Getting the Directed Time Budget right is essential if staff are going to have a positive work-life balance, and if school leaders are going to ensure their staff don’t run out of hours before the end of the school year.
“Each teacher is entitled to a Directed Time budget and it is the professional duty of principals in all schools to ensure a Directed Time budget is prepared for, and gives due regard to, the individual responsibilities of each teacher in their school.
Principals and each member of staff should seek to reach agreement on a teacher’s Directed Time budget;
…teachers do not have freedom to decide for themselves how they allocate their time. Principals should plan the use of teachers’ hours carefully in conjunction with the school improvement priorities, the school calendar and the annual schedule of meetings.
If they do not, there could be a danger that staff will exhaust their obligatory hours before the end of the school year.”
EA Training Guidance for Principals about Directed Time Budgets
This strand of think1265 is to develop and share a growing set of tools designed to:
- Allow teachers to provide evidence to line managers about the time required for various tasks.
- Help teachers to check their DTB, and ensure that they can have an informed discussion with the Principal so that a positive agreement about their DTB can be reached.
- Empower Union Reps to better answer member queries about DTBs, and to discuss reasonably and effectively with school leaders about problems with DTB planning.
- Facilitate Principals so they can develop the information necessary for them to easily build more effective, fair, and reasonable DTBs for each of their staff members, ensuring that teachers’ time is used in the best way to advance the teaching and learning of students.
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