What’s Batman without The Joker? Superman without Lex Luther? Holmes without Moriarty? Every story needs their villains, and unfortunately there are a fair few leaders in our education system who seem to enjoy focusing their disciplinary efforts on controlling their teachers rather than handling the students or negotiating with the Department of Education.
Principal stomps on spirit of TNC agreement on Day One after ASOSA lifted
On the 1st day of no action (10th April 2024), some 9 hours after industrial action ended, a secondary school Principal called for on site 1hr directed time, sometimes called ‘teacher detention.’
Staff were directed to upload results from tests completed before ASOSA ended, in spite of reps pointing out that this was in breach of the agreement (below).
Union officers are being consulted and action will be taken.
“Pending the start of the 2024-25 school year, teachers and Principals will not be expected to carry out retrospectively any aspects of workload which have been set aside during industrial action. Schools will use the period between the ratification of the agreement and the end of the 2023-24 school year to prepare for the beginning of the 2024-25 academic year.” Joint TNC Communication, Appendix 1, Section 1. 9th April 2024.
“There will be a carefully managed and supported restoration of working practices in schools including the issue of an agreed communication.” Joint TNC Communication, paragraph 6.
(Bad) business as usual
A school is planning on starting “book looks” and walkthroughs a day after the current industrial action ends. This is an interesting interpretation of the Joint TNC Communication which states:
“There will be a carefully managed and supported restoration of working practices in schools including the issue of an agreed communication.” (9-4-24)
Extra-curricular activities extradited from the DTB
A school has removed extra-curricular timings from Directed Time Budgets as it has discovered that extra-curricular activities are all voluntary. Presumably staff will respond by removing themselves from extra-curricular activities.
But supervising isn’t really contact, is it?
A school considers the first 5 minutes and the last 10 minutes with pupils as “supervision” rather than “teaching”, so they stay within the maximum 25 hours contact time per week. Fortunately all pupils stand perfectly still and silent for the first 5 minutes and the last 10 minutes every afternoon. Like trees.
Sure it gets you out in the fresh air…
A school has staff doing ‘playground activities’ for 35 minutes each day while their classes have their lunch playtime. This is – of course – a convenient coincidence, and not an attempt to make teachers supervise a lunch break in contravention of multiple agreements.
Absence (from home) makes the heart grow fonder.
A school does not give staff any time on timetable for head of department or coordinator duties. Time allocated for this is during directed time every day until 4pm. (Monday meetings in addition to this). So teachers must stay every day after pupils for 35 minutes. But afterwards – we’re sure – everyone goes surfing and has a great old time.
Schrodinger’s directed time.
A school gives a Head of Department an hour a week for their Teaching Allowance time. But it’s not blocked time, so the teacher never knows which period will be the HoD time… and which will be used elsewhere. Still, variety is the spice of life.
Mrs Pinkle can’t go for a tinkle.
A primary school has all staff on duty every break time, without providing time to go to the toilet before the next classes start. Of course some staff have engineered complex tubing-based apparatus which go down their trousers, so they can go for a wee while walking round the playground… like in “The Great Escape.”*
*This bit isn’t true. The former is.
Special mention
A school in England requires teacher planners to include maps of teachers planned “pathway” around the room during the lesson. At £35 an hour for a UPS teacher, this is public money well spent.
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