How would you feel if you got five more days of holiday a year? Unions may be disappointed by the much-hyped review of teachers’ workload but the debate it has started may yet lead to radical changes. Warwick Mansell reports
TEACHERS’ official working year could be cut by five days under a recommendation to be put to councils.
As unions gave a cool reception to the results of a Government-commissioned review of teachers’ workload, local authorities said compulsory in-service training should be scrapped. This would cut teachers’ working year from 195 to 190 days.
The Local Government Association says teachers should instead be paid to go on training courses when they want to. They would still have to make a commitment to train, but could go on courses after school or at weekends.
The recommendation will be part of an LGA report that is also likely to recommend a six-term year for schools in 2004.
This week unions issued ministers with a list of detailed demands of changes to teachers’ contracts, following a six-month review of workload by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers. Four classroom unions, backed by headteachers’ leaders, called for:
* The scrapping of the controversial clause in teachers’ contracts saying they must work 1,265 hours annually plus whatever time necessary to complete their duties;
* a guarantee that teachers would not be required to carry out administrative tasks, including exam invigilation;
* contracts to reflect a sensible work-life balance for headteachers.
The demands, from the four TUC-affliated unions in England and Wales, were put to ministers this week at a meeting that was described as “positive”.
Any changes would need to be adopted by the School Teachers’ Review Body, which reports on workload in the spring.
The unions want the contractual changes to be followed by the establishment of a working party to report next May on the recruitment of thousands more teachers and support staff. It would also consider further contractual changes, including possible limits on teaching time.
The move comes amid some disappointment among the unions at the recommendations of the workload review.
The review floats the idea of 10 per cent contractual non-contact time guarantee for all teachers, a change that would require an extra 30-40,000 teachers.
Other suggestions include the establishment of a special unit within the Department for Education and Skills to monitor the effect of new initiatives on workloads.
Following controversy over Education Secretary Estelle Morris’s suggestion that classroom assistants could take on teaching duties, the report talks of the need for extra training for staff in positions of responsibility.
Equally contentiously, it also suggests that teachers be asked to do paid work in their holidays on planning and preparation.
The review fails to provide any break-down on how much its proposals would cost - leading to accusations, from National Association of Head Teachers general secretary David Hart, that ministers had forced PWC consultants to “pull their punches” in the face of pressure from the Treasury.
Nigel de Gruchy, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said the report was “strong on description of the problem but lamentably weak on remedies”.
Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “We need to move on from this now and work with other teachers’ organisations, employers and government to deliver real changes for teachers.”
John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said the report concentrated far too much on managing workload, rather than reducing it.
Mr Hart said the Government needed to demonstrate that education remained its top priority, after recent cash pledges for health.
Ms Morris said: “I want teachers to be free to get back to what they do best - teaching. This final report will help remodel the teaching profession and identify the support heads need to manage staff.”
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
Main recommendations of the PricewaterhouseCoopers workload review:
* Establish a DFES unit to ensure initiatives take account of effect on workload
* Teachers to take part in pre-term planning and do training courses in holidays
* Teachers to be paid for the extra commitment
* Inspectors to check how schools manage workload
* Each teacher to receive a laptop or PC
* Improve teachers’ access to electronic schemes of work, encourage more standardised lesson plans, promote use of software to help report-writing * Major increases in support staff: heads’ assistants, bursars, admin staff, classroom assistants, ICT support
* Guaranteed non-contact time, possibly 10 per cent of teaching time
