This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Research into teachers' working time
06/10/2006
An action plan on teacher working time has been drawn up following the publication today of research commissioned by the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) and conducted by Glasgow University.
The research is a sample workload survey to assist the SNCT in determining the implementation of the national agreement on working time arrangements, a Teaching Profession for the 21st Century.
The action plan make a commitment to:
- Continue monitoring working time arrangements
- Further explore teachers' perceptions of their own work
- Promote examples of good practice at local and school level
- Spread effective time management and work-life balance models
- Local Negotiating Committees for Teachers (LNCTs) will consider how to assist teachers to prioritise tasks
- Councils will consider courses on effective time management
The research highlights that that the creation of LNCTs has been a significant achievement of the 2001 agreement in helping schools to reach working time agreements.
The SNCT says it recognises the monitoring and reviewing of such agreements are more complex issues and has agreed that they will build on the work of the LNCTs and give further consideration to monitoring these agreements and workload issues.
The report raises the issue that teachers' perceptions of their own work varies significantly and that control over work is as important for teachers as the volume of work. SNCT has developed advice on collegiality to help address this issue and will be developing this further in due course.