As a teacher, you are more
than likely very familiar with people commenting on what a great deal you’ve
got in terms of holidays and the length of your working day. You’re probably
also familiar with people being very negative about that, stating that you
wouldn’t cope with a ‘proper job’ in the ‘real world’ and are lazy, have it
cushy and have an extremely easy time of it.
Aside from telling them
there’s nothing stopping them from training as a teacher and getting the same
good deal for themselves, and also to go and boil their heads, you are probably
likely to respond with the fact that you don’t have a good deal at all. Because
you don’t.
The holidays are merely
times when you are not required to be in front of a class teaching: you are
still required to work. I think at most teachers take 4 weeks completely off a
year, the same as any other job, only you have to take them at set times during
the year and can never book leave. That’s the opposite of a good deal.
In terms of working day
length and hours, most teachers will work in excess of 50 hours a week, and it
doesn’t take a genius to figure out you can’t do that if you finish at 3pm
every day. There is a lot of hate directed at teachers, and most of it comes in
the form of telling you your workload is low when it is in fact through the
roof.
In order to reduce workload,
I think the following things need to happen:
- Stricter, more enforceable legislation on the protection of PPA time
- Stricter, more enforceable legislation on teachers performing teaching and learning duties only
- Reduction and legislative limiting of the amount of paperwork required from teachers
- Slow down of rate of reforms and new initiatives
I mentioned in my post about
low staff morale (Low Staff Morale: Why It's Such A Problem In Teaching) that,
“Although the reverse is true, some
people may believe that pushing people to the limit increases productivity by
simply squeezing more out of them… In reality, it’s a proven fact that pushing
people this hard… reduces performance and productivity. It only allows those
who put work before anything else to succeed, meaning students are deprived of
contact with well rounded, family orientated people who are active in the
community.”
And this, in essence, is the
whole issue. School managers consider high workload to be a good thing because
they believe it gives them value for money, by employing less staff than is
required to get that amount of work done. In actual fact they are probably
right as well.
In business, pushing people
to the limit reduces productivity which reduces profit, and therefore is not a
cheaper option. But in the public sector, pushing people to the limit reduces
productivity which reduces standards: it has absolutely no effect on finances,
and therefore is a cheaper option. It does, as I said, reduce standards though,
which is perhaps why there is currently such a hateful witch hunt to turf out
all the bad teachers.
As schools reduce their
reliance on public funding, through academies and free schools, will that mean
eventually teachers will have to be allowed a good work life balance in order
to boost the school’s finances? Will payment on performance link money to
standards enough so that work life balance is improved? Actually, I’m hopeful.
The fact remains though that
excessive workload is a major barrier to raising standards, and is one of the
most common reasons cited for teachers becoming ill or leaving the profession.
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