Workload and pay - Professor Galton's evidence

Have you ever felt that the introduction of PPA time has just seemed to be an opportunity for more of those “initiatives” which caused the workload crisis in the first place? “You must do this now, we've given you PPA time!”

Professor Maurice Galton's contribution to the National Education Conference was to explain his research on the effects of workforce reforms on schools. The most startling of which is that in fact teacher workload has increased rather than been reduced.

Time spent training and supporting Cover Supervisors has been one factor. While the government gets teaching on the cheap, valuable PPA time is eroded by this kind of activity.

The “Learning to Learn” and “Assessment for Learning” Framework is another. These changes require more time and different complex skills for teachers and are beyond the training of Cover Supervisors.

Teaching Assistants do a brilliant job but are often “glued” to a particular pupil and therefore cannot assist the teacher by lightening the workload.

And he quoted a statistic – concern about pupil behaviour in primary schools has increased; the number of classes being taken by Cover Supervisors or TAs in primary schools has increased. As one TA who was quitting the job put it, “The three days' training wasn’t quite enough!”

The whole of Galton's work is summarised in the Education Review.

During one of our strike meetings a teacher said that she had been ideologically opposed to striking when she started teaching but she was coming out this time because of the way teachers have been treated in the intervening thirty years. It is not just about pay.

Galton's findings are an indication that the union needs to take national action over workload as well as pay and he acknowledged this.