Increase teachers' PPA time to 1 day per week to promote teachers' wellbeing.

Parliament:: 2015–17
Signatures:: 23,083
Responded:: 22 Feb 2017

The petition

The DfE Teachers’ workload survey 2013 shows Primary school teachers work almost 60 hrs a week.

Full time teachers are contracted to 32.5 hours a week. Therefore, the U.K. education system is surviving only because of the additional 'goodwill' work teachers do!

The HSE's Labour force survey, listed teaching with one of the highest rates of work-related stress, anxiety or depression. With the unmanageable workload and unsustainable lifestyle as contributing factors to teachers 'burning out' due to a non existent work/life balance.

The 2014-15 figures from the DfE show that teachers on average each took 7.6 days off for sickness. A total of 2.22 million days were lost to teachers’ sickness absence.

A full Friday of 'non-contact' PPA time would help teachers to manage workload prior to the weekend, so they could mentally and physically rest prior to the forthcoming week.

The government's response

We are supporting the profession to tackle issues which can affect teachers’ wellbeing, including excessive workload, and recognise the importance of teachers having adequate PPA time.

We want every child to be taught by great teachers who are not weighed down with unnecessary workload which we know can affect wellbeing. Sickness absence amongst teachers is however below the national averages for the private sector and for the overall labour market, as well as below the rates seen in other areas of the public sector.

As part of our response to the 2014 ‘Workload Challenge’, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/workload-challenge-for-schools-government-response the Department for Education established three independent review groups to address the three biggest causes of unnecessary workload identified by teachers - marking, planning and data management. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/511256/Eliminating-unnecessary-workload-around-marking.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/511257/Eliminating-unnecessary-workload-around-planning-and-teaching-resources.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/511258/Eliminating-unnecessary-workload-associated-with-data-management.pdf

The reports from these groups, published in March 2016, include clear messages which empower classroom teachers and school leaders to challenge unproductive tasks. They make recommendations to the whole teaching profession, and encourage schools to reassess and streamline their practice and review it on an ongoing basis.

The planning and resources group https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reducing-teacher-workload-planning-and-resources-group-report were clear in their report that planning should take place in purposeful and well defined blocks of time. They recommended that Senior Leadership Teams should consider aggregating PPA into units of time which allow for substantial planning.

The petition

The DfE Teachers’ workload survey 2013 shows Primary school teachers work almost 60 hrs a week.

Full time teachers are contracted to 32.5 hours a week. Therefore, the U.K. education system is surviving only because of the additional 'goodwill' work teachers do!

The 2014-15 figures from the DfE show that teachers on average each took 7.6 days off for sickness. A total of 2.22 million days were lost to teachers’ sickness absence.

A full Friday of 'non-contact' PPA time would help teachers to manage workload prior to the weekend, so they could mentally and physically rest prior to the forthcoming week.

The government's response

We are supporting the profession to tackle issues which can affect teachers’ wellbeing, including excessive workload, and recognise the importance of teachers having adequate PPA time.