Is this timetable fair?

[QueenMabs]

I'm 0.8 secondary. Each day is 5 hour subject plus 25 Minutes tutor.

I teach three subjects (or four if you include PHSE.) I like teaching three subjects but it does add to planning.

I just don't seem to have enough time. One day after school is CPD/ meetings or parents evening etc and one day is year 11 revision / intervention. School finishes at 3.20.
Lunch is 30 mins. Break is 15.

We have to phone home if we give a detention or put someone on report and make 4 positive calls home each week. We have to mark books weekly and do feedback weekly. We have exams twice a year for all years and MUCH more often for year 11. We had two whole papers in December for year 11 and 3 planned
in April. We have to enter data for each question for a QLA.

I have two free periods a week. What can I do? I work 7.45 -5pm each day and do exams at home. I don't take books home but I am struggling to not be like a maniac on full days.

Is it like this for you?

Nah, all that marking, the multiple mock papers each time, the phone calls, that's not my experience at all. I'd be handing in my notice tbh, they seem beyond unreasonable. Given just how much they expect you to do, a few tweaks to policy aren't going to cut it, that's the culture. I'd definitely leave asap.

To contrast, in my school, we have:
-No marking of books at all
-Homework using automatic marking software
-Whole Class Feedback on one piece of work/assessment per half term (more frequently for A level)
-No need to call home, emails are fine, and only if there's ongoing concern
-One mock paper, 2x a year for Year 11
-One 30 min assessment a term for Years 7-10
-On 0.8 that would be 4x PPA a week, with 6 periods a day.
-Year 11 intervention is done by HODs only (teachers without a TLR cannot be compelled to do this, that's in the STPCD).

Your school is taking the p*.

OP sounds like you work where I do! Which is why I resigned

I have been teaching 18 years and am physically running down the corridor. It is nuts.

I started here 5 years ago and a management changes has lead to this.

I feel the frog is being boiled.

Also we have been told expect OFSTED before half term. We are in a window but surely it can be possible to nail it down precisely.

If you have CPD etc + directed revision time twice a week, and you're 0.8, I wonder if this is taking you over directed time at all. Do you have a directed time budget for your workplace and have you worked out how you fit in to this?

Marking books weekly for all classes is a ridiculous expectation and most schools have moved aware from this. If you're marking exams that week, at the very least you shouldn't also be marking books. And data for each question sounds like a huge time sink.

The demands in terms of phonecalls also sound unworkable.

This does sound like a high workload, and I'm not surprised you're finding it tough.

I thought my school was bad until I read that! Bloody hell! How do your colleagues feel? Can you speak to a union rep?

How can you only have two free periods on 0.8? Or do you mean that you have a full day off as well?

The phone calls home sound like a pisstake when you have two after school commitments a week though, and the marking policy 'mark books'? Like, all work in the book, or one piece? The marking policy should be marking per a number of lessons, not per week, otherwise subjects like yours will be marking practically every lesson where subjects like maths on more lessons will be marking less frequently which isn't fair.

run, run for the hills OP, get some job applications in before ofsted come knocking and all your colleagues want new jobs too.

Thanks everyone. I'm feeling like I have run in to the weekend like a brick wall! I marked two sets of books.

I work four days and have two PPAs.

Marking is one 10 minute task per week (three lessons). For one less a week subjects (RS/drama/music) it's once per fortnight. for some reason in English it's every 12 lessons or every three weeks.

It was good at the start as wee just needed to look and highlight in red yellow or pink. The student then did the colour coded task. Then we added back in literacy marking and then a stamp too. So basically back to where we were but weekly instead of three weeks.

Oh dear, have we gone back in time to 2013? This sort of crazy marking hoop jumping is all too familiar, but has been ditched by most schools in recent years. Do you have compelling reasons to stay? Wonderful behaviour so you spend no time dealing with that? Only school within a 10 mile radius? 10min walk to work? Honestly, in the current climate it’s easy to find another decent job.

It's 10 mins a away and my colleagues are fab. It 0.8 which great. The lesson are great but they are intensive and require so much photocopying and chopping up of resources it's really insane (1 hour per day of this) and the kids are by and large fab and getting better with the new regime. (We had a massive change in leadership and this year that's been tumultuous)

I have a tricky timetable and I feel that I just need one more free period. I also have an isolation cover which has been WILD at times and makes me consistently late for year 11.

Last year I had the same number of frees but I gave up a free to do intervention in a year to help out in a colleagues lesson.

This is very outing to a select few.

My husband isn't happy as he says I am leaving early and getting home late and doing a full extra day for no extra pay. He also said and I can't imagine you are either. I've survived this week but next week is as of yet totally unplanned or copied for and debating whether to go in in day off a to do this. I have two set of marking for Wednesday. Monday will generate two more sets.

We are also due this ofsted "this week or next" According one soothsayer!

If you really want to stay, I think you have two issues you need to address. One is that you’re under the PPA requirement. You could raise this with the Head, or Deputy, whoever sorts the timetable. You could raise this via the Union, particularly if this affects a lot of staff. Or threaten to quit if they don’t give you the minimum 10% PPA as they are contractually obliged to do. You don’t need to put it quite like that, but just point out you’d be getting more PPA elsewhere, you can’t cope with just two, so you’ll need to start looking for other jobs. The other is the marking. What kind of relationship do you have with your T&L lead? Be the squeaky wheel. Send them some articles about the lack of evidence that marking is beneficial. Email them to let them know you’ve read this fantastic book on pedagogy (you don’t need to read it), and suggest they recommend it to the teachers. Share blog posts about the wonderful newfangled invention that is whole class feedback. Get interested in developments in pedagogy and evidence based practices, let everyone know you’re now really interested in this, and keep banging on about it. Other teachers might start kicking up a fuss too. Or just ask them to review their policy as what you’re doing is a waste of time. What approach you take depends on the culture on the school really, and you relationship with the people who make decisions.

I don't think I am under PPA hours.

22.5 potential teaching hours. So 10A% is 2.25 hours or 2 hours 15 minutes . I get two hours and one isolation supervision.

So yes technically 15 minutes under but I only have one 30 minute lunch duty per week. I volunteered for that as I had extra capacity (that I no longer have)

I'm sure they would wriggle.

Would you consider this under PPA hours?

T&al is dictated by the MAT to be implemented locally. We need to tweak our own departmental practices but we are aware of this but the 10 minutes tasks supplied by the MAT are heavy marking all extended answers when they don't need to be, thanks can just be a quiz a few short questions. But we don't have time to change them.

Other staff working 4 days also say they have found it tougher this year when previously they have had 3 period of PPA (sole teacher of a sept)

Yes, it's still under. Doesn't matter how many duties you do, you still need 10% PPA of actual lesson time. They can't round down, if they need to give you more than 10% because the way the timetable works, that's what they need to do.

I'd happily take 15 minutes to be honest.

I get 4 PPA a fortnight when my 10% is 3.1 hours. They are always supposed to round up.

As a Music teacher, there's no way I mark anything every fortnight. Your school's marking & assessment policies are bonkers. Our year 11s have had ONE mock. That's it. Yes, we'll practice questions with them once the NEAs are complete but that will be in class.

My job is 0.65. I am running a small (not music) department which gets me one extra free period per week. The lovely timetabler managed to get my timetable onto 3 days. I get 3xPPA per week and I don't have a tutor group.

My line is that you don't fatten a pig by weighing it. You need to keep feeding it. Constantly testing & scrutinising is demoralising for everyone.

I think in theory, they could just do something like give you one of those isolation supervision covers as a free every few weeks. Although it might be worth checking that with the union. I think it probably is the case, as teachers with a two week timetable don't have to have 10% every week, it can be uneven as long as it's 10% over two weeks.

It falls really heavily on our subjects for marking weekly. It's supposed to be time saving and it was at the start.

In ten minutes our students can write an incredible amount!

English managed to negotiate a reduction from weekly to three weekly. We tried but did not succeed under the previous leadership so we are weekly. To be fair every other week would be fine.

I don't mind the exams but we need a reasonable amount of time off-timetable to mark them and other subjects have staff that enter the QLA data where as we have to do it our self and there at maybe 50 questions.

he lesson are great but they are intensive and require so much photocopying and chopping up of resources it's really insane (1 hour per day of this) - what happens if you teach a lesson that's less resource intensive? Do you have to follow specific lessons?

*English managed to negotiate a reduction from weekly to three weekly. We tried but did not succeed under the previous leadership so we are weekly. To be fair every other week would be fine.

I don't mind the exams but we need a reasonable amount of time off-timetable to mark them and other subjects have staff that enter the QLA data where as we have to do it our self and there at maybe 50 questions.*

I think you need to go back to your HoD and say you cannot cope with the current expectations- maybe keep a diary for a few weeks and show how many hours you are spending on this sort of thing. It sounds like maybe the school is sane but your department is getting an unreasonably raw deal. Talk to English too- what did they say to negotiate their deal? Do you know for a fact your HoD tried to negotiate for you?

Your PPA can't be rounded down, so you need to address that now. If they gave you an extra PPA a fortnight, you'd be about right, presumably (with a bit extra to make up for being over hours for the past term and a half). Negotiate this via your union rep ASAP.

If that doesn't make things manageable, then I think something would have to give.

What would happen if you decided e.g. "I am only going to work 35 hours this week, and anything that doesn't get done doesn't get done"?

My school has just implemented an ‘ink in every page’ marking policy! Absolutely everything has to be marked. Mock exams for yr 11,12 and 13 3x a year and 2x a year for the whole school (yrs7-13). We have learning walks twice a half term where members of SLT or HoDs observe your lesson at random for 20 mins. It’s all getting so overwhelming, I’m currently planning my escape route out of teaching!

So yes technically 15 minutes under but I only have one 30 minute lunch duty per week. I volunteered for that as I had extra capacity (that I no longer have)
Withdraw from that. You can't be made to do lunch duty. You're not paid at lunchtime

Honestly, you need to get staff together and say this is madness, and that teachers will not be doing it, because it's completely unmanagable and there's no reason to believe it will improve student outcomes.

I mean, by all means, look for your way out too, but if the school realise they will lose a number of good staff over this, they may look at the policy again?

I feel really sorry for people in your position @Spiderhead84 . My school was graded as outstanding by Ofsted again recently, and I don't have anything like the scrutiny you do. We don't have a marking policy and mocks happen once per year for y11 & y13. There are exams for y12, y10 and y9 but they are done in lessons and teachers can use these times in any ways they deem appropriate. Not all schools are awful, but I accept that I'm lucky.