Every teacher who has responded to a union’s survey says they work more than their 35 contracted hours and the vast majority are prepared to take industrial action over class-contact time.
The Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association has exclusively shared with Tes Scotland details of a survey it launched last Tuesday; by Friday, it had attracted more than 1,700 responses.
The survey is part of the SSTA campaign to reduce teachers’ weekly class-contact time by 90 minutes - a policy the Scottish government committed to in 2021 - and reflects teachers’ fears that they have no “head space” for planning and preparation.
‘Huge amounts of free overtime’
Seamus Searson, SSTA general secretary, said: “The survey shows that all secondary teachers work beyond their 35-hour contractual week and are giving huge amounts of ‘free overtime’.”
He criticised local authorities’ body Cosla for “failing to recognise the significance” of the policy to reduce class-contact time, even after the Scottish government provided funding, with the result that teachers are “exhausted and burnt out” and some are leaving the profession.
Mr Searson described the teaching profession in Scotland as being “in crisis” after a “failure to recruit in the secondary sector”, for which he also laid much of the blame on Cosla.
He said that 92 per cent of respondents to the indicative survey - which closes on 28 August - are prepared to take industrial action.
Earlier this month, the EIS teaching union formally opened a consultative industrial action ballot over teacher workload, but delegates at its annual general meeting in Aviemore also heard that education secretary Jenny Gilruth had promised “a clear route map to implementation” of the contact-time policy by the end of June.
Today, Peter Brandon, the SSTA’s salaries and conditions of service convener, said Scottish teachers were working “well above” average hours among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “yet our employers seem unable to understand how much better teaching and learning would be with less exhausted teachers”.
He added: “Reducing class-contact time is a crucial step in addressing excessive teacher workload. Our children are being penalised every day this situation remains unchanged.”
The ongoing survey finds that 18 per cent of respondents are working up to five hours above their contacted 35 hours; 43 per cent said they worked up to 10 hours extra; 25 per cent said up to 15 hours; and 14 per cent said they worked more than an additional 15 hours per week.
One respondent said: “I work every night and weekend, far above my 35 hours.”
‘Constantly on high alert’
Another said: “Imagine someone in the private sector being expected to perform all day with no break between performances, no time to reflect on each performance and no time to prepare for the next performance.
“We are constantly on high alert with no head space to plan, prepare and reflect, and yet we are expected to work miracles in our classrooms every day, managing all kinds of needs and abilities.”
At a school where half of pupils have an additional support need, a teacher said there were fewer pupil support assistants than ever and that some pupils were arriving at secondary when still at an early level for literacy and numeracy.
“Trying to support these pupils in class and differentiate work to the level required is impossible within our current allocated time,” the teacher said.
Another teacher said: “I feel as a teacher of 25 years that the profession is failing. Teachers are being put under immense pressure to deliver [the broad general education] and national qualifications to classes that are so differentiated that the job has become completely impossible.”
A Cosla spokesperson said: “Reducing teachers’ class contact time by 1.5 hours a week, equal to almost two weeks per year, will require additional resource, significant advance planning and actions to tackle existing problems such as recruitment and retention in rural areas and shortages of teachers of certain subject areas.
“There has to be a recognition that achieving the reduction in class-contact time by maintaining teacher numbers as pupil numbers gradually decline is a challenge and will take time.”
The spokesperson added: “In addition, councils will have to consider how to maintain other statutory services as the proportion of the salary bill required for teachers increases.”
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