Limit teaching to four

hours a day, says union

Jessica Shepherd, education correspondent
The Guardian, Tuesday 2 April 2013 19.20 BST

NUT wants teachers' classroom hours

capped at 20 a week amid claims
many hardly see their own children
and work late

Teachers have called for the time they

spend teaching pupils to be capped at 20
hours a week four hours a day.
The National Union of Teachers (NUT)
passed a motion on Tuesday demanding a
new working week of 20 hours' teaching
time, up to 10 hours of lesson preparation
and marking, and five hours of other
duties, including time spent inputting data
and at parents' evenings.
This would mark a drastic reduction in

teachers' hours. In the past year, the

number of hours teachers work has
dramatically risen as a result of pressure
from the government and the school
inspectorate, teachers claimed at the
NUT's annual conference in Liverpool.
They said they had no time to spend with
their children or to eat lunch and
complained that they often worked past
midnight.
Most primary school teachers work more
than 50 hours a week during term time,
while secondary school teachers work for
about 49 hours, the conference heard.
A current agreement between schools and
unions states that teachers should spend
time on "any reasonable activity" their
headteacher instructs. There is no fixed
limit on the number of hours teachers work
a week, although full-time staff must be
available for just over 32 hours. The
contract between unions and schools
states that teachers must be available to
work "such reasonable additional hours as
may be necessary to enable the effective
discharge of their professional duties".
Richard Rose, a teacher from

Cambridgeshire, told the conference there

was "no time to eat, think or go to the
toilet" in the working day. He said many
teachers sent emails after midnight
because there was no other time to do this.
His colleagues had little time to spend with
their children. "It's come to something that
teachers don't have time to look after their
own children," he said.
Christopher Denson, a teacher from
Coventry, said teachers' workload levels
were totally unsustainable. "It's essential
that we act to ensure that what's already
NUT policy a maximum working week of
35 hours becomes a reality for teachers,"
he said.
But Professor Alan Smithers, from the
Centre for Education and Employment
Research at the University of Buckingham,
said the demand was ridiculous and
detrimental to the profession's public
image.
"Teachers undermine the respect of the
general public by behaving as an oldfashioned trade union and making
unrealistic demands," he said. "Clearly
teaching depends on good preparation and
rigorous marking of pupils' work and there

needs to be an allowance of time for that,

but to attempt to limit the number of
teaching hours when there is a great strain
on finances is a ridiculous request.
Teachers do themselves no favours by
acting in this way."
A spokeswoman from the Department for
Education said: "By scrapping unnecessary
paperwork and bureaucracy, we are
making it easier than ever before for
teachers to focus their efforts on teaching
and learning and getting the very best
from their pupils."
For the past six months, the NUT has been
engaged in action short of striking in
conjunction with fellow teaching union the
NASUWT in protest over workloads,
working hours, pay and pensions. They
have refused to supervise children in the
playground or attend some meetings after
school.
The motion also called for a maximum
class size of 23 in infant schools and 26 for
other age groups. Teachers said there was
a stark comparison between class sizes in
fee-paying schools, such as Eton where
there are eight pupils to each teacher, and
schools in the state sector where there are

as many as 31 pupils.
The NUT unanimously passed a vote of no
confidence in the education secretary,
Michael Gove, and called for his
resignation. The 1,000-strong audience
heard that Gove had "lost the confidence of
the teaching profession [and] failed to
conduct his duties in a manner befitting
the head of a national education system".
Teachers shouted "Gove must go" after the
no-confidence motion was carried.
Gove had "chosen to base policy on
dogma, political rhetoric and his own
limited experience of education" and made
drastic changes to schools without
consulting parents, teachers, children,
governors or councils, the motion said. It
said Gove had demoralised the profession
with a "discourse of failure" and carried out
government business through private
emails.
The education secretary was "destroying
the education of all our children and must
go", Jane Walton, a teacher from Wakefield,
told the conference.
Oliver Fayers, a teacher from Camden,

north London, said teachers had a duty to

hold a "failing secretary of state to
account". Nick O'Brien, a teacher from
Norwich, said Gove was making teaching a
profession that "no one in their right mind
would consider joining".
Christine Blower, general secretary of the
NUT, said that if the secretary of state
chose to "plough on regardless", his "poll
tax moment" could be around the corner.
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