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.
The new workload protections include: the addition of Planning, Preparation and Assessment (PPA) time to sixth form college teacher terms and conditions; a ‘rarely cover’ equivalent to be added to terms and conditions; and agreed principles on directed time as well as workload. Further to this, separate joint guidance between employers and trade unions will be developed on class sizes and contact hours in sixth form colleges.
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. The agreed principles on directed time and workload set out clear parameters around the use of directed time as well as a means of managing college workloads.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:
"Through sustained negotiation and collective strength, NEU sixth form college teachers have gained important workload improvements. College workloads have steadily ticked upwards and are a significant driver of the retention and recruitment challenges within the education sector.’
"Our members were unequivocal that they needed genuinely protected time to plan, prepare and assess, while demands on college teachers to cover were constant in many instances. New workload principles will go a long way toward ensuring that teacher workloads are fair and balanced, whereas the enshrining of directed time in colleges at a time in which it is under threat in schools is an important step in the right direction for the sector.
“This workload win is down to the resolve of NEU sixth form college teachers to stand firm until their conditions improved, as well as a mark of the success of the effective dialogue between unions and employers that the sectoral collective bargaining structure in sixth form colleges facilitates."