Fair amount of PPA?

[teachingquery]

Hi all. I'm a secondary school teacher and I'm currently on mat leave. My head teacher has presented me with the option of returning to work without a tutor group but for less pay. Before starting this mat leave I was working 3 days a week, did have a tutor group and was on a 0.64 contract (and was paid as such). I received 4 PPA hours across the fortnightly timetable period.

If I choose to return without a tutor group this time then I will be on a 0.58 contract, which is quite a big drop in pay. I would be ok with this if it would mean gaining an extra 20 mins every morning when I would have previously been doing tutor time, except that I have been told that I would also only get 3 hours of PPA across the fortnight. So effectively would be gaining two hours a fortnight through the loss of form time, but losing an hour of PPA so would be taking quite a big drop in pay for only one extra hour a fortnight.

Does this sound right to you? I'm trying to work it out in my head but getting all in a muddle- I don't want to appear confused to my headteacher.

If it helps clarify anything, full time teachers with tutor groups get 8 hours of PPA time across the fortnight. There are 5 hours of teaching a day and therefore 50 hours of teaching across the fortnight.

Can anyone shed any light on whether I'm being screwed over at all? Or have similar/different experiences in other schools?

Bluepiano, does that mean you don’t even get 10% PPA? 5h 45min a day x 5= 28h, 45min. 2.5/28.75= 8.7%.

@Fieldday

Bluepiano, does that mean you don’t even get 10% PPA? 5h 45min a day x 5= 28h, 45min. 2.5/28.75= 8.7%.

5 hours contact time per day x 5 = 25 hours. 10% of 25 = 2.5 hours. So it's exactly right!

Remember you have to take off the 45 minutes for lunch!

Your fte salary should be based on the proportion of teaching sessions not including form time etc so if you're still teaching the same number of lessons you should still be paid 0.6fte.

I'm 0.4 and get paid as such despite not having a form group. 0.4 is 9 lessons and one ppa a week for me.

The bit on how part time pay should be calculated is laid out clearly in the pay and conditions document and very clear about not counting form time etc. It's based on teaching time.

I don't know how SLT in many schools manage to make such a mess of allocating PPA. It is almost as if they want to ignore the 10% requirement or award their favourites with extra PPA time.........

It should be so simple in secondary schools. If the teaching week is 5 lessons per day then the PPA is 2 and a half hours - or five PPAs over a fortnight. Simple, no? For part timers it should be pro rata. If you work three days a week then that is three PPAs a fortnight based on the five lessons per day model.

Anyone with a management responsibility should have extra PPA, depending on the size of dept/ line management responsibilities.

I know of far too many schools where PPA is regarded as an inconvenient expense and an opportunity to dip into for so called 'emergency' cover.

@Fieldday

Orchid and Teachingquery now I’m curious about what seems a very small amount of PPA for both of you to me. How long are your school days? I am also three days per week, 0.6 with three days of form duty. However I get 6 hours PPA per week, so 12 hours per fortnight (9x 40 min lessons). Our school day is 8.30am till 4.10pm with 1hr,20 min of break time.

I'm independent too, and I definitely get a lot more PPA than my state school counterparts. Afterschool/weekend duties is partly why, but even without those it's still a good chunk more.

The 5 hours 45 minutes a day is teaching time. I didn’t count my 45 lunch in there. It should be 5hours 30 mins teaching at my school but I have to supervise a medical procedure at lunch time for one of my pupils which is directed.
I don’t have a problem with the amount I get, I just found it interesting that in some schools teachers get more than 10%. Which I don’t begrudged! I think we should all get more than 10%; it’s certainly needed by everyone!