Menial tasks could be forced on teachers after review

Many teachers have already put Michael Gove in the naughty corner for a raft of dramatic reforms to the curriculum and pay.

Now he has opened the flood gates to a wave of new complaints about something close to their hearts: non-pay conditions of work.

In a letter to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), the education secretary ordered a review of teachers’ contracts, including the 21 tasks that teachers are legally barred from doing.

“I believe there is a need to review the framework for non-pay conditions to ensure that it is suited to a high-status profession and gives primacy to teaching and learning,” Mr Gove wrote.

He is determined to remove any provisions which support teachers in working effectively to raise standards. Chris Keates, NASUWT

The letter follows an announcement from the department of education that teachers’ pay will be performance-related and linked to pupils’ progress and behaviour. From 2014, it will no longer be subject to an annual incremental increase.

The non-pay conditions now up for review are part of teachers’ contracts and include clerical duties such as ordering paper or marking pupils’ attendance, and were ring-fenced in 2003 under an agreement reached by Labour and teaching unions. The intention was to free teachers up to carry out non-teaching tasks such as marking and lesson planning, and they are required to have 10 per cent of their timetable free for these tasks.

In a speech on Thursday Mr Gove said the proposed changes would mean teachers could be paid more for taking on extra duties, allowing headteachers to organise their staff better:

“It may be that there are one or two legislative or bureaucratic obstacles that prevent all schools from moving in this direction but I think it’s consistent with the pressures of a modern society,”

After 2003 hundreds of thousands more teaching assistants were employed to carry out the more menial tasks banned for teachers: the numbers rose from 79,000 in 2000 to 220,000 in 2011. The contract now up for review also includes a requirement that teachers only cover for colleagues “rarely”, meaning schools have to hire in supply staff.

Read Michael Gove’s letter to the STRB in full

An ‘axe’ to teachers’ conditions

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT union said the letter showed the education secretary’s “contempt” for the teaching profession.

“He is determined to remove any provisions which support teachers in working effectively to raise standards,” she said.

“In one day he has issued advice to schools which completely demolish the teachers’ pay framework and whilst schools are still reeling from this, he announces in a letter to the review body that he is taking an axe to the remaining conditions of service of teachers.”

A department for education spokesperson said: “We would like the STRB’s recommendations to result in a framework of pay and conditions that raises the status of the teaching profession, and supports the recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers and school leaders.

“The STRB has said that there needs to be a consistent national framework for the profession. It is now appropriate for the STRB to consider the full range of those aspects of the STPCD that it did not consider in its 21st report.”

Shorter holidays

Not content with questioning teachers’ conditions of employment, Mr Gove went on to suggest in a speech that schools should consider longer school days and shorter holidays to match the experiences of pupils in east Asia:

“If we look at the length of the school day in England, the length of the summer holiday and we compare it to the extra tuition and support children are receiving elsewhere then we are fighting, or running, in this global race in a way which ensures we already start with a significant handicap.”

The Education Secretary said that it was poorer children who suffered most from long summer holidays, and noted that “some of the best schools in the country are moving to a longer school day as well.” But he insisted that any changes would be “family friendly”.