June 2012
NASUWT
BULLETIN
The Teachers’ Union
representatives
DIRECTED TIME Members of the NASUWT are covered by a lawful ballot for action short of strike action and strike action in furtherance of the trade dispute on workload, pay and conditions of service, pensions and job loss. By participating fully in the NASUWT industrial action, NASUWT members are Standing up for Standards and defending their professionalism. Following the national action instructions and guidance is helping to ensure that members receive their contractual entitlements and can work effectively to focus on teaching and learning. During this term, NASUWT Representatives should be engaged in discussions with the principal about the directed time calendar for the next academic year.
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Calendar •
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Full-time teachers are available for 195 days in a school year – 190 of those days required to teach. Teachers not paid on the leadership spine should have a time budget up to a maximum of 1,265 hours of directed time spread over 195 days. This directed time includes all the time for school session times. Lunch breaks are excluded. Anything that teachers are ‘directed’ by the principal to do must attract an allocation of directed time. Teachers cannot be directed to undertake activities in their own time. There is no requirement for all of the 1,265 hours to be used.
Members should not be attending meetings that are not on the school calendar and are not within directed time. Once published, the calendar should not be changed unless there are exceptional circumstances and only in consultation with the NASUWT Representative.
Meetings •
Working Time Budget •
Principals have a duty to allocate directed time reasonably. It is not reasonable, for example, for a principal to require every teacher to remain on the school premises at the end of school sessions simply to ‘make up’ directed time.
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NASUWT members not on the leadership spine should attend only one meeting per week outside school sessions for no more than one hour in length. NASUWT members should not attend any meetings arranged during the lunch break.
Parental Consultation •
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NASUWT members should attend only one parental consultation per year for each year group. In a week where there is a parental consultation, no other meeting should be arranged.
Pupil Reports •
Reports to parents, including comments from teachers, should only to be made once per year.
HELP, ADVICE, SUPPORT If you experience any problems on the issue raised in this bulletin, please contact your NASUWT Local Secretary, National Executive Member or Northern Ireland National Centre. Contact details can be found: • in the NASUWT diary; • on the website www.nasuwt.org.uk; • by phoning 028 9078 4480. Hillscourt Education Centre Rose Hill, Rednal Birmingham B45 8RS E-mail: nasuwt@mail.nasuwt.org.uk
NORTHERN IRELAND
NASUWT Northern Ireland Ben Madigan House, Edgewater Office Park, Edgewater Road, Belfast BT3 9JQ E-mail: rc-nireland@mail.nasuwt.org.uk
the largest teachers’ union in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland 12/06008(1)