The Government is to overhaul teachers’ contracts in response to union demands to cut down workload, and has promised to review the notorious, open-ended clause that obliges teachers to work as long as the job requires.
But the Government’s pay advisers, the School Teachers’ Review Body, have been told they must balance the cost of cutting workload against that of raising teachers’ pay.
The National Association of Head Teachers said that it was unacceptable for ministers to twist the arm of the body about to recommend this year’s pay rise.
Education Secretary Estelle Morris has categorically ruled out a 35-hour week but she told unions and employers this week: “We do not want to see a long hours’ culture in schools.” Teachers currently work an average 52-hour week, with heads working more than 60 hours.
Any changes to the contract will be phased in from April 2003. But as a sign of goodwill - and to give union leaders something to show their members at next Easter’s conferences - Ms Morris is expected to issue guidance on workload next term which should lead to immediate benefits for teachers.
Teachers and employers also hope to agree joint evidence to the review body with the Department for Education and Skills. That would help win money from the Treasury for the extra teachers and support staff needed to cut workload.
The review body will report after Easter, feeding into the Government’s three-year spending plans due to be announced in July. NAHT general secretary David Hart said: “The STRB must feel free to make the changes necessary whatever the cost. It’s up to the Government to sort that out.”
Ms Morris’s letter to the review body follows the report by management consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers. She asks the board to consider whether a “meaningful guarantee” of non-contact time for teachers and managers is possible.
She concedes that the current open-ended contract “can lead to high demands” on teachers and that a balance is needed between manageable workload and flexibility for headteachers. One option would be to require more than the present 1,265 hours but to cap those hours.
The STRB will also consider writing continuing professional development into the contract and offering overtime payments for training or other school activities outside the 190-day school year.
The steering group of unions, employers and education department officials which received the PWC report will now look at drawing up practical guidance which is likely to concentrate on the use of information communications technology and support staff.
Nigel de Gruchy, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, hailed Ms Morris’s “explicit recognition” of teachers’ workload problems, while John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said: “The show is on the road.”
But Mr Dunford warned that heads would expect a sign from Department for Education and Skills officials that they understood that they needed to cut back on the plethora of new initiatives which added to teachers’ in-trays.
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