“I think I’ve lived long enough to understand that plans really are overrated.”
Viola Davis
“Time? Time!” I hear you cry – “We never have enough time!” But did you know that our colleagues across the water have a mechanism whereby they can “gain” time through their academic year?
According to NASUWT England: ‘During the academic year, teachers who have examination classes/groups may be released from timetabled teaching commitments as a result of pupils being on study or examination leave. This is referred to as gained time.’
During this mysterious gained time, teachers are only required to undertake activities from the list below:
– developing/revising departmental/subject curriculum materials, schemes of work, lesson plans and policies in preparation for the new academic year. This may include identifying appropriate members’ materials for use by supply staff and/or cover supervisors;
– assisting colleagues in appropriate planned team teaching activities;
– taking groups of pupils to provide additional learning support;
– supporting selected pupils with coursework;
– undertaking planned activities with pupils transferring between year groups or from primary schools;
– where the school has a policy for all staff to release them for continuing professional development (CPD) during school sessions.
As we mentioned above, the same system does not exist in Northern Ireland. Yet. But in England and Wales what can be asked of teachers during this “gained time” was defined in order to ensure that staff were only ever asked to do duties commensurate with their professional role during any non-teaching time caused by students being on study leave. Otherwise heaven knows what “any other duties” some Principals might ask staff to do! Short a dinner supervisor? Sure Big Jimmy in technology knows how to handle a ladle!
By defining gained time in this way teachers of exam classes in GB who survive the year by counting how many ‘frees’ they will get come mid-May, can do so with the (supposed) guarantee that they will not be provided with new timetables, bucket-loads of cover, or administrative tasks. They will be left in peace to prepare for the year ahead, which will (somehow) be even more busy than this one!
But what about the teachers in NI? What are we doing with freed time once our lovely exam classes have gone home to study?
Are we given a new timetable, or are we given some of our colleagues’ Key Stage 3 classes to make it ‘fair’? (Speaking of ‘fair’, what about our Primary colleagues who don’t have study leave at all?) Are we allowed to work on next year’s planning? We never really know until we’re there.
This is bound to be different in every school, and often with subjects as tricky as this, it’s often thought that we should maybe Leave. It. Well. Alone.
Those of us who are given peace to prepare for next year want exactly that – peace to prepare for next year!
In schools with good practice, this is one boat that staff don’t want rocked.
But what about staff in schools who don’t get this? We don’t (yet) have a ‘gained time’ directive, nor is it a term used when planning our DTB. However, if you look again at the TNC 2024/2, you will see that one of the fundamental principles is that there should be ‘a fair distribution of work within the school’.
To show that we are down with the kids, we are going to quote a little-known artist by the name of Taylor Swift, who rightly states that ‘It’s hard to fight when the fight ain’t fair.’
The same can be said about the distribution of work between teachers who have ‘core’ subjects (large GCSE classes), heavy marking subjects, and exam-class heavy timetables. How can we define what is fair and equitable? Well – that’s easy! By planning it out the year before in our Directed Time Budgets! That way, all of the extra work involved with teaching exam classes – never mind the stress – will be displayed clearly when the DTB is completed. Each task is nice and neatly accounted for. Time gained when exam classes go is offset by the time used for the additional marking and prep these classes require. Everyone is happy, right?
Wrong.
As we’ve said, while we don’t have gained time in NI, but what we do have to remember is that within our DTB, there is in-year variation. You’ll even see it mentioned in Point 10 of our Think 1265 Charter. And with this, is the very real possibility that Principals can use the time when our exam classes are gone to make up our 23.5 hours of weekly contact time. Now, we don’t know what’s happening in schools across the country and indeed this might be a moot point; you might be happy with how your school deals with this in-year variation and maybe feel it’s best not to raise it. However, by the time you have accounted for all of the tasks you complete in the year, (remember our crafty calculators) you’ll find that the freed-up time is needed to catch up on everything you have not been doing (sleeping, washing etc.) because you’ve been knee-deep in the misery of completing administrative tasks, marking and uploading marks to online systems.
Remember, too, that one of the key purposes of TNC 2024/2 is to: “b. to preserve, in so far as this is possible, the flexibility of the contractual framework and the professional autonomy of staff;” (bold added.) We therefore think that Best Practice for this “gained time” in most schools is to simply allow staff to get on with their professional duties, including catching up with other tasks, working with colleagues, planning for next year, and all the wealth of tiny preparation jobs that a good teacher will do to ensure the best for their students. It’s not downtime. It’s just self-directed time.
Where schools insist in using this time for predominantly cover purposes, we suggest members of staff consider adding to the granularity of their DTB to have this “gained time” outlined in their budget, and relevant tasks assigned to this time so that their additional time is put to best use in their departments – rather than filling in cover roles at the end of a long year.
By the time you have worked out all of your DTB in advance of your meeting with your Principal, you will probably already know if this is an area you need to hone in on, or to leave well alone. Something to think about now when your exam classes go, eh! If you can figure out from your timetable how much “gained time” you are likely to get, then use the calculators to work out where best you will need that time, and ask the Principal for it.
You know we love a good quote here at Think1265, so in the words of Henry Ford.
“There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.”
And don’t we know it!