TNC 2024/2 is the most recent and comprehensive workload agreement. It contains the agreed rules about managing teachers’ time which schools must follow. If these rules are not followed then the Directed Time budget will not be compliant with TNC 2024/2, and it is likely that that individual’s Directed Time will not be managed properly during that year.
This checklist helps you to find out if your DTB is compliant with these agreed rules or not. If it’s not you should contact your union representative to discuss it.
A Directed Time budget is not compliant if:
- No individual Directed Time budget was provided.
- It was issued after the teaching year began.1
- There was no meaningful attempt to agree the duties and time allocations with the teacher.1
- It is a generic budget which does not reflect the teacher’s timetable, teaching allowances or individual responsibilities.1
- It does not identify all activities and duties required and the time allocated to each.
- Large blocks of time are left for unspecified generic tasks (e.g. “other professional duties” or “contingency time”.)2
- It exceeds 1,265 hours or more than 195 working days across a single year.
- It includes more than 187 days (inc TransformEd) involving classroom teaching / contact time.3
The Directed Time budget must account for all required:
- Teaching and cover;
- Registration and assembly,
- All duties (e.g. breaktime or bus duties),
- Non-teaching days and staff training events, which should match the school calendar,
- Meetings, parents’ evenings and open evenings, including “trapped time” and which must also match the school calendar,
- Teaching Allowance and SEN Allowance duties,
- Directed extracurricular activities, events and educational visits (note – teachers cannot be directed to take students on overnight stays.)
If any activity is required by the Principal; by the Principal’s representatives (managers, HoDs, etc), or by a school policy, then it is Directed Time and must be accounted for in the DTB. If it is not then that budget is non-compliant with TNC 2024/2. 4
Directed Time budgets are linked to the school calendar. If the agreed rules about the school calendar are not followed, then the DTB cannot be fully compliant with TNC 2024/2.
A meeting schedule / calendar is non-compliant with TNC 2024/2 if:
- No annual schedule of meetings was provided before the start of the academic year.
- Meetings on the school calendar are missing from the individual budget. This includes all the meetings required for teachers with responsibility points.5
- The school calendar has been changed after the start of the academic year without consultation.
- Regular work during unsocial hours has been introduced without consultation, agreement and at least five working days’ notice.
A Directed Time budget is linked to staff timetables, and is non-compliant with TNC 2024/2 if:
- At least 10% of Directed Time is not allocated to Planning, Preparation and Assessment—126.5 hours for a full-time teacher.
- The total contact time on any given week, including cover, registration duties which include any form of instruction of students, or leading assemblies, exceeds 23.5 hours in post-primary or 25 hours in primary or special schools.
- The teacher does not receive an uninterrupted 30-minute break between noon and 2 pm—or 2.30 pm in nursery settings.
- The teacher is required to undertake lunchtime supervision without formal agreement and a separate contract, including suitable agreed remuneration.
TNC 2024/2 gives teachers several rights and entitlements which must be taken into account when planning Directed Time budgets. A Directed Time budget is non-compliant in this regard if:
- There is no workable and transparent mechanism for distributing workload fairly and equitably* among staff, and teachers cannot see the agreed distribution of workload.
- Duties or cover are distributed unfairly or unreasonably.
- Teaching Allowance holders or teachers in receipt of SEN points are given responsibilities without sufficient time to discharge all their duties. (NB: the “one TA point, one ‘free’ period” approach is unsatisfactory for this purpose.
- Duties have been added or changed without the budget being updated accordingly.
A rule of thumb for TNC 2024/2 compliance:
If a teacher is required to do something, it is a direction.
If it is a direction, it must be identified in the Directed Time budget.
If it is identified in the Directed Time budget, it must be afforded sufficient reasonable time from the 1265 pro rata for that staff member to carry out that task over the year.
No teacher can be directed to do any professional duties outside of their 1265 hours over 195 days.