We're looking at how a teacher should work in their 'non-teaching' time, and it's difficult to do this without discussing the Working Time Directive.
There are some myths here that we need to bust right now; a fallacy which may be proudly laid out in front of you during your teacher training. It is theoretically correct but – alas – absolutely misleading. This is the myth that the Working Time directive has removed administration work from teachers' lives. If you do not look beyond the reassuring words, it may sour your life. Not just because there is a lot of work involved here, but because you will approach it with a resentful scowl – 'we aren’t supposed to have to do this'; 'this is not a part of a teacher’s role'. Mostly, alas, this is just not so.
For over ten years, The UK government has endorsed a ‘Workload Agreement’ which defines a range of administrative tasks which are no longer a part of the teachers’ role. Here is a list: bulk photocopying, collecting money from pupils and parents, investigating pupils' absence, typing up teaching material, bulk communications to parents and pupils, producing class lists, keeping and filing records, preparing, setting up and taking down classroom displays, analysing attendance figures and examination results, administration of work experience, examinations or cover for absent students, setting up and maintaining IT equipment, ordering supplies, stocktaking, minute taking, minute taking, data entry.
Impressive, eh? … And it gets even better, you may be told - this list is indicative; if there are any clerical tasks which have been omitted from the list, they still cannot be part of your job.
It’s great news that we don’t have to worry about this lot. Or do we? Let’s think about this logically – we’ll use ‘photocopying’ as an example, but the same logic applies to all the items on the list. Common sense says that photocopying must have been a significant part of a teacher’s job, or there would be no value in transferring it to less well-qualified staff. There is clearly a lot of logic in this proposal – you surely don’t need a postgraduate qualification in order to stand in front of a photocopying machine, insert a sheet of paper and press '43' - or however many copies are needed? Well, OK, but there’s three hidden issues here.
Firstly, as anyone with a postgraduate qualification will tell you: you need at least a masters degree and ideally a doctorate in order to operate a modern photocopier. In the happy golden days, you just hit the 4 key, hit the 3 key, and hit the start key, and the merry machine would rattle out 43 copies. Since about 1992, however, the machines have been smarter than the teachers. The machine does ‘duplex’, the machine does a range of paper sizes from A3 to jeroboam, and the machine does staples. The paper goes into the machine in a variety of different ways and it seems that it can reappear almost anywhere. The control panel of the copier resembles the flight desk of a commercial airliner and the instructions provided have clearly been written by someone much, much cleverer than you or I.
Secondly, although the ‘less well-qualified staff’ will happily press the buttons for you, they will ask you exactly the same baffling questions as the machine. Do you want this duplex? Do you want it centre-folded? Landscape or portrait? Stapled centre or corner? Should the A5 alignment be offset on the odd-numbered pages? In order to get bulk photocopying done, many schools require you to fill in a form which is not dissimilar in length and complexity to an income tax return.
Thirdly, the Workload Agreement does not guarantee that you will not have to carry out these tasks. It states that you must not routinely be asked to do them. This is a real ‘gotcha’ policy. You will not be expected – in fact you are expressly forbidden – to practice these skills, to learn the tricks-of-the-trade and do the work efficiently, but you will be asked to do them occasionally at certain times. “At what times?” you may sensibly ask. Well, in an emergency, for example, when the school is short-staffed, or if the work is urgent, or… You can see where this is leading, can’t you? The only time you will have to do this work is at the worst possible time, under pressure, and with no recent experience. No wonder the job is stressful.
It is extremely important that you understand the working time directive - it is a genuinely positive attempt to help teachers to teach. UK teachers' unions publish excellent documents on a teachers' duties. However, as a working teacher, the key point is this:
Teachers are responsible for deciding, based on their professional skill, what they need to do in their non-contact time and how much non-contact time they need to dedicate to their job.
In just about every case the answer to 'what do I need to do in my non-contact time' is 'an awful lot' and the answer to 'how much time do I need' is 'more than the number of hours you get paid for'.
For a detailed list of the working time directive tasks, click here.