Unpaid overtime - T U C
Friday was Work Your Proper Hours Day and the TUC issued this report to go with it.
It looked at variety of professions, 3 guesses which one worked the most unpaid hours:
- Value of unpaid overtime per employee £12,009
- Value on unpaid overtime per profession £7,348(millions)
- Percentage doing unpaid overtime 52.4%
- Average hours of unpaid overtime 11.2
Yep - teachers 
So even with the reforms in the workplace, the 24 (or is it 25?) tasks, the Well Being Programmes, and the rest, teachers are still working more longer hours than they are paid. This even takes into account the ‘holidays’ and ‘early finishing’ that people are often so envious of!
What About Teaching Assistants?
I couldn’t find any figures for teaching assistants but I suspect it is vastly more than even teachers! It’s easy to see how a culture has grown up in schools where the teachers are not expected to make a fuss if they work unpaid hours and so they in turn just expect the TAs to do the same. They often forget that TAs are not paid for any hours they don’t have in their contracts, so no paid lunchtime, no paid holidays, and a very low hourly rate.
Not that TAs do themselves any favours. I’ve known people whose hours were cut because of budget issues carry on working.
“because if I don’t there will be no one there to run X for the children”
(OK, I confess - I was that loony!)
Early on in my time as a TA someone told me that schools run on the goodwill of teachers, TAs and the other support staff. I suspect that’s very true. People chose to work in schools in part because they care about children and their education and the institution relies on that.
Now we are expecting education workers to use even more of their ’spare time’ learning about internet technologies and undertaking informal CPD. It’s only going to work if they can see it as a way of eventually reducing those 11+ extra hours a week, not just another burden.
How are we going to do this? Ideas on a postcard please 
or better yet you could leave a comment below
I blog here and at the 
It’s exactly the same in the NHS - a friend of mine who works part-time had to complete the same CPD as those who worked full time. Those who work full time had a whole day given to them to complete their task - However because she worked part time she was only given half a day to complete exactly the same task. Where’s the logic in that?
Guess what - it took her a whole day!