More school support staff report they are not being paid for working additional hours, according to research by the country’s biggest education union.
In a survey of support staff who are members of the NEU teaching union, 72 per cent said they were working in excess of their contracted hours, with most doing so to meet workload demands.
While this statistic is consistent with polling by the union in 2020, the proportion who reported not being paid for extra work has increased from 62.5 per cent to 69 per cent since then.
Of those survey respondents who said they were working extra hours, nearly three-quarters said their workload demanded it.
Some 30 per cent reported that their extra working hours were due to staffing cuts at their school.
School support staff workload
The full-time contractual hours for support staff are 37 for those working outside of London and 36 for those in the capital.
Three-quarters of support staff in the NEU survey said their workload has increased in the past year, but 57 per cent reported that support staff numbers at their school have reduced across the same period.
A report by the Sutton Trust says that 55 per cent of senior leaders in secondary schools have had to cut back on support staff.
More than a quarter of survey respondents said they either “rarely” or “never” get a full lunch break. And 82 per cent said they are not paid for their lunch break.
Despite the results of the poll, which involved more than 3,000 support staff, research shared with Tes last year showed that an increasing number of teachers were moving into support roles in the hope of easing their workload pressures.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, said the working conditions of support staff “continue to deteriorate due to the inadequate funding for the sector”.
“The government, for their part, must prioritise proper funding for schools so that the pressures on staff are alleviated after 14 years of neglect. Austerity is ended in deeds, not words,” he added.
The results of the poll come after Mr Kebede claimed this week that large multi-academy trusts are “havens for higher workload and poorer work-life balance”.
The NEU annual conference is taking place in Harrogate this week.
A Department for Education spokesperson said that school support staff make a “huge contribution” to children’s education, and are crucial to the government’s plans to drive “high and rising standards” across schools.
The government is establishing the School Support Staff Negotiating Body, as part of the Employment Rights Bill, they added. It will address recruitment and retention challenges and set national terms and conditions including on pay, support and workload.
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