National Education Union members who teach in sixth form colleges have secured a contractual right to planning time, along with other workload protections as part of the 2025/26 pay round, after successful negotiations with the Sixth Form College Association (SFCA) alongside fellow union NASUWT.
This follows a successful indicative ballot over the pay claim last year, and a subsequent member vote in the Autumn Term signalling to the SFCA that we would not back down on our workload demands.
The new workload protections will be added to sixth form college teacher terms and conditions (the Red Book) and include:
- Planning, Preparation and Assessment (PPA) time;
- A ‘rarely cover’ equivalent;
- Directed Time principles, setting out how the 1265 hours of directed time that teachers are subject to should be calculated and what should be in it;
- Workload principles, setting out agreed measures for reducing workload across colleges
Further to this, separate joint guidance between employers and trade unions will be developed on class sizes and contact hours in sixth form colleges. The workload changes will take effect from September 2026.
Despite PPA having existed in schools since 2005, there has been no equivalent entitlement in sixth form colleges until now, although some but not all colleges have varying amounts of ‘desk time’. Similarly, the ‘rarely cover’ provision – which limits the level of cover teachers can provide for absent colleagues – was introduced in schools in 2009, but there was until this point no comparable protection in colleges.
This is a significant gain for sixth form college teachers and a mark of the success of the collective bargaining machinery in sixth form colleges, which continues to facilitate effective dialogue between employers and unions.