PPA subjects taught

[BJ40]

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone can share an insight into what is taught during PPA time in their school? This time of year proves tricky with trying to organise PPA time in September. Are the same subjects covered across the school? Do they cover any of the Maths or Literacy? Anything you feel works really well in your school?

We have qualified teachers covering the PPA who plan whatever it is they teach.

Thanks!

I’m a teacher who covers PPA time and I’m a music specialist, so I teach ocarina, recorder, ukulele (KS2) or general music (KS1).

Our PPA is done by subject specialists. They generally teach Music, Science, German (and sometimes PE, if the class teacher is not allowed to teach it).

I do PPA Cover and when I started in my first school I only did French and RE (am an MFL specialist). I planned both subjects. Then I did KS1 Music which I planned. That all eventually changed to general cover, so could be any subject the class teachers wanted me to do. I only planned the French then.

For September, I am hopefully going to be mainly doing Spanish, RE and Music. All of which I will plan myself. That will be alongside other core subjects like Maths etc which the class teachers will plan for me.

The PPA Cover that has worked best ime is when 2 specialist teachers taught at the same time and then swapped classes over eg. MFL & PE (KS2) or Music & PE (KS1).

For us, if the PPA falls in the normal literacy or Maths timeslot, we would switch Maths and L to the afternoon, since it’s harder to plan a one off lesson in the middle of the week. We don’t plan (as classroom teachers) for our PPAs. We ask the PPA teacher to do something standalone, usually music, wellbeing (circle time), PE, Art.

Our PPA cover tends to be the subjects the teachers don't like teaching! RE and PSHE in one class, art and music in another, it varies! Teachers generally sort their own timetables out so can pick and choose ( just IT and PE are set times because of space/equipment. But rarely core subjects, we would swap these to an afternoon slot.

In our school it's covered by PE and Music specialists.

Our ppa changes every week. We also alternate morning and afternoon. This means we have to plan for our ppa lessons as we don’t have qualified teachers covering. It also mean that what they teach changes every week. We also don’t find out when our ppa is until Sunday evening and even then it often changes if someone is off. I hate it.

God that sounds like a nightmare for everyone all round 😯 How do the children cope with the lack of consistency and constant change?

Low level behaviour is quite challenging so they don’t really cope. Honestly, it’s a nightmare and I didn’t realise how bad it was until I read other people’s posts to see how their school organise it. We don’t have enough staff is the main problem and cover is not by qualified teachers so they are not paid to plan. We also have a lot of ECTs who need additional cover. I would love to have a consistent day each week and to not have to plan for those lessons

My PPA cover teaches whatever I chose (and plan), I tend to make it the subjects like ICT where they’re literally following slides and I try to make it the same subjects. If it’s a whole day then they have to teach English and Maths too.

I cover year one ppa. I teach pe, dt, re and computing.