all this was supposed to be done after school when I was already exhausted from dealing with 30 young children for the most productive hours o the day. You know that feeling when you have been to an all-day meeting and are exhausted from too much talking, interacting and being on your feet? That is the average day in teaching.

All the talk of great pensions is pie in the sky. I will be very surprised if many of the teachers who were my contemporaries will make it through to retirement.

I love teaching but I am planning my escape route. The day they start messing with either the holidays or the pension (more than they already have), I'll be gone.

In a nutshell BranchingOut.

I love teaching too but it has contributed to my being quite unwell & although I'd like an escape route, I am currently unable to find one that I would enjoy anywhere near as much as I love teaching.

The day that they start messing with holidays is the day that teachers will leave in droves.

I read these posts and so glad I am out of teaching. (FE) I don't think teachers get the respect or recognition they deserve. It is a calling as we see so often just on here let alone rl.
If I need help, advice, I ask a teacher on here who is only too happy to help. Also tes is also good.
Teachers helping parents in their free time, of which they get so little.
Although I don't use schools anymore (my dd is H.ed) in case anyone knows this here. I have total respect for teachers and would and have supported any stance they have taken to make their conditions better.

Evil.
I think you are a credit to your profession, I know I told you on a thread you were on once, but your commitment to those dc was amazing.

I agree with everything the NUT said - it definitely reflects my experience.

BUT my first reaction to this was Nooo! When you go to university on some courses you only get 15 hours a week face to face with a tutor - and it isn't enough.

Imo, the answer is not for there to be less teaching, but to have more classroom assistants and admin support - and to stop changing the curriculum every five minutes. Why not make more use of parents, too - those who want to be involved and who have the time - especially in primary schools.

I think the whole school day and terms need to be re-looked at personally, our children are sinking down the educational league tables for me it would be better for everyone to take a step back and look at the system for the benefit of the next generation. I am all in favour of extending the school day and reducing holidays, our school has just extended the school day, starts 5 mins earlier, breaks for lunch 5 mins later and finishes 5 mins later, sorry but I really don't see the point in this at all

Like any profession there are good and bad teachers, the bad ones should be delt with more swiftly, education is something I feel we should give priority to it is every bit as important as the NHS in my eyes and at the minute in my opinion failing so many children.

Teachers are professionals and as such should be paid as professionals, and lets face it we all remember influential teachers. I don't understand why every teachers has to lesson plan when they all teach the national curriculum, could teachers not share and just tweak? Also I don't its fair that every child seems to be pushed in to mainstream education, in many cases its not fair on the child nor the teacher or the others in the class.

Branching out what do you do now?

our children are sinking down the educational league tables

Read this before you start talking about league tables.

Nonames you have to plan each lesson as you often can't do what you did with the same level class last year, as it's a whole lot of different individuals this time round and the curriculum has changed again!

But there are some lessons you can just tweak, of course there are. But no matter how fast you are at it, marking a set of 30 books can easily take three hours. And that's just one class. Most school teachers wil have five or six classes a day.

Ah you see I don't need to write detailed lesson plans in order to teach, nonames.

I need to do it because erm. Hang on. There'll be a good reason definitely.

Oh yes, because my boss says I must.

We do genuinely, in order to be effective, have to write detailed schemes of learning every time the curriculum changes, though, & on a rolling programme of new resources for any subject which requires topicality - eg. for English language GCSE exam practice I have to find new, up-to-date non fiction texts & produce interactive resources to go with them regularly. It's incredibly time consuming - maybe 50 hours of work to produce resources for a unit of 12 teaching hours.

A great deal of sharing does go on, formally & informally, but ultimately you get better results with fewer shortcuts.

I'm not moaning - I love writing & producing resources!

(Data analysis & report writing...not so keen).

Does any other profession have to justify their work practices and salary to the general public in the same way teachers do? When have you ever heard people querying, say, a solicitor who charge £££ per hour even though the client only met him/her for 20 minutes? Why is it so hard to believe that, as well as the pressure of managing a couple of dozen children at a time (never work with children or animals? ), lots of invisible work goes on behind the scenes. And plenty of that work, while required, has zero impact on teaching and learning.

Folk need to realise that having attended school does not qualify you to comment on how teachers work. I've been in hospital but I wouldn't dream of demanding a breakdown of a HCP's working day/week. The taxpayer gets excellent value for money from all the public services in the UK.

I don't want less time in front of the children! That's the bit I'm good at, the bit I love!

I want less time filling stupid planning proformas that make no sense, detailing every word I will say, every question I will ask.......

I want to spend less time jiggling around with data.

I want to spend less time sitting in meetings with management being asked why child X isn't making expected progress (because she's never at school) When I say why I'm asked what I'm going to do about it.... I teach mornings only - said child is in one of my morning groups and I have taught her about 3 times since Christmas as she is so often late..... SMT suggested I might think about catching her after lunch to give her the input she misses...... I don't work in school in the sodding afternoons. I went to PT hours to prevent myself becoming ill FGS!

And to the person who said there are plans etc online. Yes, there are but mostly they are made by people who think differently to me and usually make no sense to me (the fault lies within my brain - I am aware of that) so I spend longer making sense of them than I do planning my own lessons!

Oh I don't know, Never. I'm very happy to tell people what I do.

The problem is that they don't often stay long enough to listen to it all ...

I am a 40 yer old Nqt. I work just 2 days a week, yet in term time I work 9 -1am four nights a week. This is to plan and mark for just 2 days worth of lessons. It is hell. I have 2 kids and think I have made a massive mistake going into teaching, and my school isn't too prescriptive about planning. Some of the paperwork I've heard about people having to provide in other schools is just ridiculous.

There is evidence that reducing class sizes doesn't have much of animpact unless you go below 15. I think the key thing which needs to be done to improve educational outcomes is to give teachers more time for marking, so that pupils can have proper, timely feedback on their work. This has been shown to have a greater effect than reducing class sizes.

I worked in the private sector before I went into teaching and would now go back in a heartbeat.