Popular articles

Do you have any examples of how teachers’ directed time is organised? We outline the regulations in the STPCD and link to directed time budgets from a local authority, a school, and a branch of the NUT. We also include the findings of the 2010 teachers’ workload survey.

Contents

1. 1  STPCD guidance on directed time
2. 2  Sample directed time budgets
3. 3  2010 teachers’ workload survey
4. 4  Additional sources and further reading

STPCD guidance on directed time

The School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) 2011 sets out the working time arrangements for teachers. Paragraph 62.4 on page 109 says:

A teacher employed full-time must be available to perform such duties at such times and such places as may be specified by the headteacher ... for 1,258.5 hours, those hours to be allocated reasonably throughout those days in the school year on which the teacher is required to be available for work.

Paragraph 62.6 says that in addition to the 1,258.5 hours of directed time, a teacher “must work such reasonable additional hours as may be necessary to enable the effective discharge of the teacher’s professional duties”, particularly:

• Planning and preparing courses and lessons
• Assessing, monitoring, recording and reporting on the learning needs, progress and achievements of assigned pupils

However, paragraph 62.7 says:

The employer must not determine how many of the additional hours ... must be worked or when these hours must be worked.

In 2011/12 the number of hours of directed time has been reduced from 1,265 to 1,258.5 to reflect the extra bank holiday for the Queen’s diamond jubilee in 2012. It is expected that there will be 1,265 hours of directed time without the additional bank holiday in 2012-13. 

STPCD 2011, Department for Education (Adobe pdf file)
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-00072-2011.pdf

Sample directed time budgets

The following directed time budgets were published before the publication of the STPCD 2011. They therefore refer to 1,265 rather than 1,258.5 hours of directed time.   

Sample time budget for a primary classroom teacher: 

The way in which the time is allocated ... will vary between schools

East Sussex County Council has a policy and procedure for teachers’ directed time that includes an example of a directed time budget for a full-time primary school classroom teacher without a teaching and learning responsibility (TLR). It says:

Please note this is simply an example. The way in which the time is allocated for different aspects of a teacher’s working day will vary between schools. It is important that the issue is given careful consideration and that the total directed hours, including contingency time, does not exceed 1,265 hours.

The annual time budget is summarised below:

Activity	Time budget	Hours per year
Registration	½ hour x 190 days	95
Mid-session break	¼ hour x 190 days	47½
Teaching time	20 hours per week	760
Planning, preparation and assessment (PPA)	2½ hours per week	95
INSET days	5 hours x 5 days	25
Supervisory duties	½ hour x 190 days	95
Parents’ meetings and open evenings	3 hours x 4 days	12
Staff meetings	1 hour x 38 days	38
Performance management meeting	1 x 1 hour	1
Other duties, e.g. individual pupil issues	25 mins x 190 days	80 hours 10 mins

There appears to be a slight discrepancy in the final figure listed; however the total is approximately 1,248 hours. The document says a cushion of contingency time has been left for unplanned events.

Policy and procedure for teachers’ directed time - 1265 hours, East Sussex County Council, see page 6 (Adobe pdf file)
https://czone.eastsussex.gov.uk/schoolpersonnel/payandconditions/workingtime/Documents/working_time.pdf

Sample directed time budget from a school

Highcliffe School and Specialist College in Dorset has a weekly time calculation and an annual time calculation in its calendar notes for 2011/12.

Activity	Number of times	Number of hours
6 hours per day	190	1,140
5 hours per INSET day	5	25
1.25 hrs/week meeting cycle/ development time	35	43.75
0.66 hrs/week duty	38	25
2.5 hours per parents evening	6	15
3 hours per tutor evening	1	3
Open evenings	2	13
Total		1,265 (to the nearest hour)

Calendar notes 2011/12, Highcliffe School and Specialist College, see pages 3 and 4 (Word doc file)
http://station1.highcliffe.dorset.sch.uk/intra/pages/policies/LSG%20Framework%202011_2012/LSG%20Information%20and%20Guidance/Calendar%20Notes.docx

Sample directed time budget from a union

The Lancashire branch of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) has an example of a directed time budget. It is summarised below:

Activity	Hours
190 school days	1,108
5 INSET days	30
Staff, team, departmental meetings etc.	38
Other meetings	19
Meetings with parents	10
Reports and assessment	20
Special events	20
Total	1,245

The guidance says:

You will note that this does not total 1,265 hours. It is advisable to leave a cushion for any unexpected situation with which a school would be expected to cope.

Directed time, Lancashire NUT
http://www.lancashirenut.org.uk/show_campaigns.php?ec_id=29

2010 teachers’ workload survey

The 2010 teachers’ workload survey provides independently collected data on the hours and working patterns of 1,244 randomly selected teachers in maintained primary, secondary and special schools in England and Wales.

Total hours worked

Table 2 on page 10 of the report shows the average total hours worked by classroom teachers in 2010. We have calculated the ‘hours per year’ by multiplying the ‘hours per week’ by 39:

Type of school	Average hours per week	Average hours per year
Primary	50.2	1,957.8
Secondary	49.9	1,946.1
Special	46.4	1,809.6

Distribution of hours worked

Table A1 on page 35 shows how the average hours worked by classroom teachers each week are distributed between tasks:

Task	Primary: hours	Primary: percentage	Secondary: hours	Secondary: percentage	Special: hours	Special: percentage
Teaching	18.0	35.8	18.5	37	18.5	40
PPA	17.1	34	16.2	32.5	14.3	30.9
Non-teaching pupil/parent contact	4.0	8	6.9	13.8	5.2	11.1
School/staff management	3.4	6.7	2.6	5.2	2.7	5.7
Administrative support	3.6	7.1	2.1	4.1	2.5	5.3
Individual/professional activity	3.5	7	3.1	6.2	2.5	5.4
Other working activities	0.7	1.4	0.5	1.1	0.7	1.6
Total	50.2	100	49.9	100	46.4	100

Teachers’ Workload Diary Survey 2010, Department for Education, see pages 10 and 35 (Adobe pdf file)
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-RR057-WEB.pdf