Work-force Reform

[Guest]

I am part of the working party at my school to discuss / solve how the school is going to provide all teachers with the 10% PPA as from September.

 

Lots of ideas were thrown around, and we've by no means come to any conclusions as we haven't yet had next years budget.

 

Though the head and SMT seem to be very keen on covering all Nursery and Reception teacher's PPA time by having a HLTA take the class, and having a low-level TA support them.

 

Thus the staffing will go from having a qualified teacher and a HLTA in my class to having a HLTA and a low-level TA which I'm not very happy about! I think it seriously devalues teachers, jeapordises our long-term future as teachers wanting to teach in the FS... and most importantly does NOT benefit the children, which is supposed to be the whole point of PPA time in the first place!

 

Just wondered whether I'm alone at thinking like this?

[Guest]

I'm not by any means saying I agree, but this is how most teachers' PPA time will be covered, for children of all ages. It is a good thing that we will be given planning time. No one benefits from teachers planning late into the night or at weekends. I think I will live longer as a reult of it.

[Guest]

I can appreciate both sides of the argument here. I think 10% non-contact time is less appropriate for FS and KS1 than for other key stages because of our close involvement with all aspects of the children's education and welfare. Half a day every week is a big chunk out of the timetable - and for me this is in addition to regular Coordinator non-contact time!

 

Don't forget, though, that PPA stands for Planning, Preparation and Assessment. I shall be using mine for the assessment part! At last I can legitimise stepping back completely from teaching and actually spend some quality time observing the children

[Susan]

As a supply teacher at the moment, Id like to see this time being available to me!

 

As a class teacher and FS co-ord I would have valued the time. For assessment as Fox is suggesting but also for preparation. I can not see that I would have necessarily have used the time profitably for planning, because of my preferred way to plan. As the coord of a team of 3, it would have been really useful for us to have had time together as team, rather than at the end of a busy day at school when we were tired and wanted to go home!

 

I also think this a tremndous opportunity to employ some sort of specailist teacher, music or ICT perhaps to teach and raise standards in that area. Unfortunately, I dont have those specialist skills so perhaps I shouldnt shout about that one!

 

However, what would be really useful in my mind, is to somehow rearrange the school day and week to allow all teachers to be in schools planning on Friday afternoons with the children either at home or occupied in another way. There have I believe been schools that have worked in this way with some sort of sports and club afternoons?

 

As for the question as to the value of teachers, yes I think we need to be careful not to undermine our own positions.

[Guest]

As a supply teacher at the moment, Id like to see this time being available to me!

 

As a class teacher and FS co-ord I would have valued the time. For assessment as Fox is suggesting but also for preparation. I can not see that I would have necessarily have used the time profitably for planning, because of my preferred way to plan. As the coord of a team of 3, it would have been really useful for us to have had time together as team, rather than at the end of a busy day at school when we were tired and wanted to go home!

 

I also think this a tremndous opportunity to employ some sort of specailist teacher, music or ICT perhaps to teach and raise standards in that area. Unfortunately, I dont have those specialist skills so perhaps I shouldnt shout about that one!

 

However, what would be really useful in my mind, is to somehow rearrange the school day and week to allow all teachers to be in schools planning on Friday afternoons with the children either at home or occupied in another way. There have I believe been schools that have worked in this way with some sort of sports and club afternoons?

 

As for the question as to the value of teachers, yes I think we need to be careful not to undermine our own positions.

Hi,

 

I think that the PPA time is a good idea. We are having a theme week every half term and each teacher gets one day for PPA. This means that key stage 1 joins together, year 3&4 and 5& 6, and as we are working towards a topic two year rolling program (i,e castles for year 3& 4) this blends in well. It will also help the transition between foundation and year 1 and gives all teachers an opportunity to work with the children. In the key stage 1 team there will be two teachers and three TAs.

 

I feel the children will also enjoy working with their peers from other classes and feel more part of the school community as sometime i feel they are segregated!

 

We have money attached so we have arranged visitors and trips!

 

I know we are not getting are full time but I would rather a day then an afternoon or morning!

 

 

Goldenwink

[Sue R]

Not being a teacher, I don't want to offer an opinion, but as Susan has pointed out, the opportunity to get together as a team, on a regular basis, would, I imagine, be very welcome.The Comprehensive my children attended introduced this to a certain extent by shortening Monday and Friday schooldays, to finish at 2.30. How useful this would actually be, I can't really comment on, but I was just offering it as a bit of fuel to the discussion.

 

I also think Susan's idea of a specialist time is brilliant!!

 

Sue (talking completely out of turn, but hey!)

[Guest]

In principle, I think the 10% planning time is a great idea. However, in my situation, I will be losing out in other ways. At the moment, I have one session a week (non-contact) to plan with my two TAs (who job share) at the point in the week where they change over. This time is invaluable. We plan for the following week, discuss individual children and talk about any issues that both TAs need to be aware of. From September, my TAs will be covering my release time and I have been told there will be no other time for planning. As general practice, ' the class teacher plans and the TA delivers'.

 

However, I am sure we will end up using the mid-week lunchtime to plan together! Another example of where other people don't understand the needs of the Foundation Stage.

[Susan]

Hi Goldenwink and welcome!

thanks also for an interesting first post!

 

I wonder if your schools arrangements will satisfy the powers that be? I understood that as of September 10% PPA time was an entitlement not optional?

 

One of my reasons for opting to change tracks to a supply teacher recently was due to the absolute burn out that I was experiencing not least because of the hours at home, planning etc. I certainly had little work/life balance! So I am keen to see this come into play and be a success for all teachers.

 

I looked at a maternity cover temporary position recently and was interested that the school had set up a satff workroom and banned all work from the staffroom. PPA time was available for anyone taking on a curriculum responsibility, although that seemed to indicate that, it was going to be expected that the time be used for curriculm development and that I believe should be a separate issue?

[Susan]

Oh Gail, thats a real step backwards.

[Sue R]

Have to agree with you again, Susan (No I'm not her parrot!!)

 

Taking time away from productive areas is so, well - unhelpful!! We really need complete autonomy in some (if not all) areas! Not expressing myself well this evening, been a long, hard and stressful week! Sorry, Peggy, not in the way you are looking at, just the temporary, adrenalin-boosting-get on with it whatever-type way.

 

Sue

[Guest]

10% PPA time is statutory from September, but in typical fashion there is no extra money for schools to employ supply cover, specialist or otherwise

[Guest]

\hi everyone who is interiested in this topic.

I am a Reception teacher and welcome this initiative. In my school we have already been doing this. For the past 5 years the juniors have been having their PPA time not the Infants though - we have had an experienced qualified person every Friday PM with the Junirons for basketball/tennis> the person we have is qualified in his area but not a teacher which is fine and from half term the infants have had the same person - and I must say it has been great - he is able to take the children on his own and cost a lost less than anothe teacher. On a Friday am my nearly NLth has taken the class at 9 until 10.30 - during this time she supervisors the children changing in outdoor PE kit, does handwriting using a videa and then has some PPA time herself whilst the class has 30 mins of expert teaching in ball skills ready for basketball/tennis for later years. Does this make sense, after a glass of wine or two I am not sure.

Abi

[Guest]

Thanks for all your replies... it's very interesting to hear how other schools plan to deal with it.

 

However, maybe I wasn't as clear as I might have been with my original post...

 

I totally think it is a good idea to have the 10% PPA time... but

 

do you agree that it should be covered by a non-teacher?

[Guest]

Certainly, provided the non-teaching staff are acting in a supervisory capacity

[catma]

I think the reality is that it will be covered by teaching assistants in the main..schools won't have the budgets to employ additional teachers, a two form entry school would have to release 14 -15 teachers! Some schools I know have approached it in different ways

1) They all finish early on a thursday and have an hour to plan every week. Not sure if this is 10% though. They start earlier and reduced dinner breaks to do this.

2) TA's cover all years,

3) Teachers get 1 whole day a half term. costs the school = 1 month of supply cover a term. This means that sickness/attendance at courses is covered by splitting classes etc

 

Heads are caught between a rock and a hard place really. We could argue that a reception class should have a teacher, but then so could any other year group really, they each have their own particular curriculum, focus, needs etc. I would rather have had my TA's cover me, with their knowledgw of the children and how we operated than a supply who wouldn't necessarily have a clue if it meant I got time to prepare.

 

Cx

[Guest]

London Borough of Hillingdon has just given all primary schools 73K and 95K to secondary schools for the work force remodeling - this is more than has been allocated by the Government. At our school we have already had some discussion about buying in some music instruction as we do not have a specialist on the staff. We all rejected the idea of using non qualified staff, infact we refused permission for planning to be used by non qualified staff. It is after all our intellectual property. I now put a copyright lablel on all my planning.

[catma]

But don't our "unqualified staff" use our planning anyway?? How do they know what they are doing from day to day if they don't access the planning? In fact don't they generally have some investment in the planning anyway? Most LSA's/TA's/Nursery nurses or whatever the job description is take some role in developing the curriculum in foundation settings. In many settings people of differing qualifications take on all sorts of responsibilities.

[Guest]

We are a large school - 3-form entry with an 80 place nursery. It means that at our first Change Team Meeting this week we were very unsure as to how we were going to manage the PPA time from Sept.

 

Because we are so large, my suggestion of specialist teachers was also problematic in that how would we ensure that specialist teaching was accessible by all years etc? How would we ensure that each of the three classes in each year group had equal access to it etc?

 

We are considering the possibility of looking at the school week and closing Friday lunchtime to the children and using that as our collective PPA time. Obviously that has large implications etc etc.

 

At the minute, NNs are raising concerns that they don't see why teachers should be given PPA time during their directed time as it is what they are paid to do. Yet they are also saying that they do understand planning restraints etc etc. So, not only are we having the problem of managing it, but we are also getting slight resistance from the people who would be more than likely covering the teachers on their time out of the classroom.

 

It has to be a whole school approach and we are also finding managing the PPA as a whole school thing slightly different. There are obviously differing issues for the differing key stages.

 

Does anyone have any workable suggestions that we as a large school could trial - or at least bat about at the next Change Team Meeting?

 

Thanks!

 

D xxx

[Guest]

We are a large school and we're going to be no closer to deciding which way to go before the budget is announced really. We are in the lucky position to be able to afford one extra teacher, but the feeling is that the extra teacher will be used to cover PPA time in KS2.

 

My feeling is that it may just be a small step in the wrong direction. If TA's can cover reception classes for afternoons... what's to stop them covering classes for a day if the teacher is ill?

 

Personally, I feel it devalues teachers and whilst my TA is without a doubt wonderful, I don't want my class left without a teacher.

[mundia]

i think thats a really good point about TAs covering for teachers for PPA and then also covering for staff absence. that is happening at our school. However with the TAs new contracts, I think it specifies that they can only be used in this way so many times or hours per week.

 

But I would aslo say that I would rather have my very good TAs taking a class than a supply teacher with no Fs experience who does not know the chidren, and at short notice, this is often what we get.