THE AVERAGE primary teacher works 51.5 hours a week, the School Teachers’ Review Body tells us. This is based on its annual workload survey, in which more than 2,000 teachers and school leaders are asked to keep a detailed diary of their working week.
The devil, as always, is in the detail. Only 15.8 hours were spent teaching their own lessons.
So how do they spend the rest of their time? Well, there is lesson preparation and assessment, pastoral care and discipline, coaching sports and directing school dramas.
Then there is (and we are sure these are on the list of 25 tasks banned by the workforce agreement) record-keeping, photocopying, displaying pupils’ work and other administrative duties, adding up to two hours a week.
And the last hour of their working week? Er, filling in the diary for the review body.
