Weekend working
Teachers cannot be required to work on any Saturday, Sunday or public holiday unless they are a teacher at a residential establishment.
Members should refuse to be directed to undertake any work-related tasks, such as planning, marking or responding to emails, on weekends or bank holidays, or in any way that disrupts a healthy work/life balance.
Cover
Covering for absent colleagues is not an effective use of teachers’ time. Except for those employed primarily for cover, such as supply teachers or cover supervisors, teachers should not be regularly required to provide cover.
The STPCD states that teachers should only provide cover ‘rarely’ and only in unforeseen circumstances. Members should therefore challenge school leadership if they are directed to cover for absent colleagues in circumstances that are foreseeable.
Foreseeable circumstances for a school include situations that are commonly expected, such as sickness absence, maternity leave and planned events like educational visits that are part of regular school activities.
Administrative tasks
Members should refuse to routinely perform administrative tasks that do not require their professional skills and judgement. A list of non-teaching tasks that teachers should not undertake can be found in Annex 5 of the STPCD (Appendix D) and Annex 3 of the STPC(W)D.
The list is only illustrative, so members and reps should identify additional tasks they should not be doing by considering whether they require a teacher’s professional skills, expertise and judgement.
Tasks don’t have to be done daily to be considered routine – some, like collating reports, happen annually but are still routine and should not be undertaken by teachers.
Invigilation
Teachers should not be required to undertake invigilation of examinations, statutory assessments (SATs) or mock exams/assessment.
Action for reps
- Follow the bargaining cycle (see section 2) to identify and challenge instances where teachers are being directed to perform duties beyond those outlined in their contracts.
