Primary Teachers at Work (The Teaching as Work Project)

PRIMARY TEACHERS AT WORK

The first part of this book charts and analyses 3,283 working days of 326 primary school teachers in the period between 1990 and 1992. It shows how they spent their working lives, the nature of the curriculum they taught, and analyses their work into five main categories: teaching, preparation, administration, professional development and other activities. It includes teachers in both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. The second part comments on the findings, relating them to issues of school management and curriculum manageability and looks at how the idea of ‘conscientiousness’ among primary teachers has led to their exploitation. Both authors teach at the University of Warwick, where R.J. Campbell is Professor of Education and S.R.St.J.Neill is Lecturer in Education.

THE TEACHING AS WORK PROJECT Edited by R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill, both of the University of Warwick

The last decade has seen the introduction of new educational policies affecting the working conditions of teachers, the management of schools, the curriculum and its assessment, and relationships between teachers and their employers. What changes, if any, have these new policies brought into the work of teachers? At Warwick University, the Teaching As Work Project, directed by Professor Jim Campbell and Dr Sean Neill, has recorded and analysed nearly 7,000 working days from over 700 teachers over the period 1990 to 1992 in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands. The research provides a detailed picture of how the teachers spend their time on work, both on and off the school premises, which the authors then analyse by reference to national policy, to issues of school management and to concepts of teacher professionalism. The results of the Teaching As Work Project are published in three volumes: PRIMARY TEACHERS AT WORK R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill SECONDARY TEACHERS AT WORK R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill THE MEANING OF INFANT TEACHERS’ WORK L.Evans, A.Packwood, S.R.St.J.Neill and R.J.Campbell

PRIMARY TEACHERS AT WORK

R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill

London and New York

First published 1994 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1994 R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Campbell, R.J. Primary teachers at work/R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Elementary school teachers—Great Britain. I. Neill, S.R.St.J. (Sean Rupert St.John), 1945– . II. Title. LB1776.4.G7C36 1994 372.11’00941–dc20 93–44325 CIP ISBN 0-415-08862-3 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-08863-1 (pbk) ISBN 0-203-03871-1 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-17802-5 (Glassbook Format)

CONTENTS

List of illustrations Foreword Acknowledgements

vii xi xii Part I

1 TEACHERS AT WORK: IMAGES AND REALITY

3

2 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PARTICIPATING TEACHERS

21

3 TOTAL TIME ON WORK

40

4 TEACHING AND THE CURRICULUM

63

5 PREPARATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

83

6 ADMINISTRATION AND OTHER ACTIVITIES

100

7 VARIATIONS IN WORKING PATTERNS

118

Part II 8 THE MANAGEMENT OF TEACHERS’ TIME IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

155

9 TEACHER TIME AND CURRICULUM MANAGEABILITY

175

10 PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHING UNDER IMPOSED CHANGE: SOME CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEORISING v

203

CONTENTS

11 THE DILEMMA OF TEACHER CONSCIENTIOUSNESS

215

APPENDIX I METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS APPENDIX II QUESTIONNAIRE APPENDIX III RECORD OF TEACHER TIME

225 229 234

Bibliography Index

235 244

vi

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES 1.1

Framework for time analysis from the perspective of the individual teacher 1.2 Codes for the Record of Teacher Time 1.3 Record of Teacher Time (ROTT) 3.1 Sample 2 (Infant) 3.2 Sample 3 (Infant and Junior) 3.3 Sample 4 (Infant and Junior) 3.4a Distribution of time, 1991 3.4b Distribution of time, 1971 5.1 Sample 4: total Preparation 7.1 ROTT (Vivienne) 7.2 ROTT (Bridie) 7.3 ROTT (Christine)

9 11 14 48 48 48 52 52 90 145 147 149

TABLES 1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8

Number of teachers in each sample, data collection times, days recorded and Key Stage of teachers Sex, age, and length of teaching experience The professional context Item Q1P7: number of pupils registered in class Item Q1P8: age composition of class National curriculum assessment arrangements and non-contact time Time spent collaboratively Responsibilities for co-ordinating Implementing the national curriculum vii

17 23 24 27 27 28 29 31 32

ILLUSTRATIONS

2.9

Item Q2P5: reasonable hours for non-directed time 2.10 Typicality of the recorded period 2.11 Item Q2P7: number of employing authorities 3.1 Mean time on work overall for four samples (hours per week) 3.2 Mean minima and maxima time on total work for three samples (1991) (hours per week) 3.3 Time spent on five main categories, expressed in hours and as percentages of the total time on work 3.4 Comparison of time distribution for Sample 4 with ‘meetings’ and ‘reading’ included in (a) professional development and (b) administration/preparation 3.5 Total time on and off school premises (three samples) 3.6 Non-directed time (in hours per week) assuming 33 hours for directed time (three samples) 3.7 Time spent on work: weekdays and weekends (hours per week) 4.1 Teaching time per week for four samples 4.2 Time on teaching by Key Stage (Sample 4) 4.3 Teaching time on different subjects for four samples (hours per week) 4.4 Teaching time of Year 2 teachers (Samples 2 and 4) 4.5 Time spent teaching English, by school type 4.6 Time spent teaching mathematics, by school type 4.7 Time spent teaching science, by school type 4.8 Proportions of time recorded as spent on different aspects of teaching: (a) time spent as a percentage of total hours spent teaching; (b) time spent as a percentage of sum of individual subjects 4.9 Time spent on teacher assessment, by school type 5.1 Time spent on Preparation, broken down by sub-category for four samples (hours per week) 5.2 Time spent on Preparation, broken down by sub-category for KS1 and KS2 teachers (hours per week) (Sample 4) 5.3 Time spent at weekends and during weekdays on preparation (Sample 4) 5.4 Time spent on Preparation, broken down by sub-category, on and off school premises (Sample 4) (hours per week) viii

34 35 36 44 47 50

56 58 58 59 65 66 67 74 77 77 77

79 80 84

86 87

88

ILLUSTRATIONS

5.5 5.6

6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 7.1 7.2

7.3

7.4 7.5

7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14

Time spent on professional development by each sample (hours per week) Minutes per day spent on professional development by teachers with and without Year 2 children in their class (Sample 2: Spring term 1991) Time spent on administration overall by four samples Time spent on each sub-category of administration by four samples (hours per week) (rank order in brackets) Non-contact time allocated (Sample 4) Time spent on other activities by four samples (hours per week) Time on work overall by Year 2 and non-Year 2 teachers (Sample 2) (hours per week) Mean daily time on work, in hours, by teachers with Year 2 children, and teachers without Year 2 children in class Mean daily minutes on aspects of professional development by teachers with and without Year 2 children in class Mean daily minutes on aspects of preparation by teachers with and without Year 2 children in class Mean daily time (hours) on aspects of teaching with and without Year 2 children in class on weekdays (Sample 2) Mean daily time (hours) on aspects of teaching for Year 2 teachers (n=65) in Sample 4 Sample 4: number of teachers per term Total time (hours per day) spent on work, by term (all teachers) Total time (hours per day) spent on work, by term (infants) Time on teaching (hours per weekday), by term (all teachers) Time on teaching (hours per weekday), by term (juniors) Time on teaching (hours per weekday), by term (infants) Time on preparation (hours per day), by term (all teachers) Time on preparation (hours per day), by term (juniors) ix

97

98 101 102 111 116 119

120

121 122

124 126 127 128 128 129 129 129 131 131

ILLUSTRATIONS

7.15 Time on preparation (hours per day), by term (infants) 7.16 Time on administration (minutes per weekday), by term (all teachers) 7.17 Time on administration (minutes per weekday), by term (juniors) 7.18 Time on administration (minutes per weekday), by term (infants) 7.19 Time on professional development (minutes per day), by term (all teachers) 7.20 Time on professional development (minutes per day), by term (juniors) 7.21 Time on professional development (minutes per day), by term (infants) 7.22 Time on other activities (minutes per day), by term 7.23 Time on work by three individual teachers (hours) 9.1 Perceived adequacy of time devoted to subjects in Key Stage 1 teachers’ classes, 1992 (n=97) 9.2 Teaching time by curriculum subjects 9.3 Notional time expectations (per week) for Key Stage 1 teachers 9.4 Data for the 1992 sample 9.5 National curriculum at Key Stage 2 (September 1992) 9.6 Key Stage 2: notional hours and percentages of different subjects 9.7 Key Stage 2 teaching: time spent in 1991 11.1 Reasonable hours for non-directed time

x

131 133 134 134 135 136 137 138 143 184 185 187 191 195 196 197 216

FOREWORD

This book reports and analyses the work of primary teachers during the period when the educational changes associated with the Education Reform Act 1988, and particularly changes in curriculum and assessment, were being implemented. It attempts to chronicle the impact of the changes on primary teachers’ patterns of work by examining the time they spent working, and the work activities upon which they spent time, mostly in the calendar year 1991. The book is in two parts. Part I provides the objective evidence, drawing on records of 3,283 working days from 326 primary teachers in 54 local education authorities. We analyse our evidence by drawing on other studies and the policy framework within which the teachers were working. We have attempted to achieve neutrality in this part of the book, both in the way the data are presented and in the way they are analysed. In Part II we provide four essays on issues of policy, management and theory arising from the evidence in Part I. These essays are wider-ranging than the evidence, but are disciplined by it. A subtext of all these essays is the issue of teacher professionalism during a period of imposed curriculum change.

xi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We owe a debt of gratitude to many individuals and agencies, which we would like to record here. The research was funded by two agencies. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (previously known as the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association) funded a longitudinal study of infant (Key Stage 1) teachers, part of the data from which contributed to the evidence in this book. The Association of Education Committees Trust funded a year-long study of primary teachers (both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2), all the data from which contributed to the evidence in this book. Without the funds from both these sources, the research could not have been carried out, and we are extremely grateful to them both. Sheila Dainton, Assistant Secretary of ATL, has been a constant source of encouragement, ideas and critical commentary; and our colleagues at Warwick, especially members of the Policy Analysis Unit, Linda Evans, Ros Goodyear, Dr David Halpin, Dr Ann Lewis, Martin Merson, Angie Packwood and Professor John Tomlinson, have contributed helpful comments and criti-cisms of various chapters in draft. Professor Robin Alexander of Leeds University and Colin Richards, HMI, of Ofsted have helped develop our thinking about the relationship between policy and practice. To all of these we owe an intellectual debt. The data were analysed by means of a program specially written for us by Keith Halstead of the Computing Services Unit at Warwick University, where the data were prepared and processed for us with great patience and care. Ian Liddell advised us on statistical treatment. We are especially pleased to record our thanks to them. Sheila Lucas, our research unit secretary, processed our words efficiently and with good humour. A special word of thanks to her. xii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT0S

Finally, of course, the 326 anonymous teachers who took the time, whilst under considerable pressure themselves, to provide us with our evidence, need our thanks. We hope the book recognises the nature of their work and goes some way to enabling the public to understand it better. R.J.Campbell S.R.St.J.Neill Warwick University

xiii

Part I

1 TEACHERS AT WORK Images and reality

Our ideas of what teachers do when they are at work may be conditioned to a large extent by the memories of our own experiences of teachers when we were pupils. We think of teachers as having fairly short hours of work, roughly con-terminous with their pupils’ day, and rather long holidays by comparison with other workers in service industries. Moreover, teachers are thought to have it easy in another sense: the nature of the job itself is considered undemanding, particularly when young children are involved (Rumbold 1988), and only semi-professional in status (Etzioni 1969). The image of teaching as a nine-to-three job, and the adage that, ‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach’, are deeply imprinted on the national, and perhaps the international, consciousness. In England and Wales, the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act 1987 did little to dispel this image. It specified that teachers could be required to work on not more than 195 days a year, of which 190 were days on which they could be required to teach pupils. They might be required to work at the direction of their head teacher for a maximum of 1,265 hours a year. Colloquially known as ‘directed time’, this is equivalent to about 33 hours per week, in an assumed 39-week working year. Any other time spent on work — ‘non-directed time’ —was discretionary in the sense that it was not directed by an employer or superior. It was specified loosely — ‘such additional hours as may be needed to enable them to discharge effectively their professional duties’ (School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document, 1989, para. 36 (1) (f)) —with the consequence that how much time teachers spent on work beyond the directed 1,265 hours would depend upon the strength of either their conscience or their fear of facing classes unprepared. 3

TEACHERS AT WORK

Whether this image has ever been a true reflection of the work of the generality of teachers is uncertain. It has been challenged by the only two sustained observational studies of teachers at work in England. One (Hilsum and Cane 1971) concerned 129 junior teachers and the other (Hilsum and Strong 1978) 201 secondary teachers. Both were conducted in the same English LEA (Surrey), with a meticulous methodology that involved an unrecorded dryrun day for familiarisation, and detailed observation of each teacher on one or two working days, randomly allocated by the researchers and spread across a whole year. The observational data were supplemented by self-report records covering evenings, weekends and holidays. The data were analysed by the use of two classification systems. First the overall time spent on work was divided three ways, into teaching sessions, breaks, and out-of-school. These were referred to as ‘C’-time, ‘S’-time and ‘O’-time respectively. Second, within each of these time-frames, the teachers’ work was broken down into fifty-five (primary) and seventy-seven (secondary) different activities, which were then grouped into nine main categories: teaching, preparation, consultation, school administration, control/supervision, mechanical/clerical tasks, pastoral, private and unrecorded. An important objective of this categorisation, given the value-laden nature of education, was its attempt to establish and maintain neutrality in description. It described what a teacher was doing at a given time—not why or how effectively it was being done. Further reference to the work of Hilsum and his colleagues is provided at relevant points throughout this book. There are two main points to notice at this stage. First, the belief that teaching was a nine-to-three job was shown to be false for the teachers concerned. These studies revealed that, in 1969, Surrey junior school teachers were working for 44.5 hours per week in term time, 42 per cent of which was work in the teachers’ ‘own’ time (i.e. out of contact with pupils). For the secondary teachers in 1974 the term-time working week was 46.75 hours, 38 per cent of which was in their ‘own’ time. Second, Hilsum and his colleagues made the point that, if all that is involved in the true nature of teachers’ work was to be understood, focusing exclusively or principally on classrooms was inappropriate because much of the work was conducted away from classrooms: 4

TEACHERS AT WORK

Teachers have often protested that their work outside the classroom goes unrecognised, and that the image of the teacher held by many outside the profession is far too narrow, in that he is thought of primarily as a practitioner in a classroom. Our figures show that less than three-fifths of the teacher’s working day was spent in direct contact with classes; 15 percent of the day was spent in school but without class contact, and a quarter of the day was spent entirely outside school hours. These facts lend weight to the suggestion that an understanding and appreciation of the teacher’s role as a professional person will not come from a study of the classroom alone: his work and interaction with pupils in the classroom setting may be an important, perhaps the most important, aspect of his professional life, but it must be seen in the wider context of the totality of his work. (Hilsum and Cane 1971, p. 91)

THE PURPOSE OF THE WARWICK RESEARCH In the first chapter of their book on junior teachers’ work, Hilsum and Cane (1971) identified a number of reasons why their research was needed. It would: 1 Contribute to understanding teacher effectiveness; 2 Correct false impressions of teaching; 3 Help break down the isolation of teachers from each other. In addition, there were groups with an interest in knowing about teachers’ work, for example the teachers’ associations, teacher training institutions, employers, ratepayers, and parents of pupils at school. We accept these justifications for our research also, but would want to add three others. First, the findings of Hilsum and his colleagues need to be updated. In the 15 to 20 years since their studies were conducted, there has been a series of major legislative changes in education in England and Wales which are widely thought to have had direct impact upon teachers’ work. They include the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act 1987 and the Education Reform Act 1988. The former altered teachers’ conditions of employment, whilst the latter has led to changes in curriculum and assessment, and the basis 5

TEACHERS AT WORK

upon which schools are funded. Other major innovations have included changes to secondary examinations, especially at GCSE, and to post-16 education and training. Following the 1981 Education Act, more pupils with special educational needs have been placed in ordinary schools. Earmarked grants for teachers’ In-service training, and the development of teams of advisory teachers to support schools, have also affected teachers’ work in the last decade. We need evidence about the extent and nature of the impact of all these changes upon teaching as work in the late twentieth century. Second, public discussion of the education service has become highly charged politically in the 15 or so years since a speech by the then Prime Minister, James Callaghan, in 1976. A series of papers and reports since then (e.g. Prais and Wagner 1985, White Paper 1985, DES 1990a, Cato and Whetton 1990, Alexander, Rose and Woodhead 1992) has been used to promote recurring claims that the education system in England and Wales is in a crisis, with standards in decline (e.g. Cato and Whetton 1990) and that part of the reason lies in the way in which teachers do their work. When Hilsum and his colleagues reviewed the literature on teaching as work, they found that, although there were many studies of classrooms, there was no large-scale study examining the total work of teachers (see Hilsum and Cane 1971, pp. 16–17 for details). We have similarly found that, although there has been an interest in teachers as workers and professionals (e.g. Lawn and Grace 1987, Ozga 1987, Ozga and Lawn 1988, Connell 1984), in teachers’ careers (e.g. Acker 1989, 1990), and occupational stress amongst teachers (e.g. Dunham 1984, Kyriacou 1980), there has been no follow-up study to the research by Hilsum and his colleagues, despite its importance. It is therefore difficult to know whether the way teachers conduct their work is relevant to the alleged crisis. Is ‘teacher bashing’ a fair attribution of fault for the problems in the education system, or a version of ‘blaming the victims’ (Ryan 1971) of an under-funded enterprise? We believe that public discussion of teaching should be disciplined by evidence and reasoned argument, and see our research as a contribution to such discussion. The third reason for our research is that the way teachers spend their time as workers is important from two policy perspectives: school management at the local level, and government policies at the national level. Teachers’ time is the most valuable and most expensive of a school’s resources, teachers’ salaries typically 6

TEACHERS AT WORK

accounting for some 70 per cent of a school’s budget. How teachers’ working time is used raises questions of a ‘value for money’ kind for school management. For example, what proportion of their working day do teachers spend on low-level tasks that do not require the skills of relatively well-paid graduates? The research also has implications for national policies, especially on the recruitment, supply and retention of teachers. For example, if teachers spend much of their time on tasks they find unattractive or unrewarding, or if they spend what they see as too much of their ‘own’ time on work, to the detriment of their personal and family life, there may be problems of teacher retention in the medium or long term. Policy changes that increase the time spent on aspects of the job which good teachers find demotivating are likely to be counter-productive. OUR RESEARCH APPROACH Our research used a similar concept of work to that employed by Hilsum and his colleagues (Hilsum and Cane 1971, Hilsum and Strong 1978), in that we took account of the totality of teachers’ work, not just their time in classrooms or in schools. Also, like them, we attempted to establish and maintain neutrality in our descriptions. However, because of the changes in teachers’ conditions of work and the implications of the Education Reform Act 1988, outlined above, and for logistical reasons, there were some substantial differences in our conceptual framework and in our methodology. Conceptualising teachers’ work We adopted three frameworks to help us conceptualise teachers’ work for purposes of carrying out the research. In the first and most basic, we assumed that there were two principal dimensions in teachers’ work: 1 The amount of time spent; 2 The activities upon which time is spent.

7

TEACHERS AT WORK

It can be seen that time is central to our analysis of teachers’ work. If we were investigating most manual workers this point would be obvious to the point of truism. Their work starts and stops at fixed and inflexible times, often marked by clocking-in devices—whistles, hooters, bells or other signals. Breaks in work are also precisely timed for these workers, sometimes down to the detail of how long it should take to go to the lavatory. Teachers, however, are part of ‘educated labour’ (Larson 1980), and their time is less obviously subject to overt signals indicating starting, and certainly stopping, times. The pupils’ working day may be signalled by bells, but the teachers’ working day is not. (Even for those parts of the school day, such as break times, where bells signal starts and ends, it is sometimes necessary for heads to hint obliquely but strongly in staffrooms that ‘The children are in’.) Nevertheless time is central to the analysis of their work because, as Hargreaves (1989) argues, time is the fundamental measure by which work is structured and controlled—though, as we indicate later, the British may have a greater affection for measuring productivity by time put in, rather than output, than do their Continental colleagues. A second framework was used to analyse the time spent on work from the perspective of individual teachers. This has five levels, as indicated in Figure 1.1, with the time on each descending level being a sub-set of the one above. It is, to use a different analogy, like a sequence of the pictures of the earth’s surface relayed by satellite, where each picture is of a smaller area, in sharper focus, than the preceding one. Figure 1.1 is simple and rather self-evident, but it has two virtues. Time is usually thought of from the institutional point of view, with regard to the needs of the school and its management (see Bell 1988, Knight 1989 for examples). The framework in Figure 1.1, however, directs us to think about time from the individual point of view and how work fits into the individual’s life overall (see Campbell 1992b for an elaboration of this point). This was important when we examined the impact of work on teachers’ personal lives (see Evans et al. 1994), and identified conflict arising from the differing time demands at Levels 1 and 2. Secondly, the framework does not restrict itself to work in the school day, reflecting, by the inclusion of Level 2, time taken up with work outside it. We were able, therefore, to take two dimensions of teachers’ work into account: ‘visible’ 8

TEACHERS AT WORK

Figure 1.1 Framework for time analysis from the perspective of the individual teacher

work, that is, work that can in principle be seen by parents and other members of the public; and ‘invisible’ work, which is mainly carried on in private (or in professional seclusion on training courses, etc.) and which is not subject to public scrutiny. We have already seen from the work of Hilsum and his colleagues the problem with the public perception of teaching, which is almost entirely confined to the visible aspects of the work, even though the invisible aspects occupy a substantial part of teachers’ working time. The third framework refers to the different activities that teachers engage in when working—the nature of the work on which teachers spend time. It was obviously open to us to adopt Hilsum and his 9

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colleagues’ category system unaltered. This had served their purpose well, and would have enabled us to compare directly our findings with theirs. However, this was not possible, for practical reasons, the main one being that we were gathering data from many more teachers for more days across many LEAs. Our teachers were self-reporting, and were not observed directly. Thus we needed a set of categories that teachers could use, without training or support, for recording their work activities. Trained researchers, using non-participant observation techniques with an agreed schedule and codings, who do not have to concern themselves simultaneously with teaching pupils, can use much more sophisticated and complex systems than teachers are able to do, unaided and untrained. However, we were careful as far as possible to use a system that would permit broad comparison with the findings of Hilsum and his colleagues, since theirs was the only major study available, and it provided the opportunity to examine changes in teachers’ work over time. Our system allows such comparison to be made, within certain limits, and this comparison is made at relevant points in this book. We therefore developed and trialled the coding system shown in Table 1.1. It had 25 sub-categories of activity, which could be analysed separately and could also be collapsed for broad-brush analysis into the five major categories, namely teaching, preparation/marking, administration, professional development, and other activities. Our trials of the coding system suggested that it was comprehensive and yet manageable, and captured most of the common activities of primary teachers’ work. In the event, only one teacher out of the 327 who used the coding system found it impossible to use in an appropriate way. Her return had to be discarded. Three problems and their treatment There were three subsidiary issues that we had to face: location, voluntariness, and work carried out during school vacations. The first of these, concerning the place where teachers carried out their work, is a relatively trivial matter. Nonetheless, the problem is more complex than might be supposed from the way it was treated by Hilsum and his 10

TEACHERS AT WORK

Figure 1.2 Codes for the Record of Teacher Time 11

TEACHERS AT WORK

colleagues, who divided the time into work at school and work in teachers’ own time. Like them, we wanted to know when work was carried out on school premises and off them, and our recording system allowed that information to emerge. Work off school premises, however, does not simply mean at home. It could also include travelling to, and attending, an In-service session at a teachers’ centre, following a course at a college or university in the evening, visiting another school for purposes of liaison during the day, preparing for a class visit to a museum or field site by the teacher visiting it in advance, taking the class off the school premises for an educational visit, going on a residential weekend, or attending a conference. To deal with this, we made an arbitrary but common-sense decision. If teachers were off school premises but working with pupils during the timetabled school day, as when taking a class to the local swimming pool, or to a nearby castle for a history session, it was counted as being on the school premises. The reason for this was that we wished to include such time in the category of normal teaching, and to separate it from work done with pupils outside timetabled time on residential visits, trips with sports teams, etc. In this way we would avoid arriving at a total figure for teaching which was less than the actual time spent on teaching as commonly understood. We also had to deal with the problem of voluntary work— the fact that some teachers attend courses or conferences in their own time without being directed to do so. Should we count this as work or not? The reasons for voluntary attendance at courses and conferences are varied. Some teachers are invited (but specifically not directed) to do so by heads or LEA advisers, as part of In-service training on the national curriculum, for example; others go out of interest, or in pursuit of a further professional qualification. Again, we decided to include these voluntary activities in the total of time spent on work, because it seemed reasonable to consider them as part of the professional development of teachers. They were the kind of activities that were work-related in the sense that, had our respondents not been teachers, they would not have been involved in them. Also, In-service training is more often ‘directed’ than used to be the case before the 1988 Education Reform Act. In case this is thought to overstate the total time on work, we have collected and reported the data in ways that enable the time spent on such 12

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activities to be disaggregated from the total, if it is considered more appropriate to do so. However, if all time spent on such activities were discounted, there would be some under-estimate of the total work, since attendance at courses is sometimes at the direction of the headteacher and, when it is, should obviously be included in any count of time spent on work. The third issue concerns vacation time, when some teachers do school work for some of the time, but presumably do not work such long hours as during term time. The issue becomes significant when attempting to arrive at an annual figure for the time teachers spend on work. Hilsum and his colleagues dealt with this by getting their samples of teachers to self-report on days in the vacations, chosen by the researchers. In our research we had no direct evidence about work during vacations. To arrive at an annual figure, therefore, there were two possible approaches: to assume that the vacation hours worked by our teachers were similar to those worked by the teachers studied by Hilsum and his colleagues, or to assume that our teachers did no work at all during vacations. Both approaches could have been used in our analyses, but the annual figures in this book are extrapolations of the term-time figures, using only the latter of the above two assumptions. METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES Appendix I examines methodological issues in detail, but it may be helpful to outline two issues at this point. Recording teachers’ work The teachers were not observed directly. They kept a record of the time spent on work for either seven or 14 consecutive days, using a specially devised ‘Record of Teacher Time (ROTT)’ (see Appendix III). This required them to record the time they spent in three-minute segments, running from 07.00 hours to 24.00 hours. They thus recorded weekends as well as weekdays, and evenings as well as day-time. The record also enabled the teachers to differentiate between time spent on work on school premises and off them. Figure 1.2 shows one day’s record from one of our teachers, and is followed by a commentary by us, to 13

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Figure 1.3 Record of Teacher Time (ROTT) 14

TEACHERS AT WORK

illustrate the recording and coding system. It provides a day in the working life of a primary teacher in 1991.

Commentary The teacher starts work at school at 8.30, when she organises some resources (PO) until the pupils enter class and she registers them and organises their move (////) to the hall for assembly and the act of worship (AW). At about 9.20 she moves the pupils back to their classroom (////) and then teaches them English (TE) and science (TS) for an hour. Then she supervises the children as they put on their coats for playtime (AS) and has a coffee break free of work (AB) for about 18 minutes. Then she moves the children to another location in the school (////) to teach English (TE) for 18 minutes, perhaps to watch a TV programme. Then she returns the pupils to the classroom (////) and spends the remaining 48 minutes teaching English (TE) and mathematics until midday. She has a break free of work (AB) for 45 minutes, and then does some work in the break time (AF) until it is time for the afternoon registration (////). Then she teaches a non-core subject (or subjects) (TO) for just over an hour. She has a further break free of work (AB) for 18 minutes, and then continues teaching non-core subject(s) (TO) for 21 minutes. She concludes by teaching English (TE), probably a story-telling session, for 18 minutes. Then she moves the pupils to their cloakroom area (////) and supervises them (AS) whilst they are being collected by their parents. She then attends a staff meeting, or a meeting of some other kind (IS), for nearly an hour, still on the school premises. She does no work, so no entry is made, between 16.30 and 17.00. Then she travels to an In-service course (IT) and enters the codes in Column B to show that she was away from school premises. Then she attends an In-service course (IN) until 18.15, then travels home from the course (IT) for 15 minutes. She does no work, so makes no entry, until 20.15 when she spends 45 minutes in lesson planning (PR) and professional reading (IR), probably indicating that she is reading national curriculum orders to plan her lessons. Then she spends 6 minutes on an activity that she cannot code (OA), probably filling in this diary record. 15

TEACHERS AT WORK

A summary analysis of this day’s work is shown overleaf. The sum of individual elements amounts to 666 minutes (11.1 hrs) because at some times (e.g., IR+PR at 20.15–21.00) simultaneous working (i.e., two categories at the same time) occurred. This is not double-counted in arriving at the total time on work. We draw attention to the fact that teaching accounted for only 36.5 per cent of the total time spent on work. Our samples Our sampling was initially unconventional, in that it started with a commission from a teachers’ union, the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association (now known as the Association of Teachers and Lecturers), to undertake a small pilot study into the use of teachers’ time at Key Stage 1 in Spring term 1990, as the national curriculum was being introduced. This study, using mainly volunteer union members, was published (Campbell and Neill 1990) by the Association and led to seven further projects, two funded from separate sources, with differing samples and data collection times. All the projects were directed by us and based in the Policy Analysis Unit in the Education Department at Warwick University. These projects generated the evidence upon which the current series of books has been based. Table 1.2 shows the details of the samples of primary teachers used in this book, together with the time of the data collection in each case. It should be noted that ‘National’ in Table 1.2 means that the sample was provided as a result of a national invitation to members of the teachers’ union sponsoring the research. Although the samples are not nationally representative in the sense that they have been selected randomly from the whole population of teachers, they comprised teachers from 54 LEAs out of 104 LEAs in England and Wales. In addition, primary 16

TEACHERS AT WORK

Table 1.1 Number of teachers in each sample, data collection times, days recorded and Key Stage of teachers

teachers from a Channel Island Education Department were also involved. Samples 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 comprised primary teachers, with 1, 2, and 5 being restricted to Key Stage 1 teachers. Samples 2 and 5 are sub-samples of Sample 1. Sample 4 was drawn from an approach to every primary school in three Midlands LEAs. Overall, in the studies of both primary and secondary school teachers, we have been drawing on a data base of records of over 6,700 working days from 783 teachers in 88 LEAs. The material in this book uses a data base of records of 3,283 working days from 326 primary school teachers in the 54 LEAs. The LEAs were in England and Wales and, in addition, teachers from the Channel Island Department mentioned above. Teachers in Scotland were not represented in our research. The research methodology is not without its weaknesses, as we discuss in Appendix I, but it is the largest empirical data set of its kind, as far as we know. By comparison, the combined primary and secondary studies by Hilsum and his colleagues, though methodologically more refined, drew on observations of 398 school days, and self-reports of 545 days at the weekends or in vacations. These were from 340 primary and secondary school teachers in 138 schools in one English authority. They did not include Key Stage 1 (infant) teachers. 17

TEACHERS AT WORK

THE EVIDENCE FROM THE QUESTIONNAIRE The purpose of our research was not merely to count the hours that teachers spent on work and analyse the different activities upon which they spent them, intrinsically interesting though that has been. As we noted above, the 1980s was a period of substantial and complex change in education, and we wished to make connections, where we considered it possible and legitimate, between the data on teachers’ time on work, and the policy context in which they were working. For this reason, the teachers completed a questionnaire, (see Appendix II). The responses to the questionnaire (see Chapter 2) provided evidence about teachers’ perceptions of the national curriculum, non-directed time, and other aspects of policy. It also provided information on their professional biographies (e.g. length of teaching experience, salary position), their working conditions (e.g. class size, school type and size, non-contact time, responsibilities), which enabled us to examine a wide range of policy issues, such as the extent to which the national curriculum and its assessment were being implemented, the match between working conditions and teachers’ work, the relationship between time on work and salary, teacher motivation, as well as some issues (for example, the use of non-teaching assistants) which were not directly related to national policies but which had implications for school management. These are examined in Part II of this book. Thus we see the research as producing evidence about the actual or potential effectiveness of some of the major contemporary educational policies. TIME ON WORK: PROBLEMS OF MEANING A final point needs to be made in this introductory chapter. We said earlier that we have attempted to describe teachers’ work using neutral categories, in order to avoid importing judgemental values to the descriptive process. For example, our code TM signifies that the teacher was teaching mathematics, but it says nothing about how well, or with what purpose, the mathematics was being taught or learned. Our code AD signifies that the teacher was mounting a display, but it says nothing about how good the display was, or what purpose the teacher had in mind for it. 18

TEACHERS AT WORK

However, there is a particular problem with the total time spent by teachers on work. In a culture dominated by the Protestant ethic, long hours spent on work are attributed a positive value. Teachers who devote long hours of their own time to their work tend to be seen, and to see themselves, as professionally virtuous. Those who spend relatively little time on their work are often considered professionally deficient. Yet long hours might as easily be taken as a mark of inefficiency; relatively short hours an indication of business-like briskness. (Such cultural differences seem to exist in other occupations. In a study of finance managers, Neale and Mindel (1991) showed that Scandinavians interpreted long hours on work as a sign of incompetence, while British managers thought they revealed loyalty and enthusiasm.) Alternatively, for some teachers, long hours might follow from loneliness, or an arid social life, i.e. from having nothing better to do than fill in time with work; short hours, from a commitment to a full and active social and intellectual life unconnected with work. In teachers’ conferences where our research has been discussed, we have found headteachers loading very strong positive value onto teachers’ spending large amounts of their own time on work. Some have said that they would expect teachers to work up to 70 hours a week, or would not discourage them from doing so. This issue is discussed further in Chapter 8. It is thus easy to slip into the habit of interpreting our findings on the total time teachers spend on work in a value-laden way. We have tried to take account of the issue in three ways. First, we always refer to teachers ‘working long hours’, not ‘working hard’, to stress the neutrality of our description. Second, we included an item on the questionnaire asking the teachers to say what time they thought it was reasonable for them to spend on work, so that we had some evidence about whether the teachers were working longer than they themselves thought was reasonable. Third, we were able to interview a sub-sample (Sample 5 in Table 1.2 above) of the infant teachers about how they interpreted long hours on work, and to obtain the meanings they put upon such hours. This evidence, which is presented in Evans et al. (1994), suggests in general that very long hours were seen as arising directly from central government policies on the curriculum, or from mismanagement at the school level, and were resented. 19

TEACHERS AT WORK

Nevertheless, it is worth concluding by focusing this point in a particularly sharp way. We have much evidence about the amount of time that teachers spend on work; this is provided in Chapters 3 to 6. However, we have no evidence to show that long hours are associated with improved classroom performance, either positively or negatively. Our research did not address this issue. Whether working long hours has a classroom pay-off remains an open question.

20

2 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PARTICIPATING TEACHERS

In this chapter we present detailed information on the teachers who took part in the research. The information is derived from responses to the questionnaire (see Appendix II) that they completed at the end of the seven- or fourteen-day recording period. The questionnaire comprised twenty-three items designed to give information under six broad headings. These were: professional biographies (three items), professional context (four items), working conditions (seven items), teacher perceptions of obstacles (two items), teacher perceptions of time (six items) and employing authority (one item). The content of the questionnaire items was originally created from our knowledge of the research literature and following discussions with the teachers’ association which sponsored the research using Samples 1 and 2. It was tested in discussion with a small group of experienced infant teachers, and used in the pilot study in 1990. In the light of this pilot, minor changes to wording were introduced, and in 1991 three additional items (Q1P4A, Q1P8A and Q2P6) were introduced to provide information shown by the pilot to be relevant to the research. The information generated by the questionnaire was of two kinds: objective data on teachers’ biography and working contexts, such things as age, class size, employing authority, etc., and subjective data embodying teachers’ perceptions. On the questionnaire itself and in the tables that follow, the items asking for objective data are signalled by the prefix ‘Q1’, while items asking for subjective data are signalled by ‘Q2’. The information is presented below separately in raw form for each of the four samples, and then the summed data for Samples 2, 3 and 4 (i.e. all the 1991 teachers) are presented as a percentage. (Sample 1 21

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

was the 1990 pilot, and is excluded from the percentages for this reason, and because the teachers in Sample 2 were a sub-sample of Sample 1.) PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY There were three items concerning teachers’ sex, age and length of teaching experience in the Key Stage in which they were currently teaching. The data are provided in Table 2.1, which shows items Q1P1, Q1P2 and Q1P3. As might be expected in a study of primary school teachers, the vast majority of the participants were women, with only Samples 3 and 4, which covered Key Stage 2 as well as Key Stage 1, containing enough men to allow us to make gender comparisons on workloads. Our teachers were also mature, only 13 per cent of them being under 31 years, and 57 per cent being over 40 years of age. The distribution overall is fairly similar to that in the Primary Staffing Survey (DES 1987) which gave 10 per cent under 30 years, 31 per cent between 30 and 39, 35 per cent between 40 and 49, and 25 per cent aged 50 or over. However, age, especially in the case of women, is not a reliable indicator of experience since many more women than men teachers take a career break in order to bring up young children. As can be seen from Item Q1P3, one in four teachers had less than six, and 45 per cent less than 11 years’ experience of teaching at the relevant Key Stage. There is an obvious difference here between Sample 4 and the other three. Over half of Sample 4 had less than 11 years’ experience, and almost one-third had less than six years’. In the other samples about 70 per cent had over ten years’ experience. Part of the explanation for this difference may be the fact that a much smaller proportion of schools (14 per cent) in Sample 4 catered for a single Key Stage (i.e. were exclusively Junior or Infant schools) and therefore there was more chance that they would have had experience in other Key Stages. There are two main implications of the evidence about professional biography for interpreting the findings of our research. First, the existence of a dominant proportion of women teachers requires a gendered perspective for viewing the long hours spent on work, since many of these teachers will probably also have a disproportionate weight of domestic responsibilities. Second, 22

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.1 Sex, age, and length of teaching experience

findings about the long hours on preparation (in Chapter 5) would be easier to interpret if there was a consistent picture, with the younger or less-experienced teachers spending longer on preparation overall. This was not the case, except in respect of the very young and very inexperienced teachers— those with three or 23

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.2 The professional context

24

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.2 Continued

fewer years’ experience—who spent more time on preparation than other teachers. PROFESSIONAL CONTEXT There were four items here concerning the salary status, the nature of any incentive allowance, the type of school and the size of school. The data are provided in Table 2.2 (Items Q1P4, Q1P4A, Q1P5 and Q1P6). The data on salary status refer to whether or not a teacher had an incentive allowance and, if so, which level of allowance (including deputy headship) it was. The information does not relate to the incremental level within any status. The presentation of data was complicated by the fact that the teachers in Sample 3 were on a slightly different system of allowances to the other teachers. For this reason the percentages are presented, including Sample 3 and excluding Sample 3 (in brackets). The comparison with the national picture, based on allocations in the 1990 Pay and Conditions Report, shows that incentive allowance holders of all kinds were over-represented in our samples (33 per cent nationally, 48 per cent in our sample). This over-representation might be partly explained by the data in Item Q1P4A, where 31 teachers, 24 per cent of those answering, or 13 per cent of Samples 2 and 4 combined (the 25

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

only two samples where this item was used), reported being on temporary incentive allowances. Thus, in terms of salary status alone, our sample is rather atypical, but as we show throughout the study, salary status is not an important predictor of hours on work. The teachers worked in a range of school types, illustrating the considerable diversity in provision in England and Wales. By national comparisons there were more teachers working in first, combined 5–12 and 8–12 schools, mainly because one of the three authorities involved in the largest sample (Sample 4) had most of its schools organised within a first/middle/upper school structure. There was a good spread of schools across all but the smallest two categories of size. National figures given in Alexander, Rose and Woodhead (1992) show that 17 per cent of schools have ninetynine or fewer pupils, and such schools are under-represented in our study even though the total number of teachers working in such small schools (n=22) enables us to make some useful comparisons (see p. 113). The main point, however, is that teachers in small schools in our study tended to work longer hours (‘beyond the bond’, as Tomlinson’s (1990) study of small secondary schools put it) than other teachers, but there are relatively few in our study, and this cannot be the explanation for general high workloads that we found. WORKING CONDITIONS There were seven items concerning teachers’ working conditions: class size, class composition, whether or not there were Year 2 children in the class, non-contact time allocated, time spent working alongside a colleague in the same class, or with a paid non-teaching assistant, and the responsibilities in addition to class teaching held by the teacher. The range of class sizes is typical of schools nationally (DES 1991b, Annual Statistics of Schools) and, in particular, the proportion of classes with more than thirty pupils in them is very similar to the national position in 1991. The Annual Statistics of Schools (DES 1991b, Table A16) showed that 12 per cent of classes comprised fewer than twenty pupils, 66 per cent comprised 21–30 pupils, and 22 per cent were over 31. The average class size was 26.8 pupils. The corresponding 26

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.3 Item Q1P7: number of pupils registered in class

percentages, as can be seen in Item Q1P7, for our teachers were almost identical (10, 67 and 23 per cent). We are not able to calculate a precise average class size from our data but our estimate, taking the mid-point in each class size category, is 26.9. Thus, long hours on work in our sample cannot be attributed to unusually high numbers of teachers with large class sizes. The issue of class size and its relationship to pupil learning is extremely complex and readers are referred to Burstall (1979) and Mortimore and Blatchford (1992). Our evidence is about class size and teacher workload, and we were able to show that class size, within the ranges shown above, did not affect the hours spent on work, or even on preparation (or on marking and recording results). The teachers’ perceptions, however, which we consider below (p. 30), suggest that there is a threshold at Table 2.4 Item Q1P8: age composition of class

27

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

around twenty-eight pupils, beyond which class size becomes named as the most serious obstacle to implementing the national curriculum (see p. 33 below for a fuller discussion of this point). The majority of the classes of our teachers were single age, with a substantial minority of mixed composition, either two or more than two age groupings, as can be seen in Item Q1P8. We do not know whether or not mixed age groupings occurred by deliberate school policy, but the two-plus age groups were all in very small (less than 100 pupils) schools where the schools would have little option about whether the classes should be mixed age. Thirty-seven per cent of the teachers had classes containing Year 2 pupils who, in 1991, undertook national curriculum tests (SATs) and assessment. This item was not included in 1990 and did not apply to Sample 3, but was included in 1991 in Samples 2 and 4 in Table 2.5 National curriculum assessment arrangements and non-contact time

28

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

order to see if we could measure the effect of the national curriculum assessment arrangements on teacher workloads. The details can be seen in Item Q1P8A. The distribution of non-contact time is shown in Item Q1P9. Non-contact time refers to the time formally allocated to teachers, irrespective of whether or not they actually received it in the recording period. Alexander, Rose and Woodhead (1992) claimed that senior staff received more non-contact time than other teachers, which we also found (see p. 111), but it is also clear that more of the Key Stage 1 teachers (70 per cent of Sample 1) had either none, or no more than 30 minutes, than the teachers in the samples combining Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 (11 per cent and 50 per cent respectively). The perspective on our findings about Table 2.6 Time spent collaboratively

29

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

time implied by these data is that those with longer non-contact time are likely but, because of the practice of ‘covering’ for absent colleagues, not certain, to teach for a shorter time in the week than other teachers. We included two items concerning the extent to which teachers worked with other adults, either teaching collaboratively with a teacher colleague or working with a paid non-teaching assistant. The latter definition was intended to exclude the use of voluntary helpers from the replies. The purpose here was to examine the extent of ‘collegial’ working relationships and to see whether there was evidence that working with other adults reduced or increased overall workloads or patterns of work. The data on working alongside a teacher colleague show that there was little joint teaching, with only 15 per cent of teachers teaching jointly for more than two hours a week. Likewise, there was relatively little working time with paid assistants, some 79 per cent of teachers having either no such time or not more than five hours per week. A final issue was the role of curriculum co-ordinator. Since 1985 (see Campbell 1985, ILEA 1985, House of Commons 1986) there has been pressure on classteachers to extend their role to co-ordinating the work in a subject or subjects throughout the whole school, acting as adviser to colleagues. Our evidence shows almost nine out of ten teachers exercising such a role in 1991, with few (mainly young) teachers not having such responsibility. Item Q1P12A illustrates the range of subjects involved for our teachers, and shows some variation in the average number of subjects per teacher, between 1.5 and 2.2. The large number of ‘other’ responsibilities named suggests the practice of allocating responsibility for non-curricular areas (e.g. home—school links, library, etc.) remained significant even as the national curriculum was being introduced in subject format. Our main aim here was to see if co-ordinators worked longer or had a different pattern of work (such as longer time in meetings or In-service training) from others. However, as can be seen, the allocation of responsibilities, irrespective of whether an incentive allowance was held, had gone so far in 1991 that only small numbers of teachers had no designated responsibility. 30

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.7 Responsibilities for co-ordinating

TEACHER PERCEPTIONS OF OBSTACLES TO IMPLEMENTING THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM There were two items here, one concerning the perceived obstacles to curriculum delivery, the other with preferred uses to which 31

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.8 Implementing the national curriculum

hypothetical extra teaching resources would be put. The data are given in Table 2.8 (Items Q2P1 and Q2P4). Teachers were given a forced choice item asking, ‘The following list identifies six problems in teachers’ working conditions. Which one do you consider is the most serious obstacle for you in implementing the national curriculum and assessment?’ The list comprised Poor pay; Poorly maintained buildings; Low level of learning resources, materials or equipment; Lack of time; Lack of knowledge/information; Large class size. 32

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

It can be seen that three problems impacting directly onto classroom practice overwhelmingly represented the teachers’ perceptions, with 95 per cent of teachers consistently identifying lack of time, or large class size or learning resources. Lack of time was cited consistently by two-thirds of teachers, with just under one-fifth of teachers citing large class size. When we examined these data set against the actual class size of the teachers, we found that there was a threshold. Although most teachers, irrespective of class size, cited lack of time as the main problem, when class size was above twenty-eight pupils, large class size was cited significantly more often (p<.01). Thus, lack of time and large class size may be cognate problems; which aspect of the problem strikes the teachers’ awareness depends upon the class size. The teachers were asked to give their priorities for the hypothetical use of an extra teacher for a morning a week (Q2P4) to help with national curriculum and assessment. They were offered four choices, ‘To teach smaller groups in your class more intensively’, ‘To help with assessment and recording in your class’, ‘To give yourself non-contact time for preparation’ and ‘To free you to work alongside other colleagues’. The teachers were asked to choose one option only, or to write in an alternative. As can be seen from Item Q2P4, the majority (83 per cent) of teachers chose one of the two options which would give them in-class support, while time outside the classroom was a minority preference. Sample 2, who were engaged on Key Stage 1 curriculum and assessment in statutory form, concentrated exclusively on in- class support. Thus, if lack of time/large class size signified the main problem, extra support within the classroom was its mirror image, a solution requiring improved staffing levels and reflecting the intensity of classroom pressure felt by the teachers (see Evans et al. 1994). PERCEPTIONS OF TIME The teachers were asked for their perceptions of time in relation to various aspects of their work. There were four items. One of these (Q2P5) concerned ‘non-directed’ time and asked the teachers how much of their ‘own’ time they thought it reasonable for them to be expected to give to work. Our intention here was twofold: to identify a personal sense of obligation (‘conscientiousness’) 33

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.9 Item Q2P5: reasonable hours for non-directed time

and to see whether there was any relationship between this measure and the amount of time actually spent on work and on preparation, the aspect of work most open to the teachers’ discretion; and to measure what they thought as reasonable against what they actually did. It will be seen that this measure was a critical one in predicting the amount of time teachers spent on work. It can be seen that the majority (73 per cent) saw something between six and 15 hours, i.e. roughly between one and two hours per day, as a reasonable expectation. Taking the mean point in each category, the average was just over nine hours per week. There was some substantial variation, however, with 9 per cent of teachers considering over sixteen hours and 16 per cent of teachers considering no more than five hours, as reasonable. Three other items about teacher perceptions of time were designed to examine how typical the teachers thought their recorded period was of their work generally. The items concerned the typicality of work overall in the recorded period compared to the rest of the term (Q2P2), of professional development compared to the rest of the term (Q2P3), and of overall time compared to the same time in the previous year (Q2P6). We also intended that these items should provide some indicators of validity, since we could see whether teachers who said that they perceived themselves as having spent more time than usual in the recorded period, actually spent more time than other teachers. We would thus have some check on the self-recording diary system. 34

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.10 Typicality of the recorded period

It can be seen that the majority of teachers thought that the recorded period was either similar to or more than they spent on work overall in the rest of the term, with hardly any saying that they spent less time in the recorded week. As might be expected if the items had good validity, the picture was much more varied in 35

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

respect of professional development, with fewer teachers saying the recorded time was similar and more saying it was either more or less. When asked whether time on work overall had increased since the same time in the previous year, the picture was also different from the term-based comparison in Q2P2, with most teachers perceiving the time they spent to have increased. It should be stressed again, in respect of these three items in particular, that the data refer to teacher perceptions, irrespective of whether their time actually had increased or reduced. We would argue that teacher perceptions of the impact of changes upon their work are at least as important (for aspects of morale and commitment, for example) as the actuality of change. EMPLOYING AUTHORITIES A final item asked teachers to name the LEA for which they worked. We wished to examine the range of LEAs involved and, in particular, to see whether findings on the amount of time spent on work were biased by teachers being employed in a small number, with possibly untypical staffing policies. The data are presented in Table 2.11 (Item Q2P7). Table 2.11 Item Q2P7: number of employing authorities

It can be seen that there was a wide spread of LEAs, given the numbers of teachers involved, in Samples 1 and 2. In these, teachers from all the DES regions were involved. The highest number of teachers from any one LEA was seven, with most LEAs contributing one, two or three teachers. This enabled us to compare Samples 3 and 4 with Sample 2 to test for differences that might be LEA-specific. AN OUTLINE OF OUR ANALYSIS Fuller details of our analyses are given in Appendix I; here we give a basic description for non-technical readers. 36

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Many of the analyses aim to relate some aspect of teachers’ work recorded from their diaries (such as total time spent on work, or time spent on preparation) to some aspect of their questionnaire responses (such as their salary status or whether they were on temporary or permanent contracts). For these we used analysis of variance, which assesses whether different groups overlap. For example, one possibility is that individual teachers, both temporary and permanent, might work a wide range of hours, so that an individual’s status could not be deduced from his or her workload, even though on average temporary teachers might work longer. In this case, the analysis of variance would show no significant difference between the groups. On the other hand, with the same averages, individual members of each group might work very similar hours, so it would be easy to distinguish a temporary teacher from his or her longer working hours. The analysis of variance would then show a significant difference, because it is primarily reacting to the distinctness of the groups, not the absolute difference in their means or averages. (In practice, of course, greater differences in averages will often be accompanied by greater distinctness between the two groups.) However, in the data we present there are a number of cases where relatively large differences in absolute value are not significant because the values for individuals in each group are scattered, whilst smaller ones are significant, because values are clustered. Where the groups can be ordered (for example, by level of salary) an additional test can be made, for linear trend, to see whether, for example, total work is related to salary. This test assesses whether group means increase in a regular way, and can only be used when there are three or more groups. For both analysis of variance and its associated trend test we have discarded analyses where the significant effects were due to one or more small groups whose members were therefore likely to be atypical. For example, very few teachers said their workload had diminished since the previous year, and any response from a small group such as this would be likely to reflect personal and idiosyncratic characteristics. Two other types of analysis were used less frequently. First we cross-tabulated responses from the questionnaires (for example, age and whether a permanent post is held). Here we have used the chi-square test to assess whether or not permanent posts were evenly distributed, or whether young (or alternatively old) 37

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

teachers were significantly more likely to have a temporary post. The chi-square test is sensitive both to the relative size of any differences and the size of the sample, which interact. This point is discussed more fully below. Secondly we carried out analyses to assess which of the characteristics assessed by the questionnaire was most closely related to significant differences in the diary records. In this analysis we aimed to pit the questionnaire categories against each other simultaneously, rather than assessing them one at a time, as we had in the analyses of variance. We first grouped the questionnaire categories using correlations, followed by a factor analysis. The aim of these analyses was to group categories which are closely related—thus age and experience tend to go together, and small primary schools tend to have small and split-age classes. Where categories were closely clustered in this way, we selected one of them for use in the second stage of the analysis—for example, school size, since class size and composition are secondary effects of school size. Our selection also reflected an assessment of which factors could more readily be influenced at a policy level, if they were shown to have an effect. Policy makers have more direct control over school size than class composition, which makes school size the variable to choose, even though class composition may have a more direct influence on what teachers do. The reason for this selection lies in the second stage of this procedure, the multiple regression analysis. This aims to select ‘independent’ variables in the order of their effect on a dependent variable. Thus we might find that salary status has a powerful effect on the amount of liaison a teacher does (i.e. it is a good ‘predictor’). (We assume salary status is ‘independent’ because taking on more liaison does not automatically guarantee a rise!). If salary status is closely related to experience, however, knowing a teacher’s experience tells us little more and the analysis will therefore ignore it in favour of another variable, such as the size of the school or the teacher’s sex, which gives a different ‘angle’ on liaison and is therefore a better predictor. Closely related independent variables are therefore effectively redundant, and may be misleading. For example, considering the trio of school size, class size and class composition, the analysis may relate one dependent variable most closely to school size, and another to class composition. As explained above, the remaining two variables will now be excluded though, considered independently, they would be good predictors. 38

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

It is therefore better to choose one variable to represent the composite group. A third analysis was specific to Samples 1 and 2. Since Sample 2 was a sub-set of Sample 1, we could match individual teachers via characteristics such as their age, sex and LEA and make a direct comparison of whether these individuals were spending more or less time working. For this we used the Wilcoxon test, which assesses whether a significant majority of the group have changed in the same direction, for example working longer. Our aim was to have samples of a size where statistically significant differences would be relatively large enough to be of educational significance too, though in the cases of Samples 2 and 3 a smaller initial pool of teachers to sample from or wastage from the initial sample meant we had fewer teachers than we would have wished. In a larger sample, a relatively small difference becomes statistically significant, whereas in a very small sample even extreme differences, which may be educationally significant, will not reach statistical significance.

39

3 TOTAL TIME ON WORK

This chapter reports the findings about the total time spent on work by primary school classteachers. In addition to the time spent on work at school, it includes time spent away from school, in the evenings and at weekends. We might think of this as the ‘extensiveness’ of teachers’ work, in that we have been measuring the number of hours per week that teachers spend on their work. The cautions we expressed in Chapter 1 (p. 19) about interpreting these figures should be borne in mind here. The findings are derived from the four studies of primary teachers’ work, which all used a similar methodology involving logging time on the specially devised Record of Teacher Time, outlined in Chapter 1 and discussed more fully in Chapter 7. The data were collected over the period from Spring term 1990 to Autumn term 1991. The samples had different characteristics, as was mentioned in Chapter 1, and we provide details here before presenting the general findings. Sample 1 In 1990 we carried out a pilot study of the use of classteachers’ time in Key Stage 1. These are teachers of infant children, i.e. from 4 to 7 years of age. They were working in schools of different types, mainly primary schools (catering for children aged 4/5– 11), infant schools (4/5–7), and first schools (4/5–8). The sample comprised 95 teachers in 54 LEAs in England and Wales, who kept a daily log of the time spent on work for fourteen consecutive days in the latter half of the Spring term, and completed a questionnaire. The sample included 87 volunteers from the teachers’ union which had commissioned the research, the 40

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Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association (AMMA). In addition there was a small ‘comparator’ group of eight teachers, who were neither AMMA members nor volunteers, in that we had approached them and paid them to participate. Our report of this research (Campbell and Neill 1990) was published by AMMA as 1330 Days. The study showed infant teachers working on average nearly 50 hours, and some over 70 hours, per week in Spring term 1990. Sample 2 We were commissioned by AMMA to undertake two follow-up studies, of the same teachers, in Spring term 1991, i.e. a year later. The first of these studies was a re-run of the 1330 Days research, with minor changes to the instruments in the light of the pilot study. The data were collected within a three-week period after half-term. The main purpose was to monitor changes in the workloads of infant teachers as the national curriculum and assessment were being brought in. We also wished to see whether the workloads of teachers would be reduced or increased with the progressive introduction of the national curriculum. Key Stage 1 teachers were the first teachers in England and Wales to implement the statutory orders in mathematics, science, English and technology for a whole Key Stage, and the first to experience assessment and recording arrangements as defined in statutory orders. They had reached this point during the school year 1991. Spring term 1991 was particularly significant since during this term they were required to complete their recording of children’s attainment in the core subjects of the national curriculum, and to summarise their own assessments of them (teacher assessment), prior to the administration of standard assessment tasks (SATs) in the Summer term 1991. Fifty of the original 95 teachers participated, plus three substitutes nominated by teachers who withdrew. We were able to identify from the questionnaire data the fifty teachers for one-to-one analysis between the two years. The 53 teachers were working on average nearly 55 hours a week, an increase of nearly five hours a week compared to the average of the 95 teachers in the previous year. The increase for the identical 50 teachers over the year was 4.1 hours a week. The research report (Campbell et al. 1991) was published by AMMA as Workloads, Achievement and Stress. 41

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Sample 3 The third sample was 34 classteachers from one mainly rural education department in the Channel Islands, and included both infant and junior teachers. They were selected randomly by the LEA after agreement in principle had been negotiated with teacher representatives. These teachers differed from the mainland UK teachers in two respects: they were not implementing their version of the national curriculum in 1991, and they were not required to collect dinner moneys during registration time. The data were collected in one week of Spring term 1991, and showed the teachers working for 52.7 hours per week on average. Sample 4 The fourth sample was in a study funded by the Association of Education Committees Trust. We approached every school in three local authorities, asking for one classteacher in each whole Key Stage catered for by the school, to participate in the research. This meant that in JMI and Combined schools two teachers, and in other schools one teacher, per school were invited. By this method, 423 schools, with a potential sample of 640 teachers, were approached. One hundred and ninety-two teachers participated, 30 per cent of the potential respondents. Because of the anonymity of the replies we were not able to say how many schools were involved. The number of teachers who participated was 7 per cent of all primary teachers in the three local authorities. The data were collected in a rolling programme across one school year, namely, Spring, Summer and Autumn terms in the calendar year 1991. A summary research report (Campbell and Neill 1992a) was published by the Policy Analysis Unit in the Department of Education at Warwick University and showed the teachers working on average 53.5 hours per week. It can be seen from the above that we had diffused samples of classteachers scattered across the country (Samples 1 and 2) and dense samples (3 and 4) from particular authorities. The authority from which Sample 3 was drawn was a mainly rural authority with mostly small schools. The three local authorities in Sample 4 were chosen to represent significant social and organisational differences in local provision. One was an urban LEA with a multi-ethnic population, and an inner city area 42

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of considerable poverty. Nearly all the schools here were JMI schools catering for pupils aged 4–11. The second was a metropolitan borough comprising two socially contrasting areas with mainly indigenous populations; one affluent suburban, the other, poor overspill local authority housing estates. The schools here were a mix of separate infant (4–7), junior (7–11) and JMI schools. The third was a shire authority with a large proportion of small rural schools, and some half a dozen towns with ethnically mixed populations. There was a mix of infant, junior, JMI, first (4–8), middle (8–12), and combined (4–12), schools. The data for all but Sample 1 were collected in 1991, and we have aggregated the data, where appropriate, to arrive at overall means. However, because of minor differences in the instruments after the 1990 study, and because of the difference in the educational context at the time of data collection, the data from Sample 1 are not strictly comparable with those from the other samples. Aggregation of data from all four samples needs to be treated with caution. Where it is more appropriate to do so, therefore, we have excluded, or treated separately, data from Sample 1. The data are also presented in disaggregated form in order to highlight sample differences. DATA ANALYSIS The data in all four studies were collected by questionnaire and Record of Teacher Time (Appendix III). We were able to gather records of the time spent on work over seven (or 14 in Sample 1) consecutive days for each teacher, from 7.00 a.m. to midnight. These time data were analysed in five basic ways: 1 Total time spent on work overall. 2 Time spent on five main categories: teaching, preparation, administration, professional development, and other activities. 3 Within each main category, time spent on further sub-categories, numbering 25 in all. These are shown in the coding system provided as Table 1.1 in Chapter 1. 4 Time spent in 2 and 3 above, at weekends and on weekdays. 5 Time spent in 2 and 3 above, on school premises and off school premises, the latter mainly at home. This distinction provides a starting point for examining the difference between ‘directed’ and ‘non-directed’ time. 43

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We also undertook a study by interview of a one-in-four subsample of the teachers in Sample 1, to obtain their perceptions of, and feelings about, the impact of the Education Reform Act 1988, particularly the national curriculum and assessment, upon their working lives. We refer to this sub-sample as Sample 5. They discussed with us their views on their workloads, the national curriculum, their morale and job satisfaction, working conditions, and the ways in which their work was affecting their personal lives. The evidence from this interview study is presented and analysed in The Meaning of Infant Teachers’ Work (Evans et al. 1994). GENERAL FINDINGS Total time on work overall The summary data from our four samples of teachers are provided in Table 3.1. The figures for total time on work are expressed as mean hours per week. If we calculate the weighted mean for the three 1991 samples (i.e. 2, 3 and 4) the weekly figure was 53.6 hours per week during the term-time. As has been said, this weekly figure includes time spent on work during the weekend as well as during the weekday. However, one useful way to think about the teachers’ work, in comparison with other workers, is to invent a calculation for a ‘working weekday equivalent’—to assume that the teachers were working these hours in the weekdays only, leaving their weekends Table 3.1 Mean time on work overall for four samples (hours per week)

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free of work. On this basis the teachers were working the equivalent of 10.7 hours per weekday. These hours seem surprisingly long by comparison with those worked by junior teachers in the study by Hilsum and Cane (1971), where the comparable figure was 44.5 hours (see Hilsum and Cane, p. 97). This is more than nine hours per week fewer than our teachers worked. The hours were also longer than those reported for a range of workers in a study for the Equal Opportunities Commission (Marsh 1991) and similar to those reported for male managers in industry (Hewitt 1993, p. 17). The obvious explanation for the increase since 1971 is that the work requirements have changed following the education legislation outlined in Chapter 1. In particular the introduction of the national curriculum is widely acknowledged (e.g. DES 1990b, 1991a, 1991b, Silcock 1990, 1992, Smithers and Zeintek 1991, Alexander, Rose and Woodhead 1992) to have increased teacher workloads, and is a principal explanation offered by the teachers themselves (see Evans et al. 1994). Nonetheless, we were concerned that, because of our sampling methods, or because of our different instruments, some bias had entered our figures. We examine this in detail in Appendix I, but at this stage we would make three points. First, the means for the teachers in Samples 2, 3 and 4 are fairly similar, even though the sampling process was different in each case. Second, when we interviewed Sample 5, the sub-sample of Sample 2 (see Evans et al. 1994), all but three estimated that they were working between 50 and 60 hours a week. Their subjective evidence supported the objective data. Third, three other self-report surveys conducted within the same period (Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte 1991, Lowe 1991, NAS/UWT 1991) produced weekly term-time figures of 50.1, 55.5, and 51.1 hours respectively. Given the different samples and methodologies, these figures are fairly similar to ours, especially when account is taken of the fact that the lowest figure, 50.1 hours, was from the Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte study, in which breaks were excluded. The other studies included breaks, an issue which is discussed below (p. 59). Thus, although there may be some range of estimates about precisely how much time was spent on work overall by primary teachers in 1991, there seems little doubt that it had increased substantially since 1971. 45

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It might be argued that the long hours reported were voluntary, in the sense that teachers had autonomy over their own time, and that no one was forcing them to work beyond their directed time. There are two points to make here. First such a position ignores the contractual element of non-directed time, which for teachers in England and Wales is defined as: ‘such additional hours as may be needed to enable [teachers] to discharge effectively [their] professional duties’ (School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document, 1989, para. 36(1) [f]). In addition, teachers are motivated, at least in part, by their sense of obligation to meet the needs of their pupils, as we show later (Chapter 11, p. 217) (and in Evans et al. 1994). The second point is whether the hours worked by the teachers were seen by them as voluntary. We wanted evidence about the willingness of the teachers to work long hours, and for this purpose had included an item on the questionnaire asking the teachers how many hours a week of their own time they considered it was reasonable for them to be expected to devote to work (see Appendix II, Item Q2P5, for detailed wording). We interpreted the answers as an index of professional ‘conscientiousness’ (see Chapter 11 for a full discussion of this idea). The answers to this question showed that, on average, teachers thought it reasonable to be expected to work for about nine hours a week in term-time beyond their directed time (33 hours a week). This means that the teachers thought an average of about 42 hours a week was reasonable (close to Hilsum and Cane’s (1971) figure). As we have seen, the actual average was significantly more than this—over 11 hours a week more—and we take this to mean that, on average, most teachers were working for substantially longer hours than they considered reasonable. Individual variation The means above disguise very great variation as between individual teachers. Table 3.2 gives the mean minimum and maximum times recorded in each of the 1991 samples. It can be seen that the difference in total time on work between the individual teachers at the extremes was very great, equivalent to over five hours a day for a seven-day week in the cases of Samples 2 and 4, and over four hours a day in Sample 3. 46

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Table 3.2 Mean minima and maxima time on total work for three samples (1991) (hours per week)

Another more detailed way of showing the variation is as in Figures 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3, where the time spent by all teachers is represented in three bar charts, one for each of the 1991 samples. The bar charts show the spread of hours in each sample. The total time on work spent by teachers has been clustered into groups of five hours each for this purpose. These bar charts show that for Sample 2 the top 20 per cent of teachers were working for 64.7 hours per week on average, while the bottom 20 per cent were working for 44.5 hours per week. For Sample 3 the respective figures were 62.3 hours and 43.2 hours; for Sample 4 the respective figures were 62.7 hours and 43.9 hours. Again, the similarity in the extremes across the samples is striking. This variation, which is a much more interesting finding in our view than the general average, provided us with one of the puzzles in our research. These teachers were all fundamentally engaged in the same job; they were all classteachers in primary schools. We do not know if those working shorter hours were less effective as teachers than others. Moreover, in general, longer hours were not consistently related to salary status, or to responsibility. In Samples 1 and 2, there was no relationship between hours on work overall and salary status or responsibility. In Sample 4 teachers on Standard Scale worked significantly (p<.01) less than other teachers. Sample 3 had small numbers, but the teachers on different salary levels spent very similar amounts of time on work overall. In Samples 1 and 2 longer hours were significantly (p<.001) associated with what we have called ‘conscientiousness’—the perception among teachers of the number of hours it was reasonable for them to be expected to spend on work in their own time. In these two samples the longer teachers thought it was reasonable for them to be expected to work in their own time, the longer they actually 47

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Figure 3.1 Sample 2 (Infant)

Figure 3.2 Sample 3 (Infant and Junior)

Figure 3.3 Sample 4 (Infant and Junior) 48

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worked. There was a similar, but less marked trend in Sample 4, where conscientiousness was significantly (p<.01) associated with longer hours on work on school premises. For total time a weak trend was apparent in this sample, but it was not statistically significant. In Chapter 11 we examine the reasons for the difference in conscientiousness and hours on work in the different samples, and discuss the problems associated with conscientiousness as a motivation. Time on main categories So far we have provided data on the total time spent on work. However, the total is made up of time spent across five main categories of work. Table 3.3 shows the way time was distributed between these five main categories of teachers’ work, according to our coding system. These categories were teaching, preparation, administration, professional development, and other activities. The data are presented both for time spent in hours per week on each main category, for all four samples, and the proportions of time spent on them, expressed as a percentage of the total time on work. Detailed discussion of each main category is undertaken in later chapters. At this stage we would make the following four points briefly. First, in this table, as is frequently the case in other tables in the book, the total time on an overall category (here, total time on work) is smaller than the sum of the sub-categories. This is because teachers sometimes carried out two activities simultaneously (e.g. planning lessons (preparation) whilst engaged in supervision (administration)). We have illustrated this by the example of a day’s record on p. 15, Chapter 1. In arriving at a figure for the total time spent on work overall, we wished to avoid the double-counting that might follow from such overlapping activities, and the computer program used in the analysis was written accordingly. Second, the picture that emerges from the percentages in Table 3.3 is generally consistent in respect of the categories of teaching, preparation and administration. The relatively low proportion of time on administration for Sample 3 is explicable, as has already been said, by the fact that teachers in that sample did not regularly collect dinner money. Third, professional development was relatively high, as might be expected, in Samples 1 and 2, where more training for national 49

Table 3.3 Time spent on five main categories, expressed in hours and as percentages of the total time on work TOTAL TIME ON WORK

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curriculum and assessment was being experienced. The relatively high amounts of time in Sample 4 on ‘other activities’ may reflect more involvement in school teams and aspects of school management by some junior teachers than infant teachers. Teaching: curriculum time and contact time Although the implications of Table 3.3 are explored both here and in Chapters 4–7, one point needs highlighting at this stage. It is clear that teaching—what we have called ‘curriculum time’ in Figure 1.1 —takes up a relatively small proportion of the teachers’ total time on work, accounting for just over a third of the time teachers devote to work in a week. This small proportion of time reinforces the comments already made (p. 5) about the substantial amount of time spent by teachers on aspects of work other than directly teaching pupils. Two further points need to be made about the time spent teaching pupils. First, there is a difference between curriculum time (i.e. teaching time) and contact time as defined in Figure 1.1. The latter is the time when teachers are in contact with pupils, and was longer than the time recorded as teaching under our coding system. The reason for this is that in addition to teaching, the teachers spent substantial amounts of time (5.4 hours a week for Sample 4) in contact with pupils but not teaching them. This time was taken up with registration and transition, assembly, and supervision. If the time spent in these ways is added to the time spent teaching, approximately 45 per cent of teachers’ time is spent in direct contact with pupils. Even using this wider definition, we can see that almost 55 per cent of these teachers’ time was taken up with activities away from pupils. Second, the contrast with the findings of Hilsum and Cane (1971) is considerable. Although precise comparison is difficult, their teachers spent about 58 per cent of their time in contact with pupils, and 42 per cent away from them; ours spent their time in almost inverse proportions. The two pie charts (Figure 3.4a and b) illustrate the difference in a stark way. The explanation for the difference is not that the 1991 teachers were spending less time in absolute terms in contact with pupils than their 1971 counterparts. What has happened is that the nonteaching aspects of their work, especially preparation and 51

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Figure 3.4a Distribution of time, 1991

Figure 3.4b Distribution of time, 1971

professional development, have increased dramatically, and thus the proportion of their time spent teaching has decreased. The absolute time spent teaching by teachers (all four samples aggregated) was 18.3 hours per week. In Hilsum and Cane’s study the nearest equivalent time (viz. their two categories of ‘teaching’ and ‘organisation’) amounted to 17.2 hours per week. (Hilsum and Cane’s designation ‘organisation’ covered mainly organising pupils at the start of lessons. It did not mean organising and 52

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collecting resources in preparation for a lesson, as in our code PO.) Thus the evidence is, if anything, of a small increase in absolute teaching time since 1971, especially given that our four samples included infant teachers, who often work a somewhat shorter teaching timetable than junior teachers. Preparation Two points need to be made about the time spent on preparation. First, preparation occupied 15.7 hours per week (for all four samples aggregated); the ratio of time spent preparing to time spent teaching is 0.86:1. The preparation teaching ratio implies that for every hour that they taught their pupils, the teachers were spending almost an hour in preparation. Even this figure excludes time spent on reading professional journals and national curriculum documents—just over two hours per week—which might reasonably be included in teachers’ preparation time. If this is done, the ratio becomes 0.96:1. (See Chapter 5 for a fuller discussion of this point.) Second, on the face of it, this ratio requires some explanation, since it is improbable that teaching requires such a large amount of preparation in the normal run of things. (If it did, the teachers’ working week would be 36 hours long before anything other than preparation and teaching was undertaken.) The explanation does not lie in teacher inexperience. There were very few inexperienced teachers in our samples—74 per cent had more than five years’ experience of teaching at the relevant Key Stage. It is likely that the hours on preparation are in some significant measure affected by the new requirements associated with the national curriculum being introduced at the time the data were collected. If the above interpretation is correct—and it is supported by the evidence from our interviews (which are published in Evans et al. 1994) —it might follow that the amount of preparation carried out by teachers would be reduced as they become more familiar with the requirements of the national curriculum and assessment. The long hours on preparation, on this interpretation, would be merely a ‘blip’ arising from the novelty of the national curriculum. They would not be a permanent or even longstanding feature of teachers’ work. This is an assumption hinted at in Alexander, Rose and Woodhead (1992), and tentatively quantified in Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte (1991). 53

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There are three reasons why this assumption is unlikely to be realised. First, 1991 was only the beginning. The national curriculum and assessment were being phased in over a fairly long time. In 1991, the infant teachers in our sample had implemented statutory orders in maths, English, science and technology. The following year involved statutory orders in geography and history, and the year after that PE, art and music. For the junior teachers, the national curriculum was only just starting to be implemented statutorily and would be phased in gradually over four years, with all subjects applying to all pupils in 1996. Second, the national curriculum has been, and continues to be, subject to fairly regular change. The orders in mathematics and science were already altered significantly for implementation in 1993, and the assessment arrangements were altered between 1991 and 1992 (see Black 1992 for details). These are unlikely to be the only changes, since the National Curriculum Council has a statutory responsibility to keep the curriculum under review, and in 1992 commenced a review of the existing orders in English and technology and the ‘collective weight’ of all the orders (see Pascall 1992). Third, the chairman of the NCC placed on the record (Pascall 1992) his view that problems of curriculum overload and long hours on work by teachers implementing the national curriculum were not ‘just teething troubles’. In 1993 the NCC (NCC 1993) advised the Secretary of State that the whole curriculum should be reviewed, and a rolling programme of ‘evolution’ was ordered (see Patten 1993). This review covered the curriculum and assessment arrangements and applied to all subjects. It was envisaged that it might take five years to complete. Thus for these three reasons we think the apparently high figures for preparation time are likely to persist until the national curriculum and assessment arrangements have stabilised and become routine. Such routinisation is unlikely to be felt as a reality until the late 1990s at the earliest, though for Key Stage 1 teachers it might occur earlier than for Key Stage 2 teachers. Administration The teachers were spending 14.1 hours per week on administration. Our use of this term covers, as can be seen from 54

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the coding system (Table 1.1), a range of activities which contribute to the smooth functioning of the school, but which do not directly involve teaching pupils. It includes registration and moving children round the school (transition), participating in assembly, meeting parents and putting up displays. It also includes break times and non-contact time. It does not include the kind of management and clerical activity normally undertaken by headteachers and often referred to as ‘school administration’. Where this was undertaken it would have been entered as other activities and coded OA. The time recorded as administration included morning, and, where they occurred, afternoon breaks, as well as the lunchtime break. We were able to distinguish between time in these breaks when teachers were engaged in work, for example planning lessons or marking, and time when they were free of work. The time in all these breaks when teachers were free of work amounted on average to 35 minutes a weekday, or 2.9 hours per week. Professional development The teachers spent 7.2 hours per week on professional development, though as can be seen from Table 3.3 there was some variation across samples. The two samples of Key Stage 1 teachers, involved in national curriculum implementation, spent more time on this aspect, presumably because In-service training was focused on them. In our coding system, professional development included courses, travel to courses, staff meetings, non-pupil days, and reading professional journals and curriculum documents. Two of these elements, staff meetings and reading journals etc., might be considered as only remotely concerned with the professional development of teachers. The latter, as has been argued above (p. 53), might be regarded as preparation, whilst the former might be thought of more appropriately as administration. The problem arises because of the limited number of categories which can be used in a diary study without discouraging or confusing participants. For example, staff meetings differ in nature and teachers read journals for different purposes. Some staff meetings concern themselves primarily with school routines, others with curriculum development. Many mix both kinds of activity. The case for including staff meetings under professional 55

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development is discussed in Chapter 5. Moreover, teachers may read journals for job vacancies, ideas for lessons, or to improve their professional knowledge. In both cases, reading or a meeting started for one purpose may shade into another, and we felt these distinctions could not be made reliably. This is not a difficult problem to resolve, since the data are presented separately in later chapters in this book. However, we can illustrate the issue at this stage. We can transfer time spent in meetings (31 minutes per weekday) and reading (16 minutes per day over seven days) to administration and preparation respectively, from professional development, using Sample 4 as an example. The time on meetings and reading combined came to 4.5 hours a week. The changes they make to the distribution of time across the main categories are shown in Table 3.4. The significant shift of time on meetings into administration and away from professional development can be seen to be more than a matter of linguistics or pedantry. It has been argued that the recent educational reforms in England and Wales have been the most significant since 1944, and these teachers bore the brunt of implementation in 1991. Yet, on the assumptions (that meetings are administrative, not developmental, activities, and reading journals is for preparation), as represented in Table 3.4, column (b), the professional development of teachers occupied a very minor part of their working week, given the training needed to implement the reforms. Table 3.4 Comparison of time distribution for Sample 4 with ‘meetings’ and ‘reading’ included in (a) professional development and (b) administration/preparation

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Other activities Other activities occupied 4.5 hours per week, and mainly involved sports, orchestras, etc., outside timetabled lessons, or miscellaneous activities that the teachers could not allocate to our other codes. Very little of this time (12 minutes per week) was taken up with governors’ meetings. Directed and non-directed time We were interested in the division between directed and nondirected time because of the contractual frame within which teachers’ work had been set by the 1987 Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act. We had reason to believe that asking the teachers to code which of their activities were subject to directed time would not be helpful, since many heads do not direct time at the level of daily routines. They simply direct time for teaching and for important scheduled meetings such as parents’ evenings, staff meetings, etc. In order to take account of this we designed the Record of Teacher Time in a way that enabled us to break down the total time spent on work according to whether it was spent at school or away from school. The purpose here was twofold. First, we wished to know how much time teachers spent on work that was ‘invisible’ to the public, and even to their heads and their employers. Second, there was the issue of how much teachers were working in non-directed time. We took as an assumption that time away from school was for all practical purposes nondirected time. In this way we were able to arrive at a minimum figure for non-directed time from our data. In addition, however, some time at school is not directed and in order to take account of this we calculated another figure. This figure was the total time on work minus the 33 hours that is statutorily supposed to be worked each week at the headteacher’s direction. Tables 3.5 and 3.6 provide the relevant figures for the 1991 samples. The two tables reveal great consistency in proportions of time on and off school premises, and teachers were working considerably longer total hours than the statutory directed time of 33 hours, whichever of the figures is applied. The figures in Table 3.5 show the teachers working over between 12.4 and 12.8 hours a 57

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Table 3.5 Total time on and off school premises (three samples)

Table 3.6 Non-directed time (in hours per week) assuming 33 hours for directed time (three samples)

week away from school, mostly at home. Using these hours off school premises as the minimum non-directed time and assuming that all work at school counts as ‘directed’, we can calculate the ratio of directed hours to non-directed hours as 3:1. That is to say, for every hour working at the direction of the head, the teachers spent another 20 minutes in their own time. However, the assumption that no time on school premises is non-directed is false. The requirements of the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act include the requirement that teachers spend 1,265 hours a year, or 33 hours a week in term-time, working at the direction of the head. The remainder of their work is non-directed, as defined earlier (p. 3), and Table 3.6 analyses the time data on this assumption. Here the ratio of directed to non-directed hours is approximately 3:2. For every hour of directed time, the teachers spent another 40 minutes in their own time. Table 3.6 represents the more accurate of the divisions between directed and nondirected time, in our view, as it fits more closely the legal basis of the distinction. Time on work at weekends Our final analysis is concerned with the distribution of time during the five weekdays and the weekends. The computer 58

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program was written so as to enable us to present the time data for ‘real’ weekdays, i.e. for the time actually spent on work during the five weekdays. It is therefore different from the calculation of the ‘working weekday equivalent’ referred to above (p. 45), which was created by taking the total time spent on work over the seven days, and dividing it by five instead of seven. Time spent on work at weekends is similarly ‘real’. Table 3.7 gives the data for the 1991 samples. Table 3.7, like the other tables showing the data separately for each sample, reveals substantial consistency. On average teachers worked for between 5.5 and six hours, or about three hours per day, at the weekends. On weekdays they worked for 9.6 hours on average. The policy and management issues associated with these findings are discussed in Chapter 8. At this stage we would simply note that our research, like Hilsum and Cane’s, explodes the myth of primary teaching as a nine-to-three job. Our figures suggest that it is more like a nine-to-seven job. The treatment of breaks The figures for total time on work given in this chapter include time in breaks. These include time spent in morning coffee breaks, lunchtimes and, where applicable, afternoon breaks. It is questionable whether all time spent in breaks should count as work. One solution would be to deduct all time spent in breaks from the total time. The difficulties with this are first that it would treat the 15-minute morning coffee break in the same way as the much longer lunch break, and second that teachers often work during their breaks, on preparation and marking, for example. Our coding system enabled the teachers to record when they worked during breaks and when they had breaks free of work. Table 3.7 Time spent on work: weekdays and weekends (hours per week)

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The average time spent in breaks free of work for the three 1991 samples was 38, 32 and 35 minutes per weekday. This gives weekly means in hours spent in breaks free of work of 3.1 (Sample 2), 2.7 (Sample 3) and 2.9 (Sample 4). If no allowance is given for time in morning coffee breaks to be recognised as working time, irrespective of how it is used, these hourly means should be deducted from the hours allocated to administration in Table 3.3, and the total time on work adjusted accordingly. This would give total time on work for the three samples as 51.5, 50.0 and 50.6 for Samples 2, 3, and 4 respectively. Alternatively, we could allow the morning break of 15 minutes to count as working time. The reasoning here is that teachers cannot leave the school during this time, and that the DES Circular on the Length and Control of School Sessions (DES 1989a) includes the morning break in directed time. The mean of three hours per week free of work would therefore be reduced by 1.25 hours a week, and the total time on work for the three samples would be 52.75, 51.25, and 51.9 hours per week respectively. AN ANNUAL EXTRAPOLATION To arrive at an annual average figure for teachers’ work, we have assumed, almost certainly wrongly, that no work is ever done in the periods outside the contracted 39 weeks of the teacher’s working year. We have then taken the 38 weeks of the teaching year and multiplied it by the average weekly term-time hours for the 1991 samples (53.6 hours). This gives 2,036.8 hours. To this should be added the remaining week, comprising the 30 hours allocated annually to non-pupil days. Under this method the annual figure would be 2,066.8 hours. Assuming a 46-week working year (i.e. six weeks of holidays, including public holidays), the teachers were working the equivalent of a 45-hour week. If breaks are treated on the last assumption mentioned above, the equivalent working week would be 43.6 hours, though this would be an under-estimate because work in vacations, including half-terms, has not been allowed for in any way. COMPARISON WITH OTHER OCCUPATIONS It is extremely difficult to make direct comparisons between teachers’ hours and those worked by other occupations because of 60

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the unusual contractual obligation of non-directed time laid upon teachers in England and Wales. However, some tentative comparisons can be made, based on the information provided by Incomes Data Services (Study 517, November 1992). Three comparisons are worth making. First, in a general comment, IDS notes that, ‘The 35-hour week remains the most common for non-manual workers…and in many sectors it represents the norm for the industry’ (IDS (1992), p. 5). Second, the IDS study lists (p. 8) annual hours of work in 13 European countries. This shows that the range of collectively agreed weekly hours in 1992 was between 35 and 40 in 12 countries, with only Portugal having a top range above 40, at 42 hours per week. Annual working time in the manufacturing industry in 1991 shows the majority of countries having between 1,700 and 1,800 hours, and no country with hours exceeding 2,000. The highest (Portugal again) was 1,935 hours annually. Third, the study provides a detailed 46-page breakdown of the basic hours worked in a range of private firms and public sector organisa-tions. The figures are sometimes weekly and sometimes annual hours of work. It is almost impossible (junior doctors in the National Health Service are one exception) to find any non-manual occupation, public or private, where the basic hours approach the level of actual hours we report for teachers. This is, in part, because the IDS figures are agreed basic hours and do not necessarily reflect actual hours worked. For this reason, direct comparison is not appropriate. A more direct comparison may be made with the actual hours worked in other occupations, reported in Hewitt (1993). She reports (p. 16), drawing on the New Earnings Survey (1991) and Marsh (1991), that actual hours worked by British full-time male manual workers on average were 43.7 in 1991, and notes that these were generally higher than in the rest of Europe. Full-time British women, with whom it might be more reasonable to compare primary teachers, and certainly infant teachers, worked about four hours a week less than the men. Hewitt also cites that there were ‘long working hours amongst male managers (with a median working week of fifty-two hours), manual operatives (fifty-hour week), manual workers in sales (forty-nine-hour week) and men doing white collar professional and technical jobs (fortyseven-hour week)’ (op. cit. p. 17). The actual working hours of full-time women were less than men, and Hewitt quotes from 61

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the 1989 Labour Force Survey to show that only one in four women worked more than 40 hours per week, and cites Marsh (1991) finding that the median weekly working hours of full-time women were 41 hours a week. The comparisons above, even given the difficulties, suggest that, despite the apparently low number of hours of contractual directed time agreed for teachers, teachers probably work significantly longer than most other non-manual and manual workers in Great Britain or in Europe, and their overall termtime hours on work are in the same range as those of the occupations having the longest actual working hours. SUMMARY The teachers worked, on average, 53.6 hours per week in term time in 1991. This figure was supported by other studies. Twenty per cent of the teachers spent over 60 hours a week, whilst a further 20 per cent averaged approximately 44 hours, on work. Of this overall working week, only 35 per cent was spent teaching pupils, and 45 per cent was spent in contact with pupils. The rest of the time was taken up with preparation (including marking), professional development, administration, and other activities. They worked nearly six hours at weekends, and on weekdays the average time spent working was 9.6 hours. Assuming that teachers do no work at all in vacations, the annual hours actually worked would amount to 2,066 hours, with a ratio of directed:non-directed time of 3:2. Although there are difficulties in making the comparison, primary teachers work relatively long hours compared to those worked by most other workers.

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Teaching pupils is the prime function for which teachers are employed. It is regarded by the public as the most important part of the job, and is the main means by which learning by pupils is achieved and for which schools publicly are funded and managed. Two introductory points need to be made about the nature of our evidence concerning the time that teachers spent on teaching. The first is that pupils’ learning is normally to some extent a consequence of teachers teaching them, though the connection is never as direct as teachers would hope. Empirical evidence using observational techniques to study teachers and pupils in classrooms (Alexander 1991, Bennett 1989, Galton and Simon 1980) serves to remind us that primary teachers’ intentions may not be translated directly into pupil learning outcomes, for a number of reasons. These include the difficulty of matching tasks to pupils’ capacities, the fact that some pupils spend more time on tasks than others, and the fact that some pupils misunderstand what they are being asked to learn. Most importantly, when teachers teach several subjects in one session, different pupils may learn different subjects, or different amounts of any one subject. Our evidence is about what the teachers recorded themselves as having spent their time on, not the time available to their pupils to study specific areas of the curriculum. Although there is no doubt a fairly close association between the two, it is a distinction that needs to be borne in mind throughout this chapter. Moreover, as we discuss later in this chapter, the teacher’s time on the curriculum is sometimes slightly less than the time his or her class spends on it in any one week. The class may be taught music or science, for example, by another teacher, or the teacher may be absent on a training course. For these reasons the connection 63

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between the teacher’s record of curriculum time and the pupils’ time on learning should not be taken for granted. Second, as we have outlined in Chapter 3 (p. 51), there is a difference between Contact Time and Curriculum Time, as can be seen from the way we have defined them in Figure 1.1. Most of the time that teachers spend in contact with pupils is spent teaching them. However, primary teachers spend a proportion of time each day in contact with pupils when they are working with them but not formally teaching them. The time spent varies, but in our samples it was something over an hour a day altogether. The main activities of this sort are taking the daily register, participating in assembly, collecting dinner money, supervising children at the beginning and end of breaks and of the school day. There is also what we refer to as transition, i.e. moving pupils from one place to another within the school, for example from the classroom to the hall for assembly or for physical education. These activities are not included in our definition of curriculum time, i.e. teaching, but they are included in contact time. In excluding these activities from teaching, we do not wish to imply that they are unimportant. On the contrary, in treating them separately we are recognising their significance. We accept that as Willes (1983) argues, these activities may play an important role in socialising young children; they help them adjust to being part of a community larger than the family, and contribute to their social development. The infant school is the first institution that many children encounter, and therefore acts as a model for their later dealings with other institutions in general, as well as schools in particular. The activities described above, however, are, in the main, part of what is commonly described as the ‘hidden’, ‘unstudied’ or ‘moral’ curriculum (Meighan 1980). They are not generally part of the planned cognitive curriculum of subjects, though they can be used to achieve cognitive objectives. For example, the collecting of dinner money is sometimes used for teaching mathematics. Our approach of separating these ancillary activities from teaching has two advantages. It enabled us to take account of the time spent on these aspects of the hidden curriculum, and to show the part they occupy in the working day of teachers. This is done in Chapter 6. Secondly, it enabled us to examine, with more precision than would otherwise be the case, the time available to teachers in practice for their delivery of the curriculum. 64

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TIME SPENT TEACHING: GENERAL FINDINGS The general findings for all four of our samples are given in Table 4.1. This shows that the average time spent teaching pupils was 18.2 hours per week, the equivalent of 3.6 hours per weekday. (When daily figures are presented in this chapter, they are presented as real weekdays since they refer to teaching, which did not occur at weekends. This means that the daily average has to be multiplied by five, rather than seven, to obtain the weekly total.) As has been shown in Chapter 3, the 18.2 hours spent teaching accounted for just over one-third of the total time that teachers spent on work. Variation between samples Table 4.1 reveals some differences between the samples, with Samples 1 and 2 recording on average rather shorter times than the other two samples. The conventional explanation for this is that Samples 1 and 2 included no junior teachers, whose pupils have a slightly longer timetabled day than infant pupils. We were able to analyse the large combined sample, Sample 4, in greater detail to test this explanation. The teachers were classified into three groups, as follows: those whom we knew to be teaching in Key Stage 1; those known to be teaching in Key Stage 2; those teaching in JMI or Combined schools, and who might be teaching in either Key Stage. The figures are given in Table 4.2 and show the difference in mean teaching time between the three groups. The conventional explanation appears to be partly supported in the case of the two most clearly defined groups (KS1 and KS2) where the difference in time spent Table 4.1 Teaching time per week for four samples

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Table 4.2 Time on teaching by Key Stage (Sample 4)

teaching amounted to half an hour a week. The difference, however, is less than the hour between Samples 1 and 2, and 3 and 4. The conventional explanation is not, however, adequate on its own, for there are two further factors involved in explaining the shorter teaching time of Key Stage 1 teachers. First it must be remembered that we were measuring the teaching time of individual teachers, not the timetabled teaching time in different types of school. Some teachers in Key Stage 2, for instance, might have more non-contact time than those in Key Stage 1. When we examined this we found it to be the case. Secondly, the Key Stage 1 teachers spent more time in the day on contact time other than teaching, i.e. engaged in supervision, registration, and transition, than Key Stage 2 teachers. This is to be expected, given their younger pupils. Key Stage 1 teachers spent 61 minutes a weekday on this kind of activity, compared to the 49 minutes of Key Stage 2 teachers. Not all of this time is taken from teaching time; registration is not, but transition and some supervision is. Thus even if they had had school days of uniform length, the Key Stage 1 teachers would have had some 12 minutes a day less than their Key Stage 2 counterparts available for teaching, as we have defined it. Apart from the difference between infant and junior teachers, there were few other differences in teaching time overall across the samples, as was to be expected. There were three factors that suggest high internal validity. These were expected differences in time spent on different subjects, as we discuss below; low standard deviations for teaching, compared to those for other work activities; and a negative relationship between time spent teaching and the amount of non-contact time officially allocated to teachers (trend, p<.05). 66

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Time on different subjects The time spent within teaching on each of the core subjects and on other subjects per weekday is shown in Table 4.3. First, Table 4.3 must be interpreted carefully, since it does not represent a precise count of how much time is spent on each subject with a proportion to be allocated to each subject within a fixed 100 per cent ceiling. Instead, teachers were asked to indicate whether, in any given time space, some teaching of a given subject was occurring. The advantage of this approach was that teachers who taught in an integrated way, or those who organised their classes so as to have some children working on number, others on science and so on, would be able to indicate it. However, in one session the amount of time spent for example on English and mathematics would not necessarily be equal, even though each subject had an entry on the record in one time space. The disadvantage would be serious, had we been attempting to measure the amount of time spent on the curriculum by pupils, but as we have pointed out above, we were measuring how the teachers were spending their time. Many of them had organised their classes so that the pupils were working on integrated topics, or so that some pupils were learning one subject whilst others were learning another simultaneously. The figures thus represent the maximum time Table 4.3 Teaching time on different subjects for four samples (hours per week)

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spent on individual subjects. Although this is not a clear-cut measure, it was intended to represent more appropriately the curriculum practice in most primary classes, and gives a measure of mixed subject teaching. (See the discussion of the curriculum complexity ratio below.) It has been shown in Table 4.1 that the teachers spent 18.2 hours on teaching in a week. We have already (p. 51) pointed out that teaching in this sense accounts for only 35 per cent of teachers’ overall time on work. This percentage is an important indicator of the change that has been occurring in the structuring of teachers’ work. There has been no reduction in the absolute amount of time being spent on teaching; indeed, as we have shown in Chapter 3 (Table 3.3), if anything, the absolute time on teaching may have increased slightly since Hilsum and Cane’s (1971) study. But because other aspects of teachers’ work, especially preparation and professional development, have increased, the proportion of their working week that is spent on teaching has reduced. The dominant core Secondly, time spent teaching was dominated by the three core subjects of English, mathematics and science. Table 4.3 shows that the teachers were teaching aspects of English for up to nearly 11 hours, aspects of mathematics for up to seven hours and science for up to 4.2 hours, in a teaching week of 18 hours altogether. The time spent on all other subjects was 9.3 hours. This pattern of a dominant core curriculum, often referred to as ‘the basics’, upon which most time is focused, is entirely expected. It has been the typical approach to the curriculum in primary education since 1944—and indeed in elementary education before the 1944 Education Act legitimated the term ‘primary’. Our evidence thus represents, in palpable form, the very high priority given over to the core curriculum subjects, in terms of time at least, in primary school teaching. It may run counter to general myths about primary practice, e.g. those promoted in the Black Papers (Cox and Dyson 1969) and by rightwing think-tank members (e.g. Lawlor 1988, Letwin 1988), but is in a long line of evidence (e.g. Alexander 1984, 1990, 1991, 1992, Alexander, Rose and Woodhead 1992, CACE 1967, DES 1978, 1985a, 1985b, 1989b, 1990a, Ministry of Education 1959) revealing the existence of two differentiated curricula operating in the 68

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schools; the high-priority, high-status ‘basic’ core, with substantial time allocation, and the ‘frills’ of art, music, PE and topic work, with little time and low status. This curricular division is strongly reinforced by teachers’ professional culture and objectives (Ashton 1981) and by parental pressure (House of Commons 1986, ILEA 1985). Furthermore, according to Alexander (1991) and Alexander, Rose and Woodhead (1992), there is some evidence that the non-core subjects not only have low amounts of time, but they often comprise undemanding activities of low quality. Inferior quality combines with shortage of time to render the nonbasics trivial. Our evidence is quantitative and makes no contribution to the debate about quality, but the quantitative picture fits in well with other evidence. The incorporation of science However, there is a significant difference in what counts as ‘the basics’ in the new core curriculum. For most of the post-1944 period, the basics comprised mathematics and language, with a concentration at Key Stage 1 on the teaching of reading and number. Science was rarely taught in a systematic way (see DES 1978, 1987); where it was, it was often concentrated on biology, with topics such as ‘My Body’ and observation of nature, whether by caring for small animals in classrooms or by visits to parks, gardens and fields. There was relatively little physical or chemical science. With the passing of the 1988 Education Reform Act, science in a broader sense was defined as part of the core curriculum, and became a statutory requirement. For our teachers, and especially for the Key Stage 1 teachers, science was included in the basics, in the sense that it was being taught for between 3.4 hours a week (Sample 4) and six hours a week (Sample 2) and was statutorily assessed by SATs. This was still less than English and mathematics, and the content imbalance may be greater if science involves more practical work, but by comparison all the other foundation subjects and RE had a maximum of about 1.25 hours each. Our evidence about the change in extent of science teaching since 1988 has support from survey evidence from HMI (DES 1990b, 1991c). This shows that as the national curriculum orders became implemented over 1989–91, science was incorporated into the basic curriculum. This was a substantial change from the 69

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picture painted in Primary Education in England (DES 1978), where provision of primary science in schools, despite a history of nationally funded curriculum innovation in the field, had remained patchy. Our figures show considerable increase even on the tables of the Primary Staffing Survey (DES 1987), which revealed that in junior (i.e. Key Stage 2) classes, some 8 per cent of time was devoted to science. If a similar proportion was to be given to science at Key Stage 1, and assuming some 21 hours available for teaching, 8 per cent would mean 1.8 hours a week, compared to the 4.8 or 6.0 hours, admittedly maximum counts, of Samples 1 and 2. Other reports from HMI, notably those from the Senior Chief Inspector’s annual reports (e.g. DES 1990a), support the interpretation that we put on our evidence, namely that a real and substantial change in the amount of time given to science in primary schools, including science at Key Stage 1, had occurred following the implementation of the national curriculum. This poses a difficult question for the democratic curriculum developer. The orthodoxy (see, for example, Fullan 1990, Lawton 1980, Macdonald and Walker 1976) has been that centre-periphery models of change would be ineffective, since they imposed change top-downward and therefore failed to take account of teachers’ perceptions and schools’ needs. The orthodox will have to come to terms with the fact that in the case of primary science, at least, imposed change from the top worked where encouragement and sponsorship of grass-roots development had failed. However, we would reiterate that our evidence is about time spent on science— not about its quality. It should also be said that the top-downwards change had been supported by government-funded initiatives in which earmarked In-service training for teachers in science had been delivered through locally organised support systems, often using practis-ing teachers seconded to teams of advisory teachers. The model of curriculum change was not the pure centreperiphery model of the 1960s and early 1970s. The broad and balanced curriculum? The third point follows from the above two. The maximum time available for the six other foundation subjects and religious education was 9.6 hours per week. There was strikingly little variation amongst the samples on this matter. The relevant 70

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averages for the three 1991 samples were 8.8, 8.8 and 9.6 hours per week. Even the largest figure, which implies that the equivalent of about 16 minutes a day was available for each subject in England (and 14 minutes in Wales), looks inadequate for the delivery of the ‘broad and balanced’ curriculum of the 1988 Education Reform Act. Many of these subjects—for example, art, physical education, music, technology, and geography/ history organised as topic work, involving investigations outside the school—are practical and time-consuming. It should be noted that the above analysis assumes that no time is spent on teaching material other than national curriculum and RE, whereas this is most unlikely. The position of the non-core subjects described in the above paragraph almost certainly overstates the time spent by pupils. This is for two reasons. First, if we calculate time spent on the non-core, not as a proportion of the total teaching time, but as a proportion of the sum of time spent on all subjects, it falls from about 50 per cent to about 27 per cent (see Table 4.8 below). This is the more sensible analysis, since it better reflects the distribution of the teachers’ time consequent upon mixed-subject teaching. Second, as we do not have direct evidence about time spent by pupils, we have to make assumptions. The most reasonable assumption is that when several subjects are being delivered simultaneously, as is common in topic work, the pupils are split evenly between them. Where some pupil-choice of subject is encouraged, this is likely to lead to unevenness in the time spent by individual pupils. Thus the data support the widely expressed doubts about whether the whole national curriculum and RE can be ade-quately delivered in the time available in the school day as currently set. A fuller analysis of this issue is provided in Chapter 9, where policy implications are examined. CURRICULUM COMPLEXITY A fourth point is that the total of 18.2 hours was considerably less than the sum of the individual subjects (34.3 hours). This is superficially puzzling, until one recalls that the coding system enabled teachers to record the fact that they were teaching more than one subject at the same time when they were doing so. We have constructed in the bottom row of Table 4.3 a ‘curriculum 71

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complexity ratio’ (CCR), by dividing the sum of the time spent on individual subjects by the total time spent teaching. The higher the ratio, the more time that teachers spent teaching more than one subject at once. Thus in our study of secondary teaching (Campbell and Neill 1994), the sum of the time spent on individual subjects was 105 per cent of the total teaching time, reflecting the customary pattern of mainly single-subject lessons. The equivalent percentage for our primary samples averaged 188 per cent. The CCR therefore provides an index of the extent of curriculum integration and/or of ‘multiple focus teaching’ (Alexander 1991) in primary teaching. Curriculum integration here signifies the practice of topic teaching, designed to enable children to learn skills and concepts from a variety of subjects, linked by the topic. (For example, in a topic on ‘My Body’, children might learn mathematics through measuring parts of the body; science through recording changes in pulse rate after different exercises; art through sketching; motor skills in physical education; and English through writing about their peers’ faces.) Multiple-focus teaching refers to the practice of organising the children in groups, with each group learning a different subject from the others, as when there is a maths table, a science table, a reading group, and so on, operating simultaneously in the classroom. Both approaches would deliver similar records in our research, with teachers recording the fact that they were teaching several subjects simultaneously. Curriculum complexity and the national curriculum It can be seen that there is a consistent pattern across all the samples, with the greatest time spent on English, the next greatest on mathematics, the next on science, with the other subjects combined having an amount equal at most to about half the available teaching time and a quarter of the sum of individual subjects’ time. This consistency of pattern suggests a deep underlying structure to the primary curriculum, despite some surface variations. Such a structure has been identified by Meyer, Kamens and Benavot (1992) as a cross-cultural constant in primary curricula. Nevertheless there are some substantial differences in the time spent on different subject areas as between the Key Stage 1 72

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teachers (Samples 1 and 2), and those in Sample 4. The Key Stage 1 teachers, despite having a shorter teaching week overall, spent more time teaching the three core subjects, contradicting the reputation for ‘play’ of infant schools. They also spent more time on teacher assessment, which is understandable given the statutory arrangements requiring them to assess and record the national curriculum attainments of their pupils. More importantly, there are differences in the CCR between samples, which require explanation. Samples 1 and 2 were exclusively Key Stage 1 teachers, many of whom at the time the data were collected (Spring term 1990 and 1991) were involved in implementing the core subjects and summarising teacher assessments in readiness for the administration of SATs and the recording of results in the Summer term. The other two samples included some teachers in the same position, but also Key Stage 2 teachers, for whom the implementation of statutory orders had only just begun and who were not required to be involved in statutory assessment. We would expect, therefore, that the teachers in Samples 1 and 2 would be concentrating their time on the core subjects and to be assessing more than the teachers in Samples 3 and 4. We also believed that the Key Stage 1 teachers would have a higher CCR than the others. This is because it was reported (DES 1989b, Campbell et al. 1991, SEAC 1991) that they were trying to cram too much curriculum content into the school day and engaging in ‘fervent but unfocused’ assessment and recording (DES 1991a, 1991c). In addition, infant teachers favour integrated approaches to curriculum organisation. These predictions are all supported by the data in Table 4.3, and by the evidence in Evans et al. (1994). Thus, although infant teachers might normally be expected to teach more English and maths than other primary teachers, the differences in CCR provide us with a striking paradox. The teachers who were under pressure to deliver the statutory core and statutory assessment taught for a shorter time overall than their other colleagues in primary school, yet spent more time teaching each of the core subjects and assessing them. We think therefore that the differences in CCR represent, quantitatively, the differences in pressure upon teachers in the school day— differences in intensiveness of their work—arising from the national curriculum. This fits in with the views of the teachers reported in the interviews in Evans et al. (1994), and with the 73

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questionnaire evidence that 66 per cent of the teachers regarded shortage of time as the main obstacle to their implementing the national curriculum. However, the CCR also reflects curriculum ideology and pupil needs, and is not merely a product of pressure from government policy. We can show this by considering the data for teachers of Year 2 pupils, in Samples 2 and 4. These pupils underwent statutory end-of-Key Stage assessment in 1991 and their teachers were under most pressure from the government’s assessment policy. Yet, as can be seen in Table 4.4, the CCR was lower than that for Key Stage 1 teachers generally (Samples 1 and 2), and Year 2 teachers recorded lower maximum times in each of the core subjects and assessment than the two Key Stage 1 samples. This suggests that the influence of government policy on curriculum organisation is tempered by teacher ideology and the teachers’ concern for the educational needs, including work on the basic skills of reading, writing and number, of the youngest pupils (in Reception and Year 1). TEACHER ASSESSMENT Teacher Assessment, that is assessment for national curriculum whilst teaching, was being carried out for a substantial amount of time (except for Sample 3, where the teachers were not involved in bringing in national curriculum assessment). Both this figure and the substantial concentration on the core subjects are Table 4.4 Teaching time of Year 2 teachers (Samples 2 and 4)

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supported by the interview evidence in Evans et al. (1994). This shows teachers committed to delivering the core and assessment, at the expense, for some of them, of a ‘broad and balanced’ curriculum. It can be seen from Table 4.3 that there was substantial variation across the samples on time spent on teacher assessment. This is largely explained by differences in the Key Stage of the teachers, with Key Stage 1 teachers spending more time than teachers in Key Stage 2. However, even within Key Stage 1, we were able to show the consequences of teacher assessment demands upon teachers with Year 2 pupils in their classes (Year 2 teachers) as against others. Year 2 pupils were undergoing statutory assessment in the year in which data were collected. Our data show that Year 2 teachers were spending significantly more time than other teachers working in Key Stage 1 on aspects related to teacher assessment. They were spending 8.9 hours per week on marking/ recording results, 5.4 of which were spent off school premises. The comparable figures for non-Year 2 teachers were 4.2 and 1.6 respectively. The differences were highly significant statistically (analysis of variance: p<.01 and <.001). These data are discussed further in Chapters 8 and 9, but at this stage two points need to be made. First, they provide a basis for an estimate of the extra time that the end-of-Key Stage assessment arrangements make upon teachers. Second, it is evident that the schools were allowing the burden of assessment to fall more heavily upon the teachers of the end-of-Key Stage children, rather than spreading the assessment activity evenly across the Key Stage. This suggests that in 1991, possibly under pressure on the first run of national curriculum assessment, the practice in the schools was to perceive the assessment arrangements more as a terminal examination than a continuous assessment process. In this sense their practice was at odds with the recommendations of the TGAT report (DES 1988), which saw formative purposes as a fundamental characteristic of assessment, feeding into teaching throughout the Key Stage. Against this the practice in the schools reflects the emphasis of the DES Circular on Assessment Arrangements (DES 1990c), in which end-of-Key assessments are designated ‘statutory’, whilst assessments used for end of year reports (except those at the year ending a Key Stage) to parents, are described as ‘non-statutory’. 75

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VARIATION BY KEY STAGE There was no significant statistical relationship between overall teaching time and any of the major positional variables for individual teachers on the questionnaire, for example salary status, age, co-ordination responsibility, or school size. In theory there ought not to be much variation in time spent overall on teaching amongst a group, all of whom are class teachers. There was, however, variation according to the Key Stage being taught, in three respects. First, as we have seen, Key Stage 2 teachers taught for longer than Key Stage 1 teachers, for the reasons outlined above, that the teaching day is longer for the former, and that the former spend less time on supervision and registration/transition than the latter. The difference amounted to the equivalent of half an hour per week for Sample 4. Comparisons within this sample are the safest, since the effect of LEA agreements about the length of day is controlled in this sample. Second, there was a pattern to the variation in time devoted to the core subjects, according to the type of school in which the teachers were teaching. Teachers in those schools catering mainly for Key Stage 1 (infant/first schools) devoted more time to the core than teachers in those catering mainly for Key Stage 2 (junior/ middle). Teachers in those schools catering for both stages (JMI/ combined) devoted less time to the core than the former, but more time than the latter. The pattern was the same in respect of each subject, as can be seen from Tables 4.5 – 4.7 below. The amount of time devoted to English was lower in junior/ middle schools (despite the longer hours on teaching overall) than in others. Table 4.5 gives the weekly hours on teaching for the three groups of teachers, according to type of school, in Sample 4. A similar picture emerged in relation to mathematics teaching, as Table 4.6 shows. The significance level here was as for English (analysis of variance: p<.001). The overall pattern for science was similar to that for English and mathematics, as is shown in Table 4.7, but the differences were not statistically significant. The explanation for this pattern is complicated. It is partly to do with the higher CCR at Key Stage 1, outlined above (p. 73) which shows Key Stage 1 teachers packing more subjects into the 76

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Table 4.5 Time spent teaching English, by school type

Table 4.6 Time spent teaching mathematics, by school type

Table 4.7 Time spent teaching science, by school type

time available. But there is also a threefold educational explanation, arising from the different professional contexts and preoccupations of the teachers. First, it is probable that the teachers in Key Stage 1 devote more time to the teaching of the conventionally defined ‘basics’ of literacy and numeracy than teachers in Key Stage 2, because of the need to ensure that their pupils learn to read and carry out basic number operations. Second, in Sample 2, teachers of Reception and Year 1 classes actually spent somewhat more time on English than teachers of Year 2 children, presumably because the former were concentrating on language work with their very young pupils, as might be expected. Third, the pupils of Key Stage 1 teachers 77

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were subject to statutory assessment in the three core subjects in 1991, whereas those of Key Stage 2 teachers were not. We would expect the former to spend more time ‘teaching to the tests’ in the core subjects than the latter. One consequence of this patterning of curriculum time was that teachers in Key Stage 1 had less time for the other foundation subjects and RE, as we have already shown in Table 4.3. However, the ‘luxury’ of being able to give so much time to the core and relatively little time to the other foundation subjects is historically a short-lived one. As the other subjects become statutorily established, adequate time will need to be given to them, and the question of the manageability of the whole curriculum will have to be faced. We provide some further data on this in Chapter 9, where we also examine policy issues. Likewise at Key Stage 2, the luxury of devoting so much time to the other foundation subjects will have to be examined as pupils’ performance in the core subjects is tested and published. We examine this issue also in Chapter 9. These findings from Sample 4 were supported when we examined the variations in time on different subjects and assessment across the four samples. The unadjusted time data have been provided in Table 4.3. However, because of the differences in time overall on teaching between samples, Table 4.8 provides the proportions of time on particular aspects shown as a percentage (a) of total time on teaching and (b) of the sum of individual subjects, based on the data in Table 4.3. We can see that there is great consistency across all the samples in respect of the time spent on English and mathematics as a proportion of the sum of individual subjects (Column b). This reflects the way the dominance of the traditionally defined ‘basics’ has survived the reforms of 1988. The constant underlying structure of the historic primary curriculum (Meyer, Kamens and Benavot 1992) remains. The variation in science across the samples shows the phased influence of the 1988 reforms, with larger proportions of time being given to science in Key Stage 1 in 1991 because of the impact of the national curriculum assessment arrangements. We would expect the proportions at Key Stage 2 to increase after 1994 as core subject testing is implemented. As a corollary, something will ‘have to give’ at Key Stage 2 and the proportion of time on other teaching can be expected to reduce. Table 4.8 also shows the impossibility of giving adequate time to 78

Table 4.8 Proportions of time recorded as spent on different aspects of teaching: (a) time spent as a percentage of total hours spent teaching; (b) time spent as a percentage of sum of individual subjects

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all the non-core subjects and RE, whilst the policy of national testing places highest emphasis on the core subjects. When teacher assessment is considered by Key Stage, the figures show a similar pattern to that detected for the core subjects. The data for Sample 4 are given in Table 4.9. Two points arise here. First, the pattern is expected, since teacher assessment was subject to statutory arrangements for Key Stage 1 teachers, but not for Key Stage 2 teachers. Secondly, with the exception of a small number of the teachers of Year 2 pupils, the data for Sample 4 do not refer to the period in the Summer term 1991 spent administering the national curriculum tests— the Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs). They mainly refer to the assessment and recording of pupils’ performance against attainment targets before the administration of SATs. THE PUZZLE OF THE FIRST SCHOOLS There were 32 first schools in our Sample 4, all catering for children from 4/5–8 years of age. A consistent pattern in all the data on teaching, in Tables 4.5 – 4.9 above, was that the teachers in these schools spent significantly more time than any others, including teachers in infant schools, on the core subjects and assessment. We do not have any direct explanation for this finding. However, these teachers were all in one authority, where an integrated approach to the curriculum had been officially encouraged through LEA inspectors and advisers for a long period. The first school teachers had a higher curriculum complexity ratio than other Key Stage 1 teachers, as might be expected in integrated approaches to curriculum. The explanation therefore may be found in the influence of the LEA, much as

Table 4.9 Time spent on teacher assessment, by school type

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Alexander (1992) found a strong LEA effect in Leeds primary schools. THE NATURE OF PRIMARY TEACHING All the data presented in this chapter show the complex and demanding nature of primary teaching conducted by classteachers who have to cover ten subjects with their pupils. Teachers also have to differentiate teaching according to the level attained by the pupils in each of the nine national curriculum subjects. It is to be expected that, towards the end of Key Stage 2, a normal class will have some children on Level 2 and others on Level 5 or 6, a range equivalent to about seven years’ progress. The knowledge required of any one teacher in all nine subjects to teach and assess his or her pupils has reached the stage where the teacher needs to be a Renaissance person, as is implicitly acknowledged by Alexander, Rose and Woodhead (1992) and explicitly argued by Campbell (1992a) and Campbell and Neill (1992b). Some of the complexity of the teaching that is reflected in the CCR is doubtless undertaken by choice. It might be reduced by teaching lessons based more often on a single subject, than upon multiple subjects, as is argued in Alexander (1991). But the data raise in stark form some of the issues of the manageability of the national curriculum, while primary teaching remains for the most part predicated upon the role of the generalist classteacher adopting integrated approaches to curriculum organisation. We examine this issue further in Chapter 9. SUMMARY The teachers spent just over 18 hours a week teaching pupils, with Key Stage 1 teachers averaging between half-an-hour and an hour less teaching per week than Key Stage 2 teachers. Teaching time was dominated by the two basic subjects of English and mathematics, which took up approximately 50 per cent of curriculum time, as previous research has shown; these teachers were also spending substantial amounts of time (13 per cent) on science, the third core subject. One consequence was that inadequate time was available for the other foundation subjects and religious education. Much of the time was spent teaching 81

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two or more subjects simultaneously, leading to the ‘188 per cent curriculum’ overall, and the ‘200 per cent curriculum’ at Key Stage 1. Approximately 9 per cent of teaching time was taken up with teacher assessment, and teachers of Year 2 children, who were implementing national curriculum assessment, spent 8.9 hours per week marking pupils’ work and recording results, some 5.4 hours of which were spent off school premises. Teachers in Key Stage 1 spent a smaller proportion of their time on the non-core subjects than teachers at Key Stage 2.

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PREPARATION The work that teachers do away from children, preparing lessons, marking work, recording results, and organising materials for learning, is the most invisible part of their job. Some time is spent on preparation at school, for example at lunch time or before teaching begins. However, much of it (for our teachers, more than half of preparation time) is conducted privately at home, away from school. A considerable amount of it is done at weekends or in the evenings. How much time any individual teacher spends on preparation is probably a mystery, even to his or her colleagues. From previous research in this country and elsewhere (Hilsum and Cane 1971, Hargreaves 1991, Handal 1991), we know a little about how teachers spend their time on preparation, and what proportion of the working week is devoted to it. However, some key issues, such as how much time a typical, experienced teacher needs to spend on preparation, have not been examined systematically. Moreover, there is the further important question of the relationship of time on preparation to the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom, although this is not one on which our data allow us to pronounce. One characteristic of preparation distinguishes it from most other aspects of the teachers’ work: the time spent is discretionary, in the sense that it is the individual teacher who decides how much time to devote to it. It is not laid down anywhere and is therefore a matter of professional judgement. Most preparation is by definition carried out in ‘non-directed’ time. In our study, under the broad category of preparation, we had three sub-categories. These were: 83

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1 Planning: preparing and planning for children’s learning, writing lesson plans, forecasts, schemes of work, organising the classroom and resources in it, briefing classroom assistants, parent helpers, etc. 2 Marking: marking children’s work, writing comments on it, recording results. 3 Organising: organising or collecting resources, organising visits/ trips. We included marking under the general category of preparation, since we took the view that, at least ideally, teachers would be using such marking formatively or diagnostically as a means of identifying and planning for the next steps that would be needed in their teaching and the pupils’ learning. In the rest of this chapter we shall use the terms as defined above, with Preparation given a capital letter where we are referring to all three sub-categories combined. In this way we hope to avoid potential confusion between the overall category and lesson planning, which is commonly described as preparation. Time on Preparation The time on Preparation overall and the three sub-categories is given for the four samples in Table 5.1. There are four points concerning Preparation arising from Table 5.1. First, there is remarkable consistency about the amount of time spent on Preparation overall, across the four samples. It is remarkable not merely because there were four samples but because, as we have proposed above, Preparation time is the time most subject to the discretion of individual teachers. Table 5.1 Time spent on Preparation, broken down by sub-category for four samples (hours per week)

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The second point is that the totals for Preparation are all substantially less than the sum of the sub-categories. This means that the teachers were often engaged in two sub-categories of activity simultaneously. They would be marking and planning, for example, as would follow if the teachers saw their marking as feeding formatively into their planning; or if the teachers were planning lessons at the same time as organising learning materials for their implementation. Third, the time on Preparation was presumably intended to feed into teaching. It took up the equivalent of 2.2 hours per day for seven days, and was equivalent to 87 per cent of the time that the teachers spent teaching (see Chapter 4). These teachers were mainly very experienced, with some 74 per cent having had more than six years’ experience in the relevant Key Stage. The figures therefore seem to bring into question the belief that primary teachers do not need, or do not choose, to carry out much Preparation. In Campbell and Neill (1994) it can be seen that our samples of secondary teachers, by comparison, were spending just under 13 hours a week on Preparation, equivalent to 76 per cent of their teaching time, with marking being the only subcategory where the secondary teachers spent more time (6.8 hours per week) than the primary teachers. In part, the explanation for these apparently high amounts of time spent on Preparation by primary teachers must derive from the novel demands of the national curriculum. Much of the early evaluation reports (e.g. SEAC 1991, DES 1990b, 1991d) reported that planning and assessment and recording results were taking up more of teachers’ time than had previously been the case. The question arises as to whether these figures are temporary, and might reduce significantly as the teachers become used to the statutory orders, and the planning of lessons drawing on attainment targets and programmes of study become routinised into the teachers’ practice. In short, are these hours, as with hours on work overall, merely a ‘blip’ created by the novelty of the national curriculum? We examine this issue further in Chapters 8 and 9 but, at this stage would make three points. First, Samples 3 and 4 contained a mix of Key Stage 2 and 1 teachers, and the former were not, strictly speaking, being required in 1991 to plan using statutory orders or to assess and record results on attainment targets at the end of the Key Stage. Yet the overall figures of all four samples are very similar. Second, if it was a 85

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blip, it will be a long one, since the full implementation of the national curriculum, given the fact that it is under review over the next five years, will not be complete until about 1998 at the earliest. We were also able to examine the above interpretation through the data for Sample 4 alone. This sample contained teachers working in the same authorities in Key Stage 1 and 2. In 1991 those in Key Stage 1 were implementing statutory orders, while those in Key Stage 2 would have been implementing the national curriculum in a general way. (The cohort of children to whom statutory orders applied were only in Year 3, and thus Key Stage 2 teachers were not yet operating under the detailed prescription imposed upon Key Stage 1, for whom national curriculum and assessment arrangements were in place for all pupils in the Key Stage.) Table 5.2 provides the data on Preparation and its subcategories for the teachers, by Key Stage. The evidence in Table 5.2 shows that Key Stage 2 teachers were in fact spending more, not less, time on Preparation than their Key Stage 1 counterparts. This was mainly due to the greater time spent marking by Key Stage 2 teachers, as might be expected, given the fact that their pupils were older. It would also follow from the fact that Key Stage 2 teachers taught for slightly longer than the Key Stage 1 teachers and would therefore need to spend more time in Preparation. The evidence about the impact of the national curriculum on Preparation time is indirect since, ideally, we would need data on the same teachers with and without the statutory orders in place; but the figures in Table 5.2 provide no basis for arguing that national curriculum and assessment is the major determinant of the amount of time primary teachers spend on Table 5.2 Time spent on Preparation, broken down by sub-category for KS1 and KS2 teachers (hours per week) (Sample 4)

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Preparation. Nor, if the ‘blip thesis’ has some truth in it, does it suggest that the blip adds substantially to an already heavy Preparation load. It is worth noting in this regard that the pattern of time on Preparation for the Key Stage 1 teachers in Sample 4, in Table 5.2, is strikingly similar to that for Sample 2 in Table 5.1. Sample 2 comprised Key Stage 1 teachers in 1991, who were therefore comparable to the Key Stage 1 teachers in Table 5.2. However, the latter’s Preparation time was spread across the whole year, and was not concentrated on the national curriculum assessment period, as was that of Sample 2. Preparation during weekdays and weekends We were able to analyse the data in order to give a breakdown of all Preparation according to whether it was reported as carried out at weekends or during the week. This analysis showed that the teachers in Sample 4 typically spent one hour and 38 minutes per day at the weekends and two hours and 31 minutes per weekday on Preparation. Table 5.3 shows how this pattern broke down by sub-category. We were also able to analyse the time spent on Preparation and its sub-categories in respect of whether the teachers were working on or off school premises. The figures are given (for Sample 4 again) in Table 5.4. From Tables 5.3 and 5.4 it is possible to derive a fuller picture of the amount of time per week added to the job of teaching by the need to plan, mark and organise learning resources. The teachers spent just over eight hours a week on Preparation away from school, and nearly eight hours at school. It is safe to assume that very little of this time was spent at the direction of the head. It adds just over 1.5 hours to the teachers’ working day at school, Table 5.3 Time spent at weekends and during weekdays on Preparation (Sample 4)

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Table 5.4 Time spent on Preparation, broken down by sub-category, on and off school premises (Sample 4) (hours per week)

and the equivalent of further 1.6 hours per weekday, after leaving the school premises. However, the time on Preparation was distributed unequally across the week, with the teachers spending more time on weekdays (2.5 hours a day on average), and 1.6 hours per day at the weekend (i.e. 3.2 hours altogether at the weekend). Preparation time and the working year There are three ways of calculating Preparation time in relation to the teachers’ workload over a year, assuming it is carried out only in relation to the 38 weeks of the teaching year. The first is to assume that all Preparation time is extra to the contractual ‘directed time’, and on this basis Preparation would account for just over 604 hours a year. This would be equivalent to fifteen 40hour working weeks a year, or to 18 weeks of directed time (33 hours per week). A second approach is to assume that only Preparation off school premises should be counted as extra to the contractual time. This would give a figure of about 308 hours per year, equivalent to just under eight 40-hour working weeks per year, and just over nine weeks of directed time. Third, we could ignore everything but time spent on Preparation at weekends, which amounted to 122 hours per year. It is roughly the equivalent of three extra 40-hour working weeks per year, or four weeks of directed time. These figures have a bearing on discussions about the nature and length of the teachers’ working year, raised in Chapter 3. It is often argued that intense and heavy workloads in term-time are justified, or compensated for, on the grounds that teachers have 88

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relatively short teaching days and relatively long holidays, in which it is assumed that they do no work. If the assumption in the first paragraph above is accepted, teachers have the equivalent of a working year of 47.25 weeks of 40 hours each. If the assumption in the second paragraph obtains, the working year is equivalent to 39.85 weeks of 40 hours. Only the accep-tance of the third assumption, in which most actual Preparation time is ignored, comes near to the idea of teachers having a typically short working year (a 35.2-week year). However, all the above calculations assume that teachers do nothing beyond the 33 hours of directed time except Preparation, and spend no time during vacations on work. This is not of course the case, since it ignores the time spent on administration, professional development and other activities. Influences upon preparation There was considerable variation in the amount of Preparation carried out by different teachers. The minimum and maximum times spent on Preparation, in Sample 4, for example, were 1.3 and 45.2 hours per week. The range is shown in the bar chart in Figure 5.1. The first thing to note about the distribution of time on Preparation is the very wide spread, from almost nothing to over 45 hours a week. The extremes, to some extent, will reflect unusual weeks (see the example of Vivienne, in Chapter 7). Nonetheless, the range is very great, given that the teachers were engaged in Preparation for the same fundamental task of class teaching. Second, the distribution was a statistically ‘normal’ one, though with a tail at the top end. It gives 117 of the teachers (61 per cent) clustering between 7.5 and 17.5 hours per week. But it also shows 50 teachers (26 per cent) spending over 17.5 hours a week. It will be recalled that these teachers, on average, spent just over 18 hours a week teaching. A probable conclusion to be drawn from the data in Figure 5.1, therefore, is that one in four of the teachers were spending more time on Preparation than they were on teaching, and a certain conclusion is that 26 (13.8 per cent) were doing so. We were interested in the factors that influenced the amount of time that the teachers spent on Preparation. We were able to examine two broad kinds of factor: the personal and the 89

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Figure 5.1 Sample 4: total Preparation

positional. Personal factors involved the teachers’ perceptions of their professional obligations, especially relating to the use of their ‘own’ time. Positional factors were those relating to teachers’ working conditions, such as salary level, responsibility, or class size. Personal factors Conscientiousness and preparation In Samples 1 and 2 we found highly significant correlations between two of three sub-categories of Preparation (planning and marking) and responses to the item on the questionnaire, showing how much time the teachers thought it was reasonable for them to be expected to work in their own, or ‘non-directed’, time—the ‘conscientiousness’ factor, as we have called it. The findings were that the more of their own time that teachers thought it was reasonable for them to be expected to spend on work, the more time they spent on planning and marking. The trends were statistically significant (for planning p<.001; for 90

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marking p<.01). The relationship also existed in respect of Preparation overall (p<.01). Furthermore, the conscientiousness factor seemed to operate at weekends particularly; when we looked at the relationship between time spent on all Preparation at the weekends and conscientiousness, the trend was statistically significant For the first two of our samples, therefore, there was a very significant positive statistical association between the length of time teachers thought it was reasonable for them to be expected to work in non-directed time and the actual time they spent on Preparation. Our interpretation is that teachers who did more Preparation did so because they believed it was expected of them, because of their ‘conscientiousness’. This interpretation is strengthened by the fact that the correlations are statistically significant in the two sub-categories (planning and marking) where more time is spent off school premises, but not for organisation; more of the time spent on organisation is spent on school premises (see Table 5.4). Three other findings for these two samples relate to the ‘conscientiousness’ thesis. There were no statistically significant differences in the amount of time spent on Preparation (overall or in sub-categories, during the week or at weekends) either by teachers on different salary levels, or by teachers with permanent or temporary incentive allowances, or by whether or not teachers were responsible for co-ordinating a curriculum area. That is to say, positional influences on the amount of Preparation a teacher did were minimal or absent: personal influences were very great and all in the same direction. However, for Sample 4 there was no statistical relationship between ‘conscientiousness’ and Preparation. Part of the explanation may be that Samples 1 and 2 were recording time in the Spring term when national curriculum recording and summarising were occurring. In this situation, conscientiousness as we defined it might operate more strongly. In addition, Samples 1 and 2 were union members and volunteers for whom ‘conscientiousness’, as we defined it, might have particular salience. The picture for Sample 4 Key Stage 1 teachers was interesting since there was a significant trend (p<.05) for high conscientiousness to be associated with large amounts of Preparation, especially marking and recording results at home in 91

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the Spring term (but not in other terms). The numbers involved were low (n=14) but they support the interpretation that ‘conscientiousness’ came into play particularly strongly when the national curriculum assessment and testing policy was impacting most forcefully upon the schools. It also weakens the argument that conscientiousness might be a by-product of union members volunteering to participate in the study. The general thesis about conscientiousness is discussed in Chapter 11. Positional factors In general, there were very few statistically significant relationships between positional factors and time spent on Preparation. In itself this is an interesting finding. Three of the positional factors covered by the questionnaire are commonly thought to lead to increased Preparation. These are the size of class, whether or not a teacher has a post of responsibility for coordinating a curriculum area, and whether the class contains more than one age group. But for the teachers in all four samples there was no statistically significant relationship between these factors and Preparation overall. It is particularly unexpected that there was no relationship between class size and Preparation time. Mixed-age groups and Preparation However, there was a relationship between the number of age groups in a class and the amount of time spent on sub-categories of Preparation. In Samples 1 and 2, teachers with two age groups spent more time on planning lessons and organising resources than other teachers. This finding might be expected, although the trend was not linear, teachers with more than two age groups spending less time than those with only two age groups (though more than those with single-age composition classes). For both samples the variance was statistically significant (p<.05). For Sample 4 there was a similar finding, except that the trend was linear and highly significant (p<.001). In this sample, those with three age groups spent more time on organisation and lesson planning than those with two age groups, who spent more time than those with singleage groups. As might be expected, in this sample the mixed-age groups were in very small schools. 92

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School size and Preparation In the small number of schools with fewer than 100 pupils (n = 9) teachers spent significantly (p<.001, analysis of variance) more time on organisation during the week, and on lesson planning. Temporary allowances and Preparation time In Sample 4, teachers who had temporary incentive allowances spent significantly (p<.01, analysis of variance) less time on Preparation, particularly in respect of marking, than those whose incentive allowances were permanent. This finding should be treated with caution since, of the 192 teachers involved, only 94 indicated the nature of their allowance, suggesting that the question itself might not have been clear to teachers. Salary level and preparation In general, the level of a teacher’s salary was not related to the amount of time spent on Preparation. This was true for all samples. However, there were exceptions in Sample 4, where the picture was complex. For Key Stage 1 teachers only in this sample, those with higher incentive allowances spent significantly (p<.01, analysis of variance) more time on Preparation overall. The trend was linear, except for deputy heads, who did less preparation than others. For all teachers in Sample 4, higher incentive allowance holders spent more time on marking at weekends. Again, the trend was linear, except for deputy heads, who did less marking than other teachers. A similar, though less marked, pattern emerged in respect of time on Preparation off school premises, with the trend again linear except for deputies. The somewhat smaller amounts of time on aspects of Preparation spent by deputy heads may be partly understood by the fact that they also did somewhat smaller amounts of teaching. Preparation and gender It is worth noting that there was no significant difference in the time spent on Preparation, and on any of its sub-categories, by men and women. Thus the argument that women teachers, 93

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because of domestic responsibilities, engage less fully than men in lesson planning and marking or organising material for their lessons, finds no support from our research. As a matter of fact, where there were differences, even though not statistically significant, the women spent more time on Preparation, whether overall, or at school or away from school. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Under the heading of ‘Professional Development’ we have included those activities intended to contribute to the In-service training and development of teachers, whether they were voluntarily engaged in it or not. Since the mid-1980s the framework for such activities has changed, with the adoption of a more dirigiste approach from central government. Until the early 1980s, professional development had been characterised by an emphasis on the personal development of individual teachers and the policies created within particular LEAs. With recognised courses attracting funding from a central government pool, financial considerations played a relatively small role at the levels where the decisions were made. If an individual wished to pursue a particular course of development and it was recognised for central funding purposes, the likelihood was that he or she would be able to do so. Although there was an officially sponsored policy framework (James Report 1986), laissez-faire reigned. Since the early 1980s, central government has intervened, mainly through the abolition of the pool, and its replacement by the earmarking of In-service funding for its own policy objectives. Thus, central initiatives with a succession of acronyms, such as ESG, GRIST and GEST, required LEAs to bid to central government for funding of In-service training against criteria established by the central government. The new arrangements were subject to criticism on the grounds that the changes enabled the central government to control professional development and led to the destruction of full-time higher degree and diploma courses for teachers wishing to follow them. Teachers wishing to follow higher degrees for their own development were left to do so on a part-time basis in their own time and, increasingly, at their own expense. However, the new arrangements at least had the virtue that teacher development was subject to earmarked funding. This had not been the case previously. 94

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The new arrangements were particularly useful to the central government when the national curriculum was being implemented, since it enabled the government to focus In-service training from year to year on the perceived changing needs of the system. Furthermore, with the introduction of local management of schools, and the establishment of the five ‘nonpupil days’ through the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act 1987, the pressure for school-based In-service training also increased. The above brief sketch of the background compelled us to give a fuller consideration to professional development than had been appropriate for Hilsum and Cane (1971) when they carried out their research. There, ‘professional course attendance and background reading’ was treated as a marginal activity; it was mainly carried out at weekends or in the evenings and was discussed in a section of their book called ‘Other Aspects of the Teacher’s Work’. In our category of professional development there were five sub-categories: 1 Organised courses, conferences, etc., excluding non-pupil days. 2 Travel to organised courses, conferences, etc. 3 Staff meetings, informal consultation with colleagues, advisers, advisory teachers. 4 Non-pupil days (not used in Sample 1). 5 Reading of professional magazines, journals, national curriculum documentation and other sources of information. The inclusion of meetings within the category of professional development is not self-evident, and might provoke hilarity amongst those teachers whose experience of staff meetings tends to comprise the head’s reading out a list of routine happenings due for the following week. However, more meetings in school time are now being taken up with professional development matters: informal meetings with inspectors, advisers and advisory teachers to engage in planning and evaluation; and even staff meetings, with the implementation of the national curriculum, are focusing on curriculum matters. In some schools, staff meetings are of two sorts, with one for routine administration and another for curriculum planning, as was reported to us by some of our interviewees in Evans et al. (1994). However, we considered that the practice of separating the routine from the 95

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professional was not widespread enough for us to ask teachers to make separate records. There was also the evidence from our study itself (see below, p. 99) that teachers on different salary levels spent different amounts of time in meetings. Since we might expect all teachers to spend the same time in staff meetings for routine purposes, it looks as though the tendency for some meetings to be concerned with professional matters is reflected in our sample. Furthermore, the average time spent in meetings in our samples was something over two-and-a-half hours a week. This is much more than would be accounted for by the weekly staff meeting for administrative purposes, normally lasting not much more than an hour. For these reasons we decided to include meetings under the general category of professional development. In recognition that this decision might distort the extent to which teachers spend time on both administration and professional development, we carried out an alternative calculation, in which meetings were treated as a sub-category of administration. This recalculation is provided in Chapter 3, Table 3.4. Secondly, in Sample 1, the pilot study, we did not distinguish between organised In-service courses and the non-pupil days, but asked the teachers to record both under the sub-category of In-service courses/conferences etc. Because non-pupil days are not technically for training exclusively, we decided to separate them from the sub-category of In-service courses, and to allocate them to a distinctive sub-category. The figures for professional development for each sample are provided in Table 5.5. A number of points emerge from Table 5.5. First, as we have said above, activities concerned with promoting teachers’ professional development, in our broadest definition, played a substantial role in the teachers’ working week—around six hours a week for Samples 3 and 4 and about nine hours a week for Samples 1 and 2. Even if we exclude all time on meetings, the teachers in Sample 4, those with the smallest time on professional development, spent 3.3 hours per week. If meetings are included, the time spent on professional development was equivalent to approximately half the time spent teaching pupils for Samples 1 and 2, and a third of teaching time for Samples 3 and 4. However, if we take a narrow view, In-service training and the travel time 96

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Table 5.5 Time spent on professional development by each sample (hours per week)

involved, and non-pupil days, accounted for 2.3 hours a week at a time when the most substantial changes were being implemented in primary schools. This is approximately 4 per cent of the teachers’ overall working hours. Staff meetings and informal meetings with colleagues, inspectors, etc., averaged out at 34 minutes per weekday, or just under three hours per week for the teachers in Sample 2. In our interview evidence, these teachers reported that they were spending substantial amounts of time in staff meetings and in informal sessions after school, used for planning and review, especially of assessment activities. Second, the differences between Samples 1 and 2 on the one hand, and 3 and 4 on the other, are likely to be associated with the implementation of the national curriculum and assessment. It was to be expected that Key Stage 1 teachers in 1990/91 Spring terms would be spending more time than other primary teachers on In-service courses, informal meetings and on professional reading, especially of national curriculum documents for planning and recording purposes. Within Sample 2, we were able to show that teachers with Year 2 children in their classes, i.e. those with children subject to statutory assesment at the relevant time, were spending significantly more time on aspects of professional development than teachers in the same sample without Year 2 children in their classes. The detailed figures are provided in Table 5.6. Table 5.6 shows substantial differences in the amounts of time spent on professional development by Year 2 teachers and others. The statistically significant differences are systematically in the same direction. It was particularly the case that the Year 2 teachers spent more time on professional development off school premises, 97

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Table 5.6 Minutes per day spent on professional development by teachers with and without Year 2 children in their class (Sample 2: Spring term 1991)

presumably because they were more involved in training for assessment purposes. As might be expected, they spent more time on professional reading, presumably mainly con-sulting national curriculum documents, non-statutory guidance and assessment guides, to help them cope with the national curriculum and assessment requirements, which directly affected them as soon as they had statutory force in spring 1991. This interpretation was supported in interviews with the teachers, reported in Evans et al. (1994). When we examined the time spent on professional development in Sample 4 (which covered the whole year, not just the Spring term), according to whether the teachers had Year 2 pupils in their classes, we found that there were no significant differences. This suggests that the differences found in Sample 2 are related to the Spring term and do not spread across the whole year. (General differences between Year 2 and non-Year 2 teachers in Sample 2 are discussed in more detail in Chapter 7.) Salary status and professional development Across three samples (1, 2 and 4) we found that there was a relationship between salary status and the amount of time spent on professional development. The main and consistent finding was that for all sub-categories, except professional reading, the higher the position in terms of salary status, the more time was spent. This is particularly clear in relation to meetings in school for Sample 4 (p<.01). When the figures for Sample 1 were analysed in three groups—standard scale, incentive allowances A, B, and C, and deputy head—seniority was even more pervasively 98

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associated with time on professional development. For these teachers, the trend showed that the higher the salary status, the more time was spent on In-service courses (p<.01), on travel to courses (p<.05), on staff meetings and other meetings (p<.05). The overall trend for all time spent on professional development was highly significant (p<.01). No other statistically significant findings emerged. SUMMARY The teachers spent 15.7 hours per week on Preparation and 7.1 hours per week on professional development. In combination, these two categories of work exceeded the amount of time spent teaching. Of the Preparation time, almost 11 hours were spent on planning lessons, and over six hours on marking/recording results, with some of each activity being carried out simultaneously. Key Stage 2 teachers spent an hour a week more than Key Stage 1 teachers on Preparation, mainly because of longer time spent marking/recording results. There was a great variation, with a few teachers spending less than 7.5 hours per week, and one in four spending 17.5 or more hours, on Preparation. The amount of time spent was influenced by a personal sense of conscientiousness, rather than by positional factors such as class size or salary status. Of the time spent on professional development, nearly three hours a week were spent in meetings, both formal staff meetings and less formal meetings. Just over two hours per week were spent on In-service training and non-pupil days. This amounts to 4 per cent of the teacher’s working week.

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ADMINISTRATION: DEFINITION AND SCOPE So far, we have described the time that teachers spent on what are normally thought of as the main responsibilities of their work, namely teaching and the preparation and professional development associated with it. However, the teacher’s work includes much more than this. In particular there are activities which, though not connected directly with teaching, contribute to the effective running of the school in various ways. For this reason we have called them administration, but we recognise an inherent danger in the term. We do not mean dealing with the paperwork involved when headteachers respond to letters, process budget matters, meet visitors, deal with phone calls, or otherwise administer the school as part of their management role. Although this is an increasingly significant aspect of primary schools, and is sometimes partly delegated to classteachers and deputies, it is mainly carried out by headteachers. It will be recalled that our samples did not include headteachers (see Blease and Lever 1992 for a discussion of the extent to which headteachers’ time is taken up with low-level administrative matters). Where our teachers were involved in school administration of this kind, they would record it as staff meetings (IS) or as other activities (OA), and for this reason it does not appear under our heading of ‘Administration’. There were minor changes in coding arising from the results of the pilot study. In the pilot study (Sample 1) there were seven subcategories: 1 Discussion and consultation with parents; 2 Mounting displays; 100

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3 4 5 6 7

Supervising children before and after sessions; Liaison meetings/activities; Attending/participating in assembly/act of worship; Lunch, coffee/tea-break; Registration, collecting dinner money, transition, i.e. moving children from one place to another, tidying up, etc.

For Samples 2, 3 and 4, breaks were categorised into two further subcategories. These were Breaks free of work, and Breaks in which work was undertaken. The intention was to give a more precise picture of the use of time in formal breaks. At the same time we introduced a code for non-contact time (i.e. time when teachers were formally allocated time free of contact with pupils and in which the teachers did not do any work). Previously they would have coded this time as ‘other activities’. However, we had an item on the questionnaire asking teachers to specify the amount of time that they had formally allocated for non-contact time, and we were aware that such time was often used for work. For example, non-contact time might be used to cover for absent colleagues, or to prepare teaching materials. We therefore wanted to be able to distinguish between non-contact time used for work and that used for rest and relaxation. It also had the further advantage that we could compare non-contact time in these samples with that in our secondary study (Campbell and Neill 1994). For Samples 2, 3 and 4, therefore, we had nine sub-categories. Because the new sub-categories were breakdowns of previous ones, comparison between Sample 1 and the others was possible. TIME ON ADMINISTRATION OVERALL The significance of Administration, as we defined it, in the working days of teachers is indicated by the overall amount of Table 6.1 Time spent on administration overall by four samples

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Table 6.2 Time spent on each sub-category of administration by four samples (hours per week) (rank order in brackets)

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time it took up in a typical week, approximately 14 hours, as can be seen from Table 6.1. Two points should be made about this picture. It can be seen that, despite the range of different activities that comprise administration in our terms, there was a substantially consistent picture across the samples in terms of time spent overall. Second, nearly all the activities were carried out on school premises and during the weekdays. Of the 14 hours, only about 27 minutes, mainly on display, were spent at the weekend. Table 6.2 gives the breakdown by sub-category for the four samples. Once again there is considerable consistency across the samples, particularly if the rank order (in brackets) is considered. A difference of 0.1 of an hour on Table 6.2 is six minutes a week, or just over a minute a day. Thus the largest difference (1.2 hours between Samples 1 and 3 for registration) amounts to just under fifteen minutes a day, and reflects the fact that Sample 3 did not collect dinner money. TWO BROAD KINDS OF ADMINISTRATION: IN CONTACT AND OUT OF CONTACT WITH PUPILS In the analysis used in this chapter we have divided the subcategories of administration into two broad groups. These are the last three activities in Table 6.2, where the teachers are in contact with pupils, even though not teaching them; and the first six activities, when the teachers are normally out of contact with pupils. It could be argued that mounting displays and work in breaks might include time when the teachers are in contact with pupils, for some of the time at least. Thus some teachers mount displays in the company of pupils, either in teaching time or after school, when some pupils may stay to help mount the display. In addition, some teachers give extra teaching or guidance to individual pupils during their lunch break. This is true, but the main reason we made the distinction was to examine the proportions of time that teachers spent in contact with pupils or away from them. This is mainly important for the discussions in Chapter 8, rather than in this chapter. At this stage we would make the following points. 103

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In the case of mounting displays during lessons, the time would already be accounted for under teaching, and our main purpose would be achieved. In respect of teaching pupils during breaks, we had no way to estimate the time spent in this way, and made a judgement that very little of it would occur, and much of this might be recorded as teaching (see discussion of breaks below). Our thinking here was that, following the industrial disputes in education in the mid-1980s, teachers would tend to protect their breaks from work with pupils and, given that they were under considerable pressure within the school day, if they were going to work in their lunch breaks it would be on lesson planning and marking, rather than teaching. We have therefore discounted time spent on displays and in breaks, in arriving at proportions of time in contact with pupils. This needs to be borne in mind in what follows, and especially in the discussion in Chapter 8. Administration in contact with pupils The time that teachers spend with pupils but not teaching them mainly comprises registering them, taking dinner money, moving them from one location in the school to another one (registration and transition), supervising them at the beginning and end of breaks or the school session (supervision), and accompanying them to the school assembly and act of worship (assembly). These activities are seen as important for a number of reasons concerned with the social and personal development of pupils; they help young children adjust to the routines of being in a group larger than the family; they help socialise the children into the pupil role; they provide opportunities in the school day when pupils can have their personal needs and interests valued by the teacher; and they provide opportunities for moral education through the learning of institutional rules and procedures. In addition, of course, they enable the teacher to obtain a fuller picture of the whole child than would otherwise be the case. Through informal discussion with pupils in these settings teachers gain access to valued information about their pupils’ lives. The information might range from serious matters, such as parents’ marital discord, through important but ephemeral troubles such as the death of a pet hamster, to the apparently trivial, such as 104

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what the pupils and their families ate for breakfast that morning or saw on TV the night before. Some teachers, especially of Key Stage 1 pupils, claim they get better access to information of a private nature from helping pupils on with their coats at breaktime than would be available to the most investigative surveillance service in a police state. The use of this time is thus potentially very important, for good or ill. It can be seen from Table 6.2 that there was a consistent pattern between the samples in the time spent on these activities, with registration/transition taking up most time, supervision next, and assembly the least. There were some minor differences in time spent on supervision and registration/transition between Sample 1 and the others, which are explicable by reference to two factors: the age of the pupils taught and the pressure of the national curriculum and assessment in Spring 1991. The teachers of Key Stage 1 pupils in Sample 1 spent more time on these two aspects (approximately an hour and ten minutes per week) than those of teachers in other samples. This is understandable in relation to Samples 3 and 4, assuming that the younger the pupils, the more time teachers will be required to spend on such personal and social development activities, as we showed in Chapter 4 (p. 64). Secondly, and rather perversely, given the previous explanation, the Key Stage 1 teachers in Sample 2 reported that they had had to cut down on such activities in Spring 1991 in order to cope with the pressure of national curriculum and assessment requirements. This view is supported by the fact that 36 of the 50 teachers in Sample 2 had reduced the time spent on supervision between Spring 1990 and 1991 (p<.001, Wilcoxon test). It should be noted that there was no real difference across samples in respect of time spent on assembly. This is to be expected, given that, in many schools, there are no separate assemblies for Key Stage 1 and 2 pupils and, where there are, there is no reason to think that Key Stage 1 pupils would spend longer than older pupils. If anything, it might be the reverse. It needs to be remembered that we were measuring how the teachers spent their time, not how the pupils spent theirs (see below, p. 107). The proportion of time on registration/transition, supervision and assembly The time spent on administration in contact with pupils accounts for 5.25 hours per week in Sample 4, the sample most representative 105

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of primary schools generally. (This is slightly less than the total for all three elements in Table 6.2 because there was some overlap between them.) There are two somewhat startling points to make about this figure. First, it is equivalent to 29 per cent of the time that teachers spent on teaching. Administration in contact with pupils constitutes a substantial part of the teachers’ working time in the school day. Second, if this time is added to teaching time, it gives a figure for the total time that the teachers were formally in contact with pupils: 23.25 hours per week. These figures are minimum figures because, as we indicated above (p. 103), we have excluded display from the calculation. They also exclude voluntary contact time, such as time spent with sports teams, clubs, orchestras, drama productions, etc., which is examined later in this chapter. Evaporated time The 5.25 hours described above are spent within the school day. If we exclude the time spent on assembly, which is a statutory obligation on schools (though not on teachers), just over four hours a week, equivalent to 22 per cent of the time spent teaching, or 17 per cent of total contact time, were spent in contact with pupils when not teaching. There are three points to note about this time. Except for registration, it tended to be composed of small time elements of three to six minutes spread across the day, between lessons, and at the beginning and end of a session. Again, except for registration, this time tends not to be accounted for in official considerations of the amount of time available in the school day. For example, the DES circular on the length and control of the school day (DES 1989a) allows for registration and formal supervision at lunchtime, but not for anything else. For this reason, one local authority (ILEA 1989) designated this time as ‘evaporated’ because, although it exists in theory for teaching purposes, in practice it is simply lost. Thirdly, the time is spent upon activities that do not require highlevel graduate skills, but which could be, and sometimes are, carried out by non-teaching assistants. The policy and management issues arising from these points are discussed in Chapters 8 and 9.

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Administration out of contact with pupils Table 6.2 also provides details of the various sub-categories where teachers were involved in administration but were not normally in contact with pupils. These do not comprise a cognate group of activities: mounting a display, meeting parents, having breaks, taking non-contact time, and engaging in liaison meetings with teachers in other schools are all unrelated to each other. They are therefore treated as a coherent group here, but are analysed discretely below; the figures given refer to Sample 4, except where there were substantial differences between the figures for this sample and the others. Assembly The gathering together of the whole school each day for a collective act of worship, usually referred to, inaccurately, as ‘assembly’, has been a requirement laid upon schools since the Education Act 1944. (Assembly is the meeting of the whole school for a range of purposes which may or may not include a collective act of worship. It is only the collective act of worship that is statutorily required each day. We have followed the vernacular usage, however, and called it ‘assembly’.) Teachers spent 15 minutes per weekday in assembly, rather less time than might be expected, considering the length of a typical assembly. The judgement about typical length has to be made from our own experience, rather than from empirical data which do not exist, even in Hilsum and Cane’s (1971) study, which included attendance at assembly in, but did not disaggregate it from, their more general category of ‘control and supervision’. Here, as elsewhere, teachers’ time is not the same as pupils’ time. Some assemblies are taken by headteachers alone, in order to free teachers for meetings. Others are attended by a small group of staff only, and may concentrate upon hymn practice. In some schools the legal obligation is not observed every day, for a variety of reasons. The consequence is that, whereas a typical school assembly might last for between 15 and 30 minutes, depending partly upon the day of the week and the age of the children, the average for individual teachers was less. There was a significant (p<.01, analysis of variance) difference in the amount of time spent by men and women in assembly, 107

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the men spending 21 minutes and the women 14 minutes a day. This was not simply because the men were on higher salary levels (though they were, especially at Key Stage 2, where the correlation between male teachers and higher salary status was very significant (p<.001)). There was a slight tendency for those on higher levels to spend more time on assembly, but it was not significant. Nor was there any correlation between time on assembly and type of school. Most of the men in our sample were working in Key Stage 2, but teachers in schools catering for Key Stage 2 did not spend more time in assembly than others. There is no obvious reason why male classteachers should spend more time simply attending assembly with their classes than women teachers do. A possibility worth investigating is that the difference might represent time spent by male classteachers ‘taking’ (i.e. leading) the assembly in place of the head. The explanation may mainly lie in the culture of primary schools, where taking assembly is seen as a rather daunting responsibility, with control fragile, especially if few other teachers are present. To control and retain the interest of around 200 or more pupils aged between 5 and 11 for up to half an hour is no mean feat, and doing so may have acquired macho characteristics in the perceptions of staff and pupils, or have promotion value and be more aimed at by males. Lest we should be misunderstood in this, we should make clear that we are not saying that female teachers cannot or should not take assemblies, merely that in our sample they did not spend as much time in assemblies as male teachers, and that the time differences were highly significant statistically. The reasons for this state of affairs deserve further research. Breaks The teachers spent 35 minutes per weekday on real (i.e. free of work) breaks, and 27 minutes per weekday on breaks when they were working. This is just over an hour a day for breaks altogether. Whether or not any of this should be counted as work, and, if so, how much, has been discussed in Chapter 3. The overall figure looks somewhat short, given that a minimum official time on breaks per day would be fifteen minutes for a morning break and an hour for lunchtime. Three contributory factors may be involved here, each serving to reduce the total time recorded on breaks by our sample. First, 108

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where teachers spent the whole or part of a lunch or morning break on a work activity, some have recorded it under the relevant work code rather than the code for break. This would leave the time recorded, as a break within which work was undertaken, as lower than the actual working break. It does not affect the time recorded as breaks free of work. Second, some time in breaks would be eroded by the time spent on supervision at the end and beginning of sessions, especially for those teachers with younger pupils. Third, deputy heads recorded significantly (p<.05, analysis of variance) less time on breaks than other teachers–50 minutes a day, compared to 61 minutes a day. They also had significantly (p<.01) less time, only 27 minutes, compared to 37 minutes a day, in real breaks. This suggests that they restricted their own break times to shorter periods than those formally defined by the school. Thus we judge that the time spent on breaks by teachers was, on average, less than was technically available to them on the formal school timetable. Under the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act, teachers are entitled to a break of a reasonable length in the school day. Whether the average of 35 minutes a day free of work would be judged to be reasonable is a moot question. However, the idea that all the official break time constituted a break from work is clearly refuted by our evidence. Display Teachers mounted displays mainly at school, but some time was spent on it at home, presumably preparing display material before putting it up in the classroom. The mean time on this aspect of work was 19 minutes per day (in a seven-day week) or 2.2 hours per week. The proportion of time devoted to the activity is considerable—12 per cent of the time that is spent on teaching. There was no statistical difference in the amounts of time spent on display by teachers on different salary levels, or by teachers in different types of school. Display has symbolic significance, both internally and externally; it represents in palpable form the educational values of the school, whether to pupils, to teachers themselves or to visitors. It is the learning process made visible. It is understandable that teachers devote so much time to displays, especially if they believe, as some Leeds teachers did (Alexander 1992), that their professional skills 109

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and values, and even their suitability for promotion, were judged by the quality of displays. Liaison Liaison between schools or between infant and junior sections of combined schools has become more important with the introduction of the national curriculum. This is because of the need to make explicit curriculum continuity and progression between years and Key Stages. In a recent study (Weston, Barrett and Jamison 1992), cross-phase liaison activities included pupil visits, shared INSET, joint working parties, classroom observation, joint projects and teacher exchanges. For this purpose schools need to agree at least about such matters as the format of pupil records and, in some cases, which topics should be covered in which years or Key Stages. All these develop-ments have changed the significance of liaison. What was often the source of interesting but marginal innovation, depending on the enthusiasm of individual teachers (e.g. Tabor 1990, Talbot 1990) or LEAs (Stillman and Meychall 1984, Naylor 1990) has had to become part of the established routines of every school. Its impact on the work of our classteachers was relatively small, with the average amount of time per week spent on liaison being 42 minutes. However, there were differences among teachers according to their salary level; the 28 senior staff (deputy heads and the two ‘C’ allowance holders) engaging in significantly (p<.01, analysis of variance) more liaison than others. At the extremes, deputy heads spent 66 minutes per week, whereas standard scale teachers spent 27 minutes. This suggests that liaison is becoming a significant managerial responsibility in primary schools. However, it was not exclusively a managerial function. The data show that the 65 teachers with Year 2 children in their class engaged in twice as much liaison as other teachers—an hour a week, compared to half an hour. The difference is highly significant (p<.001, analysis of variance) and almost certainly reflects the pressure on these teachers to spend time ensuring that their assessment and recording is consistent with that of other teachers in their own school and with preceding (i.e. nursery schools and other pre-school provision) and later stages. 110

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Table 6.3 Non-contact time allocated (Sample 4)

Non-contact time The lack of time away from pupils in the school day has been a constant source of complaint from primary teachers about their working conditions. The teachers in Sample 4 had some amounts of non-contact time allocated formally to them, as Table 6.3 shows. It can be seen from Table 6.3 that although 37 per cent of the teachers had no non-contact time allocated, there was some time allowed to the others, including 17 per cent who had more than an hour a week. If we work out the average non-contact time allocated, using the mid-point of each time category in Table 6.3, it comes out at 32 minutes per week, or six minutes per day. This, however, is the non-contact time which was formally allocated. The data from the time diaries show that only 2 minutes a day was free of work. This is because what little non-contact time is available to primary teachers tends to be used up to cover for absent colleagues or for work-related activities including planning and marking. The DES discussion paper (Alexander, Rose and Woodhead 1992) claimed that senior staff in primary schools had more noncontact time than others and that this imbalance should be altered, in the cause of greater equity. In our sample, senior staff had significantly (p<.05, Chi-square) more non-contact time allocated than junior staff. The difference was mainly that deputies and B/C allowance holders, proportionately speaking, more frequently had 31 to 60 minutes, or over 60 minutes, of formally allocated non-contact time, especially compared to 111

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standard scale teachers. It is unclear whether the discussion paper was referring to formally allocated non-contact time, but the likelihood is that it was, since the argument appears to be based on evidence from school documentation used in HMI surveys or inspections. If the argument is based on formal allocations it is less than convincing since the formal allocations do not reflect what actually happens in practice. In our Sample 4, there was no trend for the more senior staff to record more time free of work, in the time allocated as non-contact, than other teachers. However, deputy heads did record more non-contact time free of work, and the difference approached statistical significance (p>.06, analysis of variance). Parental consultation Under this heading were included all formal and informal discussions and consultations with parents. For most classteachers these would comprise formal discussions on parents’ evenings or open days, and informal discussions with parents in the playground or classroom as parents left or collected their children at the beginning or end of school sessions. It would also include consultations with parents who have made arrangements for a special visit to discuss their child’s progress, or disciplinary matters. It excludes time spent with parents in classrooms where parents are involved in classroom activities. The time spent on such consultations was on average 70 minutes per week. There were some variations. The six teachers in very small (less than 51 pupils) schools spent substantially more time with parents than did other teachers. They spent 46 minutes per day, compared to the average of 14 minutes. The difference was highly significant statistically (p<.001, analysis of variance). Although the numbers of teachers involved are small and therefore may be untypical of teachers in small schools generally, the difference seems to reflect the reality of small schools, which are shown by research (see Galton and Patrick 1990) to have close and strong parental and community links. There was also a significant (p<.01, analysis of variance) difference between teachers of small classes (less than 21 pupils) and those with 21 or more pupils in the class. The finding that small classes were associated with more, not less, time with 112

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parents is unexpected. There were 15 teachers in the former category and they included the six teachers in small schools, so the explanation is partly to do with school size. Again, relatively small numbers of teachers are involved, but the evidence runs counter to the common-sense idea that large classes automatically lead to increased workloads with parents. In fact, teachers with more than 31 pupils in their class spent 11 minutes a weekday, slightly less than the average (14 minutes) time with parents. The other group of teachers for whom significant differences emerged were the 65 teachers with Year 2 children in their class. They spent nearly twice as much time with parents as other teachers, 105 minutes a week, compared to 55 minutes. The difference was highly significant (p<.001, analysis of variance), and almost certainly reflects the increased pressure upon these teachers to be accountable to parents as their pupils were being assessed statutorily for the first time. It may also reflect greater anxiety on the part of parents, seeking information about the assessment arrangements and their impact upon their children. Registration and transition The time taken up with registering pupils and in moving them about the school was quite considerable, accounting for 2.6 hours a week. The 15 teachers with classes under 21 in size, who included the six teachers in very small schools, spent significantly (p<.01, analysis of variance) less time on registration and transition than other teachers. This was to be expected, since by definition it takes less time to move around small schools, and small classes require less time to be spent on registration. There was also a slight trend (p<.05) for the 54 teachers in infant and first schools to spend more time on registration and transition than the 41 teachers in junior and middle schools. This was to be expected also, since younger children can less frequently be left to move from one location in a school unaccom-panied by their teacher, and because registration can normally be carried out more quickly with older children. The infant/first teachers spent three hours per week, whereas the junior/middle teachers spent 2.4 hours per week. There was also a difference according to whether the teacher’s class comprised single, two or three age groups. The more mixed 113

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the age groups in a class, the less time was spent on registration and transition. The trend here was highly significant (p<.001), though the explanation in part lies in the fact that the mixed-age groups were smaller in size. Where schools are forced to mix age groups, as opposed to adopting them as a deliberate policy, they tend to make them smaller, in recognition of the increased complexity of the teaching group. Supervision Supervision of pupils occurs informally at the beginning and end of school sessions or lessons. Typically, teachers will welcome young children into the class area at the beginning of the day, and wait with them at the end of it as their parents pick them up. They also supervise children at the beginning and end of breaks/ lunchtimes, waiting while they go to the toilet, put on their outdoor clothes, and get ready to go out into the playground. They supervise also in teaching sessions of a practical kind, for example, while pupils change for PE or music and movement. There is also some formal supervision of pupils during breaks when individual teachers patrol play areas on a rota basis, though we would expect that in any one week the amount contributed by formal playground duty of this kind would be relatively small in the overall sample. This is because it would occur infrequently on a rota system in schools with more than five teachers, and because lunchtime duty is voluntary for classteachers other than heads and deputies. Teachers in small schools with less than 100 pupils in them spent significantly (p<.001, analysis of variance) more time on supervision than those in other schools. This would follow, since these schools do not have enough staff to enable teachers to do less than one duty a week, and there is more difficulty in asserting a right not to do duty in a small school. To do so would mean that a teacher would be doubling the duty time of his or her one or two other colleagues. As with registration, supervision time increased according to the extent of mixed-age grouping in a class. The trend was significant (p<.001), with teachers of single-age classes spending 77 minutes, teachers with two age groups spending 98 minutes, and the few teachers (n=7) with three age groups spending 211 minutes per week. The third group reflects the small-school 114

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syndrome outlined earlier, and is strong evidence to complement Tomlinson’s (1990) finding that teachers in small rural secondary schools were prepared to work ‘beyond the bond’ in return for the satisfactions of teaching in a small school. Other activities This category was intended to cover any work or work-related activity not included in the broad categories of teaching, preparation, administration and professional development. It included two specific sub-categories, and one catch-all sub-category called ‘miscellaneous’. The former two were: 1 Attendance at meetings of governing bodies; 2 Extra-curricular activities; for example, work with sports teams, drama productions, orchestras, clubs and educational visits, outside timetabled lessons. The miscellaneous sub-category was designed so that teachers could record work that they were unable to allocate to any of the other categories or sub-categories on their record. On the instructions to teachers for completing the Record of Teacher Time, we said, ‘Activities that you cannot easily allocate to one of the other codes, e.g. filling in this record, dealing with lengthy interruptions, and other things’. They were not asked to identify what the other activities were. Some teachers included brief descriptions in the ‘time spent’ space, however, where this space was big enough to do so. Among those things mentioned were ‘writing a curriculum policy’, ‘moving out of classroom for painting and decoration’, ‘attendance at union meeting’, ‘moving between sites (split-site school)’, ‘supervising student teacher’ and ‘having appraisal interview’. Since it contained a haphazard and unrelated set of activities, we did not expect it to correlate with any of the variables on the questionnaire, and in this expectation we were generally correct. An exception was that deputy heads spent more time on other activities than other teachers (see below, p. 117). In the pilot study (Sample 1) we had not separated out the category into governors’ meetings, extra-curricular activities and miscellaneous, using instead simply the catch-all category ‘other activities’. The instructions for teachers were identical to those 115

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Table 6.4 Time spent on other activities, by four samples (hours per week)

for the miscellaneous sub-category illustrated above. Since ‘other activities’ was a general category with no sub-categories for Sample 1, direct comparison with other samples is difficult although, in theory, the main category itself is comparable. However, in Sample 1, governors’ meetings might have been recorded as ‘meetings’; sports, orchestras, etc. as ‘teaching other subjects’. Table 6.4 shows the figures for each sample. The figures in Table 6.4 are interesting for two reasons. First, we had trialled our coding system with experienced primary teachers before, and refined it after, the pilot study, yet in Sample 4 nearly four hours a week were taken up with miscellaneous activities that the teachers could not code as teaching, administration, preparation, professional development, or the two other sub-categories in ‘other activities’. The explanation may be that junior teachers engage in some aspects of school management, e.g. arranging cover, handling budget data, more than infant teachers, and have recorded this as miscellaneous activities. Of this time we should allow about 30 minutes a week for filling in the Record of Teacher Time and thus discount it as part of the normal teacher’s work. That leaves just over three hours per week spent on a wide range of miscellaneous activities. In addition to the kind of activities identified above, we can assume from Hilsum and Cane’s (1971) work that this time might involve emergencies, supervising student teachers, clerical tasks, and some administration. Our study of secondary school teachers with no incentive allowances showed that they spent a similar amount of time on aspects of school administration (Campbell and Neill 1994). In support of the above explanation, there was a tendency for deputy heads in Samples 1, 2 and 4 to spend more time on other activities overall (p<.05, analysis of variance), so that part of the 116

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explanation may be related to new formal administrative responsibilities such as work on aspects of management and school self-governance. There was also a tendency for male teachers to spend more time on other activities than female teachers (p<.05), though we imagine this was partly because there was a significant, positive correlation between maleness and seniority (p<.001) in the factor analysis. The significant amounts of time spent on extra-curricular activities is an indication of the recovery of voluntary work in the schools, after its virtual collapse during the industrial disputes of the mid-1980s. Given the pressure that teachers have reported themselves to be under, it is perhaps a further indirect indication of the conscientiousness of their approach to their work. SUMMARY On average, the teachers spent 14.1 hours on administration and five hours on other activities per week. Administration in contact with pupils (registration and transition, supervision, attending assembly) accounted for over five hours per week, equal to 29 per cent of the time spent teaching. Teachers recorded 35 minutes a day on breaks when they were free of work, and 27 minutes a day on breaks when they were working. Over two hours a week was spent on display, and 42 minutes a week on liaison, with senior staff and teachers of Year 2 children spending more time on the latter activity than other teachers. Teachers were formally allocated six minutes a day of non-contact time, but only two minutes a day on average was spent not working. Just over one hour a week was spent in parental consultation, with teachers in small schools and teachers of Year 2 children spending more time than other teachers. Of the time spent on other activities, more than an hour a week was spent on extra-curricular activities, such as clubs, orchestras, sports teams, and over three hours were spent on miscellaneous activities.

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In this chapter we present four types of data concerning teachers in our samples, which show significant variations and some equally significant similarities in time on aspects of work. The data in the previous chapters have largely been concerned with the overall means, but as is commonly the case with statistical data, the overall means disguise significant differences between sub-groups. The four data sets are as follows: 1 Differences between teachers with Year 2 children in their class (Year 2 teachers) and other teachers (non-Year 2 teachers) (Sample 2). 2 Differences across the terms in the school year, for all teachers, and for infant and junior teachers separately (Sample 4). 3 Differences between Samples 2, 3 and 4. 4 Three individual records to illustrate the variation in time spent. We conclude with a brief note about the work of deputy heads in primary schools, based on data in Sample 4. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YEAR 2 TEACHERS AND OTHERS (SAMPLE 2) Table 3.1 in Chapter 3 shows the general picture of time spent on work in Sample 2. However, within the sample, a significant difference emerged. The sample of 53 teachers comprised 26 with Year 2 children in their classes and 27 without Year 2 children. Year 2 children are those whose teachers in Spring term 1991 were required to assess them using their own teacher assessment of the children whilst teaching them, and to record these assessments 118

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in a summary form before the children were ‘tested’ using SATs in the Summer term 1991. Teachers were not asked whether they had Year 2 children in their class on the questionnaire in the 1990 pilot study, so that direct comparison across the two years was not possible. However, in adding the item for 1991, we predicted that teachers with Year 2 children would have to work longer hours than other Key Stage 1 teachers in the Spring term, because of the statutory requirements on assessment and the widely reported pressure for them to develop assessment and recording techniques. Tables 7.1 and 7.2 show the overall range of time by all teachers, and by Year 2 and non-Year 2 teachers separately. The range is substantial, but Year 2 teachers spent significantly more time on work and had higher minimum and maximum times, as can be seen from Table 7.1. Of the ten teachers spending the longest time on work, nine were Year 2 teachers. Of the ten teachers spending the shortest time on work, seven were non-Year 2 teachers. This broad-brush picture, however, needs to be painted in more detail, and the data in Table 7.2 focus on the main differences between the two groups. Table 7.2 provides the relevant data for work overall, and on preparation and professional development combined. The mean times are presented as hours per day, in order to enable us to show time on weekdays and weekends where necessary. The figures in Table 7.2 show that Year 2 teachers spent more time on work overall, on preparation/professional development during the week, and especially preparation/professional development off school premises. The statistical significance levels for these three are high. Apart from the special pressure that teachers of Year 2 children were under as a consequence of the end of Key Stage core subject teaching, assessment and recording, they had similar working conditions (class size, nonTable 7.1 Time on work overall by Year 2 and non-Year 2 teachers (Sample 2) (hours per week)

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Table 7.2 Mean daily time on work, in hours, by teachers with Year 2 children, and teachers without Year 2 children in class

contact time, etc.) to the other teachers. Moreover, Table 7.2 shows that although the non-Year 2 teachers were working overall slightly longer hours than Sample 1 (51.1 hours per week, compared to 49.6), the increase was carried mainly by the Year 2 teachers, who were working for 58.1 hours. Thus, the average extra workload for Year 2 teachers, compared to other teachers, was about seven hours per week. Assuming (unrealistically) a five-day week, Year 2 teachers were working an eleven-and-ahalf-hour day. The top 20 per cent of Year 2 teachers were working nearly 68 hours a week. The top 20 per cent of non-Year 2 teachers were working 59 hours a week (see Table 7.1). The most probable explanation for the great differences in working time is that Year 2 teachers were facing particularly heavy demands of the core curriculum, assessment and recording in the period during which the data were collected. We tested this explanation by a more detailed analysis of the data about Year 2 and non-Year 2 teachers. The Year 2 teachers were engaged on delivery, assessment and recording of the core subjects in the national curriculum. For this reason we examined data separately for the following three aspects of work: professional development, especially In-service training and professional reading; preparation, especially lesson planning and 120

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marking/recording results; and teaching, especially the core subjects and assessing while teaching. Tables 7.3 – 7.5 provide details about these three aspects. Times in Tables 7.3 and 7.4 are given in minutes per day, since many of the times are relatively small amounts. Table 7.3 shows substantial differences in the amount of time spent on professional development by Year 2 teachers and others. The statistically significant differences are systematically in the same direction, and those relating to the main category are very high. Year 2 teachers spent significantly more time on all professional development activities combined, whether across the week as a whole or on weekdays only, or at weekends. This is particularly true of time spent on professional development away from school premises. They spent more time on In-service training, especially during weekdays. As might be expected, reading national curriculum documents and other documents and journals also took more time for Year 2 teachers, presumably because they needed to consult such documents for planning and assessment more regularly and more intensively than other teachers. The explanation is supported by the fact that Year 2 teachers spent more time reading such documents at weekends Table 7.3 Mean daily minutes on aspects of professional development by teachers with and without Year 2 children in class

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and out of school. It is also supported by the interview evidence in Evans et al. (1994), where teachers reported the need to resort constantly to the national curriculum orders and all the paperwork associated with assessment and recording. An alternative explanation (since the code for professional reading also includes reading professional magazines, journals, etc.) is that Year 2 teachers spent much of their time away from school reading the advertisements in the Times Educational Supplement for teaching posts that did not involve Year 2 children. There were also differences in amounts of time spent on preparation, and the sub-categories within it, by Year 2 teachers and others. These are shown in Table 7.4. Table 7.4 shows Year 2 teachers spending significantly more time on preparation overall (though not, as might be expected, on planning lessons), especially at home. The most important finding here is the highly significant difference between Year 2 and other teachers in respect of the amount of time spent on marking/recording of pupils’ work. Year 2 teachers spent much more time on this activity than others, whether considered overall, during the week or away from school. The explanation for this is Table 7.4 Mean daily minutes on aspects of preparation by teachers with and without Year 2 children in class

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that the Year 2 teachers were spending time on assessment and recording children’s work against the attainment targets and statements of attainment. This explanation is supported by the interview data in Evans et al. (1994) where teachers reported spending enormous amounts of time on recording and filling in record sheets. The finding that Year 2 teachers spent more time organising learning resources in school during the week makes sense also, since they would be expected to organise resources for national curriculum activities relating to teacher assessment more often than other teachers. The finding that Year 2 teachers did not spend significantly more time on lesson planning is somewhat surprising. However, the finding is supported by the interview data in Evans et al. (1994), where the teachers reported that their planning had been helped by the national curriculum documents and that all teachers, not just Year 2 teachers, were planning lessons using the documents. It is worth noting the fact that Year 2 teachers were spending 8.9 hours per week on marking/recording results, 5.4 hours of which were spent off school premises. Most of this time was almost certainly spent on assessing/recording for the national curriculum. The comparable figures for non-Year 2 teachers were 4.2 hours and 1.6 hours respectively. This suggests that the extra burden upon Year 2 teachers of assessing/recording the national curriculum alone (i.e. ignoring other aspects of preparation and professional development) was just under five hours per week. The figures for the extra workload of Year 2 teachers are underestimates, in one sense, since Year 2 teachers also worked longer on other aspects of national curriculum assessment. For example, they spent more time assessing whilst teaching. The difference was not quite statistically significant, as is shown in Table 7.5. In Table 7.5 the time is shown in hours per weekday, and thus needs to be multiplied by five to obtain the weekly total. Table 7.5 shows that the overall time spent teaching, and the patterning of time on the curriculum, by the two groups of teachers were not significantly different. The total time spent teaching was almost identical for the two groups. This is important in relation to the explanations we offered above about the reasons for longer hours spent on preparation by Year 2 teachers. Had they been teaching for longer than other teachers, longer preparation might have been 123

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Table 7.5 Mean daily time (hours) on aspects of teaching with and without Year 2 children in class on weekdays (Sample 2)

expected in relation to the extra teaching. As this was not so, the extra preparation reflects more intensive demands, within the same length of teaching day. Apart from time spent on English and on assessing whilst teaching, times spent on curriculum subjects were fairly similar for both groups. The higher figure for English for non-Year 2 teachers reflects the greater time given to language and reading activities in Reception and Year 1 classes. The longer time on assessing whilst teaching in Year 2, though not quite reaching statistical significance, reflects the special demands on Year 2 teachers as they finalised assessment activities for the national curriculum by teacher assessment (TA). Likewise, the slightly higher time spent on science reflects the emphasis on the core subjects in Year 2. A final point needs to be made about the overall demands on Year 2 teachers from the national curriculum and assessment requirements. If we combine the time spent on assessment whilst teaching (Table 7.5) with that on marking/recording (Table 7.4), it could be thought that the Year 2 teachers spent some 14.3 hours per week on assessment and recording activities. However, because of the way the data on assessment whilst teaching were gathered, the figure for this element is the maximum time, and therefore the total hours would in practice be somewhat smaller than 14.3. The curriculum complexity ratio (see p. 72 above) was 2.3:1, i.e. on average 2.3 activities were taking place simultaneously. Given that teacher assessment was one of these, a more accurate picture of actual time on teacher assessment might be 5.5÷2.3=2.4 hours. This would give a combined assessment and recording time of 11.3 hours. This combined 124

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figure indicates something of the enormous amount of time taken up by national curriculum assessment and recording in the Spring term 1991. Significance for teachers’ work overall It is worth drawing attention again to one aspect of all the findings reported for the 1991 Key Stage 1 teachers in Sample 2. The time spent on work was recorded in Spring term 1991. There are two important points to make about tis. First, the data were gathered before the Summer term 1991 in which the administration of the national testing by SATs occurred. Commentaries on the administration of SATs (ENCA 1992) claimed that the Summer term was a particularly demanding time for Year 2 teachers; for them, it was argued, part of the Summer term was a period of intensive workload arising from national curriculum assessment. Our evidence, however, implies that in 1991 working time in two terms, not one, was affected by the assessment and recording demands, with the consequent stress on teachers’ working lives, which we show in Evans et al. 1994. This was especially the case in 1991, when most of the teacher assessments, which had to be summarised and recorded at the end of the Spring term, had to serve as substitutes for the SATs, following the government’s decision that SATs would cover only nine of the 33 attainment targets on which pupils needed to be assessed. It would thus be a mistake to consider that the heavy load on Year 2 teachers was restricted to the relatively short period (three or six weeks, depending on the option taken by the teachers) in which the SATs were administered. As the evidence above has shown, long hours on work characterised Year 2 teachers in the second part of the Spring term 1991 also. In 1992 and 1993 the period in which SATs were administered was lengthened to about 12 weeks, and teacher assessments were summarised within the same period. This meant that the workload associated with end of Key Stage assessment was spread across parts of two terms in these years also. The second point is a more substantial one from the perspective of the overall workload of Year 2 teachers. We were able to compare the workloads of Year 2 teachers in Sample 2 (i.e. focused on the end of the Spring term 1991) with the time spent on work by Year 2 teachers in Sample 4—a sample spread across the whole 125

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of a school year. We provide more detail on the overall time spent by the teachers in that sample below (p. 128), but at this stage it is worth noting three points about Year 2 teachers in it. First, over the year as a whole, Year 2 teachers did not work significantly longer than other teachers. Secondly, in the second half of the Spring term, and the first half of the Summer term, Year 2 teachers spent longer on work than other infant teachers. Third, there was a different picture of teaching across the whole year from the picture presented in Table 7.5. This is given in Table 7.6. We can see that over the 1991 year as a whole, these Year 2 teachers spent slightly longer teaching overall, yet less time on each of the component subjects (except for other subject teaching) than their counterparts in Sample 2 spent in Spring term 1991. The sum of individual subjects in Table 7.6 is 6.7 hours, i.e. 1.8 times the time spent on all teaching. The sum of individual subjects in Table 7.5 is 8.2, i.e. 2.3 times the time spent on all teaching. Although the two groups are not strictly comparable, since ideally we would need to compare the workloads of the same teachers in the assessment period and across the whole year, the evidence suggests strongly that teaching in the assessment period was especially intensified, with the teachers having had to pack more teaching and assessment activities into the teaching day. Thus the picture overall of the workloads of Year 2 teachers is that they had particularly heavily focused workloads during the period towards the end of the Key Stage when national curriculum assessment and recording was required. In order to do this, it looks as though Year 2 teachers have to reduce time on Table 7.6 Mean daily time (hours) on aspects of teaching for Year 2 teachers (n=65) in Sample 4

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other activities in which they are normally engaged, and to organise teaching in a more complex manner. VARIATION ACROSS THE YEAR (SAMPLE 4) Our second analysis showing variation around the overall mean was developed in relation to the three school terms, and involved Sample 4. We collected data across three terms in the calendar year 1991. The number of teachers involved in each term differed, as shown in Table 7.7. In the tables that follow we show where there are differences between time spent on work in different terms and, equally important, where there were no differences. Where the tables involve small amounts of time, the figures in these tables are given as minutes per day; otherwise they are mean hours per day. Time on work overall Table 7.8 shows the time spent on work overall in each of the three terms. Figures are given for the mean time per day for seven days (AD); for actual time on weekdays (WD); for time per day spent on school premises (ADIS); and for time per day spent off school premises (ADOS). These codes are used in most of the other tables also in this chapter. It can be seen that, whatever the analysis used, there was no significant variation in the amounts of time spent on work according to the term. The main point to draw out from this is that the annual pattern did not show substantial increases in time on work overall during those terms when national curriculum assessment was occurring (Spring and Summer). Therefore, we can assume that if assessment requires extra time devoted to Table 7.7 Sample 4: number of teachers per term

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Table 7.8 Total time (hours per day) spent on work, by term (all teachers)

Table 7.9 Total time (hours per day) spent on work, by term (infants)

activities such as marking and recording, the teachers drop some other activities. This point is reinforced by the data in Table 7.9 for infant teachers only in Sample 4, which shows remarkably few differences from the overall pattern in Table 7.8. There is no significant difference across the terms for infant teachers, despite the pressure in the assessment period. Moreover, the pattern of minor and statistically insignificant differences across the terms for infants and all teachers is almost identical, with marginally more time spent overall in the Spring term than others. This suggests that individual teachers have a ‘ceiling’ in the amount of work they are prepared to do, though the level of this ‘ceiling’ varies between individuals. Teaching Table 7.10 shows the mean time per weekday spent on teaching and the different sub-categories of curriculum and assessment within it. From this it can be seen that, as might be expected, there was no difference in time spent on teaching overall between terms or on amounts of time given over to different curriculum subjects. The significantly greater time given over to assessment in the Summer term reflects the time spent by infant teachers, especially 128

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Table 7.10 Time on teaching (hours per weekday), by term (all teachers)

Table 7.11 Time on teaching (hours per weekday), by term (juniors)

Table 7.12 Time on teaching (hours per weekday), by term (infants)

those with Year 2 children in their class, on administering SATs and other tests during that period. However, as can be seen from Tables 7.11 and 7.12, there were differences when the infant and junior teachers were analysed separately. Junior teachers spent significantly more time on mathematics in the Summer term, whereas infant teachers showed no significant difference. This difference reflects a general pattern for junior teachers, of rather more time on teaching in the Summer term, both overall and in each curriculum subject. The latter might 129

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mean that the teachers were engaged more often in the Summer term on integrated teaching. The explanation for the overall pattern is probably that junior teachers spent less time on Inservice training during the school day, as is shown in Table 7.21 below, in Summer. The cause of the finding about mathematics teaching is not clear. The greater time on teacher assessment in the Summer terms reflects the need to assess for end-of-year reporting. As might be expected, junior teachers, for whom statutory assessment arrangements were not in place, spent much less time in Spring and Summer on teacher assessment than their infant colleagues. The infant teachers did not show a similar pattern in regard to mathematics. However, the difference in the time spent on teacher assessment/SATs between the Spring/Summer terms on the one hand, and the Autumn term on the other, is as would be expected, given that the Year 2 teachers in this group were involved in statutory national curriculum assessment in Spring and Summer terms 1991. Moreover, it is reasonable to surmise that the relatively low amounts of time on other subjects in Spring and Summer terms are a consequence of the need to spend more time teaching and assessing in the core subjects. The difference in teaching overall between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 teachers amounts to about 12 minutes a day, and has been discussed earlier (see p. 65 above). It is accounted for by a shorter teaching day and more time on registration and supervision at Key Stage 1. Preparation Table 7.13 shows the time spent on preparation by all teachers, by term. There were few significant differences. On preparation away from school (ADOS), significantly more time was spent in the Summer term than others. There is a similar finding for marking and recording away from school, which contributes to the difference in time spent on all preparation, including marking. More marking and recording is to be expected in the Summer term, since that is the term when all teachers had to report to parents on children’s achievement, and when Year 2 teachers were involved in end-of-Key Stage assessment and recording. Tables 7.14 and 7.15 provide the figures for junior and infant teachers. 130

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Table 7.13 Time on preparation (hours per day), by term (all teachers)

Table 7.14 Time on preparation (hours per day), by term (juniors)

Table 7.15 Time on preparation (hours per day), by term (infants)

There were no significant differences on preparation or any of the sub-categories for junior teachers. However, there were significant differences in marking and recording off school premises for infant teachers, who spent more time on it in Summer term than in others. Thus, the significant differences noted above for all teachers are mainly a reflection of the differences amongst infant teachers. 131

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It is worth noting that, as was the case with teaching, infant teachers spent less time on preparation than junior teachers. This was for time over the year as a whole, and for Autumn and Spring terms. In the Summer term—the ‘heavy’ one for infant teachers’ marking/recording results—infant teachers spent the same time on preparation overall and marginally more on marking/ recording than juniors. The difference between junior teachers and infant teachers in preparation in the Spring and Autumn terms amounted to 27 minutes and 11 minutes per day respectively, equivalent to 3.1 hours and 1.1 hours per week. The difference in the termly profile of preparation by infant teachers is a very clear one, even though not all the differences in time are statistically significant. For them, the Summer term workload was different from the other two. More time was spent on preparation overall, and especially on marking/record-ing, whether done on or off school premises, during weekdays or at weekends. Planning and organising were also relatively heavy in the Summer compared to the Spring, though not compared to the Autumn, when more planning and organisation might be expected, given the time of the year. It can be seen from Table 7.14 that no such pattern emerged for junior teachers, but this similarity in termly profile can be expected to change as statutory assessment is introduced at Key Stage 2. It should, however, be noted that junior teachers were spending almost identical amounts of time on marking/recording to infant teachers in 1991 before the statutory assessment had been implemented at Key Stage 2. The latter is due to be implemented after 1994. This means that their marking/recording time may have to increase dramatically after 1994, when statutory assessment is introduced at Key Stage 2, or their current marking/recording activities may have to be replaced by statutory assessment. Administration The figures for all teachers are given in Table 7.16. It can be seen, as might be expected, that there was little variation by term, except for supervision and registration, separately and taken together. On these sub-categories more time was spent in the Summer term. The explanation for this is unclear. Two points about the generally stable profile term-by-term on administration need to be made. First, although the questionnaire 132

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Table 7.16 Time on administration (minutes per weekday), by term (all teachers)

data showed that the teachers had had almost one hour a week formally allocated for non-contact time, in practice only very small amounts of time were actually free of work. Second, five hours a week in Spring and Autumn terms and 5.7 hours in the Summer term were spent on supervision, registration/ transition, and assembly. In theory, much of these activities could be carried out by non-teaching assistants, as could much of the two hours per week spent on mounting displays. When the data were analysed for infant and junior teachers separately, the figures for the latter showed no significant differences across the terms, either overall or in any of the subcategories. There were, however, differences amongst the infant group. Outline data are given in Tables 7.17 and 7.18. It can be seen that the differences between terms for the whole sample of teachers reflected those in the infant group. In addition, the teacher time spent in Spring with parents probably reflects the practice of reporting progress to parents in that term, especially progress of children in Reception, through specially arranged parents’ evenings. 133

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Table 7.17 Time on administration (minutes per weekday), by term (juniors)

Table 7.18 Time on administration (minutes per weekday), by term (infants)

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Thus the pattern of time on administration across the terms for infant teachers was different from that for junior teachers. If we ignore assembly, breaks and non-contact time, which should be, and were, fairly constant across terms, there is less time on other aspects of administration in the Autumn term than in Spring and Summer. In addition, infant teachers spend more time overall than junior teachers on administration, despite spending less time on work overall. This is mainly explained by the differential pattern, outlined above, of more time with parents, displays and supervision/ registration in the Spring and Summer terms. It also illustrates the fact that infant teachers spend more time on supervision and registration because of the younger age of the pupils, though why this does not apply in Autumn as well as the other terms is unclear. Professional development The figures for all teachers’ professional development by term are given in Table 7.19. The general pattern is fairly clear. The Spring term is the one in which most time is spent on aspects of professional development. In the Autumn term the next most time is spent, Table 7.19 Time on professional development (minutes per day), by term (all teachers)

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and the least time is spent in the Summer term. This pattern is displayed wherever differences are statistically significant. It is maintained for all sub-categories except meetings, the activity most likely to show consistency, given that it includes regular weekly staff meetings, which are unlikely to vary in length in different terms. When infant and junior teachers’ data were analysed separately, a rather similar pattern for each was discernible, as can be seen from Tables 7.20 and 7.21. The differences are similarly patterned for both groups of teachers, but they are statistically significant mainly in respect of junior teachers. These spent significantly more time in Spring on courses, travel and Baker Days combined, on In-service training separately, and especially In-service training carried out away from their school premises. Again, meetings were an exception to the general pattern, as was professional reading for junior teachers. The overall pattern for infants was similar, even though there were fewer statistically significant differences. However, Inservice training occurred more during the Autumn term than the other two terms. Similar amounts of time were spent on meetings in the Spring and Summer; and whilst much more time was spent Table 7.20 Time on professional development (minutes per day), by term (juniors)

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Table 7.21 Time on professional development (minutes per day), by term (infants)

on professional reading in Spring, rather similar amounts of time were given over to it in the other two terms. Nevertheless, for both groups the Spring term was the heaviest for professional development activities overall, with Autumn the next and Summer the least demanding. Other activities Table 7.22 shows the time spent, by term, on ‘other activities’ by all teachers, and by junior and infant teachers separately. The clearest pattern of other activities is that junior teachers spend much more time on them (2.2 hours per week in the Spring term, 0.9 hours in the Autumn term) than infant teachers. The explanation is twofold: because of the age of their pupils, more time was spent on sports, orchestras, field trips, etc., by junior teachers; and men teachers, who were nearly all junior teachers, spent significantly more time on sports, orchestras, etc. (p<.001), and on governors’ meetings (p<.05) than did women teachers. The difference in time on sports, orchestras, etc., spent by men and women teachers amounted to 1.6 hours per week. 137

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Table 7.22 Time on other activities (minutes per day), by term

The second pattern is that the differences between junior and infant teachers in respect of all other activities disappear in the Summer term, perhaps as the result of the proliferation of school activities such as summer fairs, sports days, etc., common to both junior and infant teachers. Third, junior school teachers spent rather more time (4.3 hours per week) on miscellaneous activities (i.e. those they could not code using our coding system) than did infant teachers (3.7 hours per week), perhaps reflecting to some extent the practice of junior teachers to take on some management or administrative roles (e.g. organising cover) more frequently than infant teachers. Thus, the overall picture of teachers’ work by term is one of considerable consistency. There is no more total time on work in any one term, or time spent on teaching, preparation, administration or other activities in general, though there were differences in some of the sub-categories. Where these occurred they tended to be associated with the demands on infant teachers arising from the national curriculum and assessment. Professional development did have a clear termly pattern, with Spring term being the time for more professional development than the others. The teachers’ year, therefore, was not characterised by general unevenness or seasonal rhythms in respect of the time spent. Where differences occurred, as in the case of assessment, marking and recording results, and planning, they appeared more in the infant teachers’ year than the juniors’, and are likely to have been generated by the demands of the national curriculum.

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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SAMPLES 2, 3 AND 4 We analysed the three samples for which data were collected in 1991, to see if there were important differences and similarities between them. We used different sampling methods, and different collection periods for each sample (see Chapter 3) and Sample 2 comprised exclusively teachers working at Key Stage 1, whereas Samples 3 and 4 comprised both Key Stage 1 and 2. Sample 1 was nationwide, whereas Sample 3 was from one authority and Sample 4 for three authorities only. Main similarities We do not propose to detail all the similarities between the groups, but simply to present the similarities in main categories. There was no statistically significant difference between the three samples in the amount of total time spent on work overall, on teaching, or on preparation. These are important findings because they suggest a generally consistent picture overall across the three samples, With high reliability. Minor differences in main categories The other two main categories were professional development and other activities. In respect of professional development, the time spent by Samples 3 and 4 was almost identical, but Sample 2 spent significantly more (p<.001, analysis of variance) than the other two. The explanation is that all Sample 2 were working at Key Stage 1 where training for national curriculum and assessment were more fully in place, and they spent significantly more (p<.01, analysis of variance) time on In-service training, travel to courses, and ‘nonpupil’ days. Thus the differences reflect not intrinsic differences in the work of the teachers in the three samples, so much as the time sampling adopted for collecting the data. In respect of other activities, Samples 2 and 3 were almost identical in amounts of time spent, with Sample 4 spending significantly more (p<.01, analysis of variance) than the other two groups. The explanation here is less clear-cut, since Samples 3 and 4 were broadly similar in composition. There were, however, no deputy heads in Sample 3, which would tend to reduce time on miscellaneous activities where this code was used to refer to school managerial and administrative 139

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tasks. Sample 4 spent more time (p<.05, analysis of variance) on miscellaneous activities on weekdays. There were also proportionately fewer men in Sample 3 than 4; and men engaged in more sports, orchestras, etc., than women, which would further contribute to the differences. Significant differences between samples on subcategories Within the above broadly consistent overall picture, there were some significant differences in some sub-categories other than those mentioned above. We have grouped them in four groups, as follows. Teaching the core subjects and assessment Sample 2 spent more time on the three core subjects and on assessment, even though they spent less time on teaching overall (though the latter difference was not statistically significant). The subject differences were highly significant; for mathematics p<.001; for English p<.001; for science p<.001; for simultaneous teaching and assessment p<.001; and for all assessment p<.001 (analysis of variance). These differences are much more dramatic than those reflected in Table 7.11 and Table 7.12 above, and refle ct both the difference in time of data collection (Sample 2 data were collected in the period when pupils were being statutorily assessed in the three core subjects) and in the Key Stage of the pupils. Lesson planning, and marking and recording results Within similar amounts of time on preparation overall, there were some differences in balance across the sub-categories. Sample 4 spent significantly more time (p<.05, analysis of variance) on marking and recording results than the other two groups (especially off school premises) —a surprising finding, given the emphasis on this aspect in Sample 2. The latter spent more time than Sample 3. Against this, Sample 3 teachers spent significantly more time (p<.01, analysis of variance) on lesson planning at weekends than the other two samples. Sample 2, however, spent significantly more (p<.001, analysis of variance) time on lesson 140

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planning at school. It is unclear what the explanation is for these differences in the pattern of marking and lesson planning. Registration, and transition and supervision Sample 2 had significantly more (p<.001, analysis of variance) time on registration and transition than the other two samples. This is in line with our argument that teachers of younger children need more time on this aspect of their work than teachers of older children. It is also the case that teachers in Sample 3 were not required to collect dinner money. Sample 3 teachers spent more time on supervision than the other sample, though this did not quite reach statistical significance (p<.06, analysis of variance). The explanation is that Sample 3 teachers had contractual obligations to supervise, whilst all but deputy heads in the other samples did not. When registration/transition and supervision were combined, Sample 2 had significantly more (p<.001, analysis of variance) time on them. Liaison between schools Sample 2 teachers engaged in significantly more (p<.01, analysis of variance) liaison than the other samples, almost certainly because they liaised with nursery units or other pre-school settings and because, as the national curriculum assessment came in, more liaison was required for moderation and recordkeeping. In general, then, most differences and all the similarities we have shown above point to a stable picture across the samples. Despite apparently important differences in age of pupils, time of data collection, stage of national curriculum implementation, range of employers, and even in contractual obligations, the evidence strongly suggests that primary teaching as a job of work has much commonality and consistency. INDIVIDUAL VARIATION We have selected three teachers, whom we call Vivienne, Bridie and Christine, whose records represent respectively extremely short, medium and extremely long hours on work overall within the range of Sample 4. In order to control the Key Stage, we have 141

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chosen three Key Stage 1 teachers. Our purpose here is to examine individual cases that have contributed to the overall pictures painted in previous chapters and to show how in any one case a complex set of factors influence the record of work in a given week. The material is presented in three stages. First, there is some background material from the questionnaire on each teacher to contextualise her working record. Second, a summary of each teacher’s work record is provided. Third, we offer a commentary based on our inspection of the raw data of the record. Contexts within which the teachers worked Vivienne had the shortest record of work of all our teachers. She was in her forties (41–50 age group), but had only four years’ experience at Key Stage 1. She was working in a 5–12 combined school (the size of which is not known, since she left that item blank), where she might have moved from working with older classes within the school. She was on the national standard scale, without an incentive allowance. She had a single-age composition class of almost 30 (28–30) Year 2 pupils. She was formally allocated between 31 and 60 minutes a week non-contact time and had no formal responsibility for any particular curriculum area. She thought that the time recorded in her working week was considerably less than other weeks in the term, ‘due to SATs’, as she wrote by her answer. She considered that she could reasonably be expected to work between six and ten hours per week in her own non-directed time. Vivienne’s recorded week was from the 16th to the 22nd of June 1991 inclusive, i.e. at the beginning of the second half of the Summer term. Bridie’s record of time was almost exactly in the middle. She too was in the 41–50 age group, and had eight years’ experience at Key Stage 1. She was on the national standard scale and worked in the infant section of a 5–12 combined school, which had between 151 and 200 pupils on its roll. In her class of singleage composition there were 21–4 pupils, none of whom was a Year 2 pupil. She had 31–60 minutes of formally allocated noncontact time, and had responsibility for Special Needs in the school. She thought her record of time in the recorded week was rather similar to that of other weeks of the term and considered she could be expected to devote 11–15 hours a week of her own time to work. Her recorded week ran from the 4th to 142

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the 10th of November 1991 inclusive, i.e. early in the second half of the Autumn term. Christine recorded the second-highest number of hours of all the teachers. She too was in her forties (41–50 age group) and had between 11 and 15 years’ experience at Key Stage 1. She was holding a temporary incentive allowance ‘B’, but normally had an incentive allowance ‘A’. She worked in a JMI school with 101– 50 pupils. She had a class of 25–7 pupils, with more than two age groups in it, including Year 2 pupils. She had no formally allocated non-contact time and was responsible for art and PE in the school. She thought her recorded week was rather similar to the other weeks in the term and considered it reasonable for her to be expected to work between six and ten hours in her own time. Her recorded week ran from the 5th to the 12th of March 1991 inclusive, i.e. towards the end of the Spring term. Summary of the work records A summary of the recorded time on work for the week in question of each teacher is given in Table 7.23. Commentary The different times of the recording help explain some of the differences between Vivienne’s time on work and the others. Vivienne, the only one of the three who perceived her recorded week as being shorter than normal, recorded her work in the Summer term just after the assessment period. It looks very much Table 7.23 Time on work by three individual teachers (hours)

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as though she was easing up after a particularly intensive time. If typical, this would illustrate our findings that Year 2 teachers spent significantly more time than other Key Stage 1 teachers in the assessment period, but not in the year overall (see p. 126). This sense of easing up after national curriculum assessment might also be adduced to explain the relatively small amount of time away from school that Vivienne spent on work, especially the fact that she did absolutely no preparation away from school. All her preparation, less than an hour a day, was done on school premises, typically 15 minutes at 8.35 before the pupils arrived, and about 30 minutes in lunch breaks. She also engaged in no professional development activity at all during the week, no Inservice training and not even a staff meeting— again, perhaps, because she had had her fill of professional development in the preceding weeks of the year. Despite doing some preparation in break-times, she had over four and a half hours of break-time free of work, an unusually high amount. (In addition, she had one blank entry of 45 minutes in one lunch-time, presumably because she left the school premises—perhaps to do some shopping.) There are three other features of interest on Vivienne’s record. The first is the fact that, against the rhetoric of integrated approaches in the early years, she taught mostly single-subject lessons and, where she did not, she combined only two subjects, always mathematics and English. Second, she spent 2.9 hours a week on registration and transition. Third, the only category of work she recorded at home was other activities. Finally, Vivienne’s working day during the week typically started at 8.45 and effectively finished when she left school at 15.45. Much of our explanation for Vivienne’s week therefore lies in the time of the year in relation to the assessment period, and we assumed, especially in respect of preparation at home, that she was to some extent ‘coasting’. Figure 7.1 shows one of Vivienne’s working days. Bridie’s working week was 53.4 hours, precisely the average for all the sample. The contextual factors were very similar to those operating on Vivienne, though she had a smaller class and held responsibility for Special Needs, a very demanding area. The other main differences were that she had no Year 2 children and no formally allocated non-contact time. The time of the recording period in Bridie’s case is probably not significant and she herself sees the week as rather similar to others in the Autumn 144

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Figure 7.1 ROTT (Vivienne) 145

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term. Indeed, we think its typicality, both in overall hours and in its pattern across the week and across various categories, is what marks it out. The time spent on school premises is almost identical to the mean of the whole sample, and time on weekends and weekdays is very typical also. Bridie spent rather more time on teaching than the average Key Stage 1 teacher, rather more time in preparation, and less on other activities. The longer time on teaching reflects two contextual factors; she had no non-contact time allocated to her and she spent only 1.3 hours in the week on registration and transition. The longer time on preparation might well be a reflection of the conscientiousness factor, since Bridie accepted that a higher amount of her ‘own’ time should be given over to work, and this mostly affects preparation. Bridie’s teaching was very integrated in approach, with typical lessons recorded in all the four subject codes (TE, TM, TS and TO) being taught simultaneously. This was as true for the morning teaching session (often used by other teachers for single-subject teaching of mathematics or English) as for the afternoon sessions. The main exception to this pattern was that she always finished her teaching day with a 30-minute session devoted exclusively to English, presumably a story-telling session. Her typical working day during the week started at about 8.30, when she always did some lesson-planning and classroom organisation; the finish varied, with her leaving school at about 17.00 on three days and at about 15.30 on the other two days. On the Friday she spent two hours at the end of the teaching day putting up displays. The time she spent at the weekend was almost entirely devoted to lesson planning and marking/recording. Figure 7.2 shows one of Bridie’s working days. Christine recorded a very high number of hours on work overall. There were two main explanations for this: she recorded large amounts of time marking and recording national curriculum assessment at home (over eight hours in the week, including one evening when she started at 19.00 and finished work at 22.30), and she spent Saturday on an In-service training course, combined with some activity she recorded as OS (possibly on a musical/ drama production as a result of the training course) which started for her at 8.30 and finished at 18.24. Also she then did some lesson planning on the Saturday evening. She also started work earlier than Vivienne or Bridie, usually working on the school premises 146

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Figure 7.2 ROTT (Bridie) 147

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in weekdays from about 8.00. Moreover she rarely left school before 17.00. Thus her long hours were the consequence in part of an unusual Saturday, the need in the particular period to spend long hours recording national curriculum assessment, and a habit of working longer on school premises than other teachers. It might be that a mixed-age class, comprising more than two age groups and including Year 2 pupils, would make it necessary to be in early preparing material as well as the work at home on preparation. The longer hours that Christine spent teaching have a fairly simple explanation; at her school the teaching day seems to have been longer than at the other two. Although having similar lunch and break-times, the pupil day in Christine’s school was 9.00–15.30, whereas in Bridie’s it was 9.00–15.00, and in Vivienne’s it was 9.00–15.15. Three particular features of Christine’s teaching day stand out. First, she engaged in much integrated teaching, but she always had a longish period (about an hour) of single-subject English teaching first thing in the morning. She was probably engaged in the teaching of reading at this time. Secondly, she rarely had breaktimes free of work (15 minutes per day in total, including the morning coffee break). Third, although she had long teaching hours, she also had a long time on registration and transition, at three hours per week. A final feature of her week was that she often entered the code IR (professional reading) together with the code PR (lesson planning), suggesting, as we have argued earlier, that planning at this time for Year 2 teachers was strongly influenced by the national curriculum orders. Christine was typically planning her lessons by reading the national curriculum orders and identifying statements of attainment. For Christine, a typical working weekday started at 8.00 and finished at about 22.00, usually with a break between about 17.00 and 19.00. In this week her working weekend days were almost as long as her weekdays. Finally, over two entries every day were of the ‘simultaneous working’ kind, with activities in two different main categories being undertaken simultaneously. A Year 2 teacher, with at least three age groups in her class, she thought that at most it was reasonable to be expected of her to work about 43 hours a week. Her case, in the period of the recording, is the most obvious example of the intensification of infant teaching under the Education Reform Act. Figure 7.3 shows one of Christine’s working days. 148

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Figure 7.3 ROTT (Christine) 149

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A brief note about the work of deputy heads in primary schools We had 26 deputy heads in Sample 4, amounting to 14 per cent of the sample. This is too small a group on which to generalise, but so little is known about the roles that deputy heads in primary schools adopt that we thought it worthwhile to provide the data that we have as a basis for further hypotheses. We are, therefore, simply presenting below, without interpretive comment, material showing how deputy heads in our Sample 4 differed in the pattern of their work from other teachers in the sample. Two preliminary points to bear in mind are as follows. The differences should not be read as general differences between deputies and other teachers since, in asking for participants, we deliberately sought classteachers. Deputies who were free of class responsibility were, by definition, therefore excluded from our study, and these are the deputies most likely to differ in pattern of work from other primary teachers. For this reason, differences reported here may understate general differences. Second, differences we found were of two sorts: differences in kind, distinguishing the deputies from all other teachers (except the two holders of incentive ‘C’ allowances, whose pattern of work was almost identical to deputy heads); and differences of degree, flowing from trends in the data associated with salary status. The most significant were of the latter kind, and the data below are differences of degree, except where indicated otherwise. Statistical differences are derived from analysis of variance. A summary of differences in deputy heads’ work 1 Total work: slightly more time overall, but not statistically significant. Significantly more (p<.001) total work off school premises. This was a difference in kind. 2 Teaching: slightly less time (0.75 hours per week) teaching overall, but not statistically significant. Slightly more time on teacher assessment, but not statistically significant. 3 Preparation: less than all other teachers, except those on national standard scale. The difference approaches significance (p<.06). 4 Professional development: significantly more (p<.01) time on professional development overall, and on school premises (p<.05), and on meetings (p<.01). 150

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5 Administration: more time overall on administration though this was not statistically significant. Significantly more time with parents (p<.05) a difference in kind; significantly more time on liaison (p<.01); on assembly (p<.05); significantly less time on all breaks (p<.05) and on breaks free of work (p<.01). More time on supervision and actual non-contact time, though neither were statistically significant. 6 Other activities: significantly more time overall (p<.01), especially on governors’ meetings (p<.001), a difference in kind. More time on sports, orchestras, etc., and on miscellaneous activities, though these were not statistically significant. On the questionnaire items, more deputy heads were male, deputies had significantly more non-contact time formally allocated (p<.05), and had higher ‘conscientiousness’ (i.e. considered more of their ‘own’ time should be taken up with work). This latter item reflected a difference in kind.

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Part II

8 THE MANAGEMENT OF TEACHERS’ TIME IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

INTRODUCTION In Part I of this book we have reported our research into the way teachers’ time is used in, and out of, primary schools. In this chapter we examine the implications of our research for the management of primary teachers’ time. There is considerable difference between ‘using’ and ‘managing’ teachers’ time. ‘Use’ of time tends to refer to practices conditioned largely by habit and routine, whereas the ‘management’ of time implies that the teacher, or the teacher’s superior, has taken a deliberate attitude to it, in order to take some control over how it is used. This chapter is in three parts. First, we examine a distinction between personal and institutional conceptions of time; second, we examine the 50-plus-hour working week of primary teachers; third, we discuss the implications of the first two for the management of teachers’ time. PERSONAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CONCEPTS OF TIME We are proposing two rather polarised conceptions of time. One is personal, subjectively defined, time as experienced by an individual, elastic, infinitely contractible and expandable. This concept of time underlies the commonplace phrases: ‘Time flies when you’re having fun’ and ‘Time drags when you’re bored’. Implicit in such phrases is the productivity with which time is used, an issue to which we return. The other concept of time is institutional; objectively defined, time as corporately counted by an organisation, inflexible, finite 155

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and measurable. Railway timetables and job contracts specifying the hours to be worked embody this concept of time. The literature on the management of schools (e.g. Bell 1988, Craig 1987, Dean 1987, Knight 1989, Mortimore et al. 1988, Osborne 1986, Rutter et al. 1979) is dominated by the second concept, perhaps because it is easier to believe that objective time can be ‘managed’ or even ‘directed’ (Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act 1987), by those charged with governing schools. The two concepts of time are complementary, but one purpose of this chapter is to emphasise the importance of examining the implications of managing teachers’ time in the personal, as well as the institutional, sense. The implications are different and sometimes conflicting, for three reasons. First, the time span is different in each concept; personal time covers all time, private and domestic as well as occupational, whilst institutional time is mainly limited to the workplace. We have represented both in the model of time we offered in Chapter 1, Figure 1.1. Second, different values attached to the personal and the institutional concepts probably represent differences in managerial ideology; concern for the personal, reflecting an interest in teachers as persons in an holistic sense, concern for the institutional, reflecting an interest mainly in teachers as employees. Third, personal time is measured subjectively, ‘in the eye of the beholder’, so to speak, whilst institutional time is objectively measured according to publicly agreed time-frames. Personal time In his best-selling book, A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking explained how our general notions of time have been altered by the theory of relativity. Time itself is relative to the individual: The theory of relativity gets rid of absolute time. Consider a pair of twins. Suppose that one twin goes to live on the top of a mountain while the other stays at sea level. The first twin would age faster than the second. Thus, if they met again one would be older than the other. In this case the difference in ages would be very small, but it would be much larger if one of the twins went for a long trip in a spaceship at nearly the speed of light. When he returned he would be much younger than the one who stayed on Earth. This is 156

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known as the twins paradox, but it is a paradox only if one has the idea of absolute time at the back of one’s mind. In the theory of relativity there is no unique absolute time but, instead, each individual has his own personal measure of time that depends on where he is and how he is moving. (1988, p. 343; our emphasis) Hawking was writing about physical relativity, but we want to adapt his idea and use a psychological version of relative time as a basic value position in the discussion in this chapter. Individual teachers with apparently the same amounts of time for the work of teaching will see the time available for them differently, depending upon the context in which they conduct their work and lives. A similar, though not identical, distinction between ‘strategic time’ and ‘clock time’ in classrooms is made by Erickson (1982). We can illustrate this by an educational version of the twins paradox. Consider a pair of twins who are primary school teachers. Suppose one twin marries, has two young children, works in a large primary school where her class comprises thirty children. The staffing is organised so that each teacher, including the twin, is responsible for co-ordinating an aspect of the curriculum throughout the school. The school has adequate resources for learning, and involved parents. She is happily married to a man who plays a full part in domestic responsibilities. For the other twin, all the personal and professional elements are identical, except that he is married unhappily to a woman who, in pursuit of her own career as a politician, plays an insubstantial role in domestic life. We can imagine that, despite the superficial similarity in their working contexts, the twins will perceive the time available to them very differently. Each will have his and her own ‘personal measure of time’. If this illustration is accepted as a starting point—and the element that is different for each twin need not be the marital relationship, it could be any of the others—for example, 30 children in one class might be very different from 30 in another —two points follow in respect of time management. First, the management of a teacher’s time is ultimately a responsibility that the individual alone can effectively carry out. No one else—however senior in the school’s management team 157

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—can manage a teacher’s time, because no one else sees and experiences that person’s time subjectively as they do. The psychological relativity of time renders its management by others ineffectual. This therefore assumes a substantial degree of teacher autonomy in time management, analogous to pupil autonomy in self-directed learning contexts. Second, if ultimately only individuals can manage their own time, the functions of those formally charged with its management—heads and governing bodies—may be seen as problematic. Their functions become significant but minimalist: to create and sustain the conditions in which teachers’ time is not wasted. At the routine level, this would mean restricting the number of interruptions to lessons and of changes to work planned by the teachers; ensuring that meetings have objectives, time limits and outcomes; ensuring the delivery and distribution of agreed resources appropriately. At the school policy level, to take just two examples, it might mean requiring no more in terms of assessment and record-keeping than is needed to fulfil statutory and educational obligations; and creating and supporting clear curricular objectives. It would not, except in the above minimalist sense, involve ‘directing’ much of teachers’ time. It may be argued that this basic value position is unrealistic because the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act 1987, and the annual orders thereafter, have required teachers to spend time working at the ‘direction’ of the head. But in most primary schools this appears to be developing into a minimalist diary system, merely ensuring teachers know in advance the dates and times of regular meetings, such as staff meetings, and infre-quent events such as parents’ evenings, AGMs of governing bodies, etc. (Campbell and Neill 1992b). Institutional time In one of the less mechanistic approaches to school management (Knight 1989), a clear description of institutional time has been given. Knight argued that there were three related ideas about time, if you think of it as a ‘resource’ in the school: The use of time pervades every aspect of a school. The head in his or her study, the teacher in the classroom, the student at homework, the parent helper and the adult user —all are 158

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deeply affected by it. The timetable and the bell, the systems and the structures and even more our unques-tioned assumptions about school time and the forces that shape it, rule our educational lives…. It cannot be seen, heard or touched, and is almost impossible to define. Yet it can be described, measured, structured and managed. And all financial resources in schools have to be converted into units of time before they can be used…. School time is organised in structures which fall into three categories: 1. Macro-structures: the school year, school week and the framework of the school day. These are determined at least in part by external forces, and affect not just the school but other schools, agencies, and transport as well as parents and the community. 2. Micro-structures: the timetable; lesson, course and activity lengths; modules and units; special events; extension of school (such as out-of-school activities), etc. These microstructures are internal to the school and closely related to the curriculum. 3. Individual time patterns: teachers, non-teaching staff and pupils will have their own patterns of time use determined partly by need and habit but also by the macro- and microstructures. (pp. 1 and 3–4) The basic parameters of time in this model are those of the school day, and the main implication for management is clear: the primary purpose is to require or enable teachers to use their institutional time more efficiently, often through the analysis and review of ‘time budgets’. Thus, in a recent management manual for primary heads, Bell (1988), despite apparently accepting the personal time dimension (‘In the final analysis the only person who can manage my time effectively is me’ (p. 157)), moves on to prescribe techniques for implementing organisational time planning based on the needs of the institution. Time management: a sense of déjà vu Much of the literature on school management sparkles with a sense of its own freshness and novelty, as though we had only 159

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recently discovered the importance of the allegedly efficient management of teachers’ time in school. Yet, 30 years ago, a famous but now neglected book, Education and the Cult of Efficiency (Callahan 1962), traced the pressure for more efficient use of teachers’ time, along with other school resources, to the adoption of business management techniques in education in the United States during the second decade of this century. The techniques, which were referred to generally as ‘Scientific Management’, led to what Callahan called ‘mass production’ attitudes to schooling, including techniques for increasing teacher productivity by having them teach larger classes, extending the school day (and, in Chicago, introducing a time clock for teachers to clock-in), unit planning of teachers’ time into standardised periods, and by closing small schools or building only large ones. The approach also led to the ‘descent into trivia’, with school administrators presenting dissertations on ways of saving paper clips, writing paper and toilet paper. Interestingly, Callahan showed that for scientific management techniques to be imposed on the schools, it was first necessary for a ‘crisis’ in education to be manufactured, whipped up and sustained in the popular press. Plus ça change… The impact of such approaches on teachers’ commitment, performance and productivity in contemporary American schools does not appear to have been positive (Reyes 1990) and may have been counter-productive. Louis and Smith (1990) discuss a ‘shift in focus’ in teachers’ working conditions: The premium is not on effectiveness in the classroom but on compliance to larger school routines. Thus, in many schools, day-to-day conditions have become personally dispiriting and teachers’ satisfactions, creativity and overall sense of efficacy have been sapped. (p. 25) Thus, an approach to the management of teachers’ time that concentrates upon objective institutional time exclusively has been judged to be self-defeating. The explanation is almost certainly as Alexander (1984) argued in relation to the management of primary schools, that a management model derived from anachronistic line management models in 160

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industry/commerce is simply inappropriate for primary schools, whose distinguishing characteristics include relatively little hierarchy, collaborative cultures (see Nias et al. 1989), and an explicit commitment to the processes of the curriculum, as well as its outcomes. Models from the new high-tech industries, where the emphasis is upon team-building and small-group decision-making, seem more appropriate. PRIMARY TEACHERS’ WORK: THE NATURE OF THE 50-HOUR WORKING WEEK In the first part of this book we have shown that typically the teachers in our studies were working between 50 and 55 hours per week on average in term time. Three other attempts to measure the time spent by primary teachers on work, using different samples and methodologies from ours (Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte 1991, Lowe 1991, NAS/UWT 1991), all conducted in the same year as our Samples 2, 3 and 4, arrived at figures within the same range of 50 to 55 hours per week. In 1992 we collected data once more on the infant teachers comprising Samples 1 and 2, and the total time on work was 52.4 hours per week. (See Evans et al. (1994) for further details.) All the studies, except the Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte analysis (which produced the lowest figure of 51 hours per week), included breaks in arriving at an overall figure. This is because the morning break, and, where it occurred, the afternoon break, is a coffee break in working time, during which teachers may not leave the premises. In addition, some teachers supervise some of the lunchtime breaks. In our research, as we have shown, teachers would record when they were working in break-time and when they were not. We have shown in Chapter 3 that if we deduct the time spent on breaks free of work and allow 15 minutes per day for the morning break only—i.e. if we deduct as much time as possible for breaks—we finish up for all the 1991 samples with at least a 50-hour working week in term-time. There are three questions about the 50-hour working week of primary teachers. First, is it a permanent feature of teachers’ work, necessary for the implementation of the 1988 Education Reform Act, or is it a temporary problem created mainly by the novelty of the demands arising from it? We have examined this in some detail in Chapters 3 and 5. The difficulty in arriving at 161

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a clear-cut answer is the absence of an established baseline, other than the 44.5 hours provided by Hilsum and Cane (1971) using data about junior school teachers collected in 1969. However, as we argue below, role expectations laid upon primary teachers expanded considerably in the 1980s, with new responsibilities added to existing ones, and it would be surprising if the Hilsum and Cane figure was not now out of date and too low. Something like a 50-hour working week looks established as a permanent feature of primary teaching in the 1990s, even though all the increase since 1969 may not be directly attributable to the 1988 Act. The second question is whether a 50-hour working week is desirable or sustainable as the basis for implementing and maintaining the national reforms associated with the Education Reform Act. Again, there is some difficulty in arriving at a clearcut answer, not least because, as we have shown, long hours on work were associated with teachers’ personal sense of obligation—‘conscientiousness’. However, two parts of our evidence provide some basis for arriving at a judgement. First, the teachers, on average, consistently took the view that it was reasonable for them to be expected to work up to ten hours at most in their own non-directed time. If this is added to the 33 hours of directed time, the figure that the teachers on average thought was reasonable is about 43 hours a week in term-time. This is very close to the time actually spent by Hilsum and Cane’s teachers in 1969, and up to ten hours fewer than they were working. Thus, irrespective of whether a 50-hour week is considered reasonable in some general sense, it was not seen as reasonable by the teachers involved. From the point of view of the management of their time, teachers’ perceptions that they already have an unreasonable workload is an important, perhaps the most important, perspective. This is especially true in a context where the majority of teachers cited lack of time as the main obstacle to implementing the curriculum. They saw themselves as working longer than was reasonable but, nonetheless, felt intensely a shortage of time. In this context, a major goal of school management should be to reduce, not to increase, teachers’ workloads; to find ways of making them more manageable. The more difficult, and more substantial, question about whether the 50-hour week is a reasonable and sustainable 162

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workload for teachers can be answered in two ways. First, by comparison with other workers (see Marsh 1991 and IDS 1992), this amount of time is unusually high, and therefore probably unreasonable. Second, whether it is sustainable is partly a pragmatic question: will teachers become so stressed and disaffected by the workloads that they take steps to reduce them, or leave the profession? Although, after 1988, more teachers than previously sought to leave the profession, the teachers in our longitudinal study did not appear dramatically to have reduced their working hours. In 1990, 1991 and 1992 the hours were 49.6, 54.6 and 52.4 respectively. (See Evans et al. (1994) for details.) The third question concerns explanations for the increase in working hours. Evidence from a wide range of sources (Campbell 1985, Campbell and Neill 1990, DES 1989b, 1990b, 1991c, House of Commons 1986, ILEA 1985, NATE 1991, Silcock 1990, Taylor 1987) suggests that primary school teachers either do not have, or do not perceive themselves as having, enough time in school for carrying out satisfactorily all that is expected of them within the time-frame of the school day. This has most recently been reiterated by another Select Committee (House of Commons 1991). The most usual explanation is a simple one: that expectations laid upon primary school teachers increased whilst their working conditions, especially the provision of non-contact time, remained unchanged. In effect, teachers’ job specifications had been inflated but the time available to them in the school day to meet the expansion had remained constant. The statutory obligation to teach, assess and record children’s learning in all the national curriculum subjects and RE, whilst differentiating tasks according to pupils’ capacities, was seen as the most burdensome change in classroom demands and the associated preparation and marking. The main change in formal job specification beyond the classroom was that all, or nearly all, teachers were expected to take a leadership or co-ordination role in respect of a curriculum area or other aspect of the work of the school as a whole (House of Commons 1986). The intention was that class teachers would thereby be helped to meet the demands of delivering and assessing the curriculum. Some aspects of this role (for example, leading a staff INSET session) can only be implemented during 163

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the school day, and others (for example, collaborative teaching) only during teaching time, but most primary teachers have virtually no time free of teaching. This particular aspect of role inflation in the teachers’ job specification, identified in the 1985 White Paper, Better Schools, and recommended by the House of Commons Select Committee Report, Achievement in Primary Schools, was incorporated into the legal framework of the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Order 1987, which included, amongst other things for the then-called ‘Main Professional Grade Teacher’, a responsibility for ‘Co-ordinating or managing the work of other teachers’. A responsibility previously restricted to teachers carrying an extra allowance had been added to the expectations laid upon all teachers. A second explanation is that conventional analyses of primary school teachers’ time, especially those used (DES 1989a) in a circular about the length of the school day, had failed to take account of activities that consume considerable time over a week. For example, as we have reported in the first part of this book, time spent in transition (for example, moving children from the classroom to the hall and back for assembly; helping them on and off with coats at break and at the beginning/end of the school day), informal supervision of pupils and registration amounted to almost five hours a week, but only registration was accounted for in the DES Circular. This is despite the empirical evidence (Gump 1976, Bennett et al. 1980) showing the extent of ‘transition’. In addition, our evidence showed much of the time allocated for ‘breaks’ of a reasonable length (morning break and lunchtime break) being taken up with school work. Thus, the analysis in the DES Circular, which showed substantial directed time apparently free and available in the school day, must be seen as mismatched with the empirical evidence. A third explanation is that heads and teachers are not good managers of what time there is and would be helped by ‘prioritising’ on the one hand and by the control by the head of unplanned and even unpredictable changes on a day-to-day basis. The former approach is advocated by Arnold (1990), who suggested that teachers should classify their activities into A (I must do this today), B (I should do this today) and C (I would like to do this today). He had no suggestions, however, if teachers do not complete all the A category activities. We know of no 164

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evidence showing how heads have taken steps to reduce interruptions and unplanned changes, although Morrison (1990) provides a case study of a headteacher introducing efficient and purposeful attitudes (‘quality time’) to school-based INSET sessions. Two other points should be made about the average 50-hour week. First, more striking than the average figures, was the variation or range of time spent on work by teachers, all of whom were engaged in the same fundamental job, namely class teaching. Some teachers managed their work within 37 hours a week, others took 70 hours. This difference, which was not related to the salary status of teachers or to their differing responsibilities, was related to a measure of teachers’ ‘conscientiousness’—the amount of time the teachers thought it was reasonable for them to be expected to spend on work. We examine the ‘conscientiousness’ thesis in Chapter 11, but it is worth noting here that the evidence is that long hours, and short hours, on work were to some extent within the control of teachers. Second, we were able to show the time spent by teachers on teaching, preparation, administration, professional development and other activities as a percentage of total time on work. This showed that contact time with pupils took up about 45 per cent of teachers’ working time. This is dramatically different from the findings (Hilsum and Cane 1971) 20 years ago, where such contact time took up some 52 per cent of teachers’ time. The amount of time spent teaching was very similar. The change in proportion of time signifies a fundamental restructuring of teachers’ work, with time spent away from children in meetings, professional development, preparation and administration, becoming a much greater proportion of the time that teachers spend on work overall, and time with children, though not changing overall, becoming a relatively smaller part. It can be argued that some significant amounts of this latter time are spent on ‘collegial’ working (Campbell 1985) and extended professionalism (Hoyle 1974). However, findings suggest that the time in its personal dimension is of very great importance in consideration of time management, since the overall time on work that teachers have to manage is so different, not merely in extent, but in its structure and salience, from institutional time. 165

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INTENSITY OF TIME: THE ‘RUNNING COMMENTARY SYNDROME’ Our evidence in this book is mainly about the extensiveness of teachers’ time—the fact of the 50-hour week. But we also found evidence of the intensity of their time, especially in the school day. The intensity is reflected in the amount of ‘simultaneous working’ and in classrooms in the amount of simultaneous teaching (see Chapters 3 and 4). When we discussed with infant teachers the way their time was spent (see Evans et al. 1994) we found that most of them referred to this intensity as a mental condition that can also only be understood in terms of the personal dimension of time, even though it was experienced in school. One of the teachers used a metaphor to describe the condition, which we have called, taking up her phrase, the ‘Running Commentary syndrome’. The teacher, who had a rich, if mixed, set of metaphors to illustrate her perceptions, had 32 children, Year 1 and Year 2 combined, in her class: ‘Well, what is frightening now is that we are being blinkered now into the national curriculum and so everything else is hanging on by its fingernails really. That’s how I feel at the moment—the sheer amount of time required to cope with what you hope to achieve—but it just seems to be expanding to fill the day and I am constantly getting to the stage where I am noticing it far more now that I never complete what I hope to achieve. There is always, like, a carry-forward so that you never get the feeling at the end of a session or the end of a day, “Great, I’ve done this that I hoped we would do”—there is always something else.’ ‘Is that what you used to do, then?’ ‘No, I didn’t used to feel that, I didn’t used to get to the end of the day and think, “Oh, gosh, I haven’t done this”, or “I haven’t done that”—I used to get to the end of the day and think, “Oh, great, we have done this” —so this has been a major change as far as I am concerned. So there is this running commentary really, in the background, saying that, “You haven’t done this”, or “You haven’t done that”, which I find very annoying, considering that you work so hard.’ 166

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This syndrome, the enervating, subjective sense of working harder and feeling that they were achieving less, was seen by the teachers to be the product of expanding demands within the same timeframe, as we have shown above. It was not necessarily created by the 1988 Education Reform Act (see PSRDG 1987, Nias 1989) but was directly exacerbated by it, especially by requirements of the national curriculum and assessment arrangements. We examine part of the reason for this sense of pressurised time—the requirement to fill the pint pot of the school day with the quart of the curriculum orders— in Chapter 9. IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT OF TEACHERS’ TIME Activity-led staffing It is overly ambitious to hope that better management of schools can solve all the problems facing class teachers since, as Silcock (1990) concluded, ‘No amount of organisational or managerial skill appears to meet the tasks mushrooming in front of them.’ However, if we start on the assumption that the Running Commentary syndrome is a common experience of primary teaching as a job, a managerial priority is to reduce the demands upon individual teachers in order to make the job manageable and one in which a sense of achievement and completion becomes more realisable. This would mean, as a number of official reports (ILEA 1985, House of Commons 1986) have proposed, improving the staffing levels in primary schools by about 10 per cent, as an urgent political priority. As long ago as 1986, a Select Committee of the House of Commons recognised that improved staffing was essential then, before the 1988 Education Reform Act, and was the main way forward: The inescapable conclusion we draw from this analysis is that primary schools cannot be expected to make much further improvement unless there are more teachers than registration classes’ (para. 9.54). In the political context of the delegation of management decisions to governing bodies, decisions about staffing levels are being devolved to governing bodies within the framework of LMS schemes. This has made general and predictable 167

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improve-ments in staffing levels for primary schools unlikely. As Silcock (1990) pointed out, ‘Time management is torpedoed by the Maths curriculum alone’, stressing that each subject, as defined in the statutory orders, is impossible to manage in the time available for implementation. However, the movement to define staffing levels by reference to activity-led staffing (Simpson 1988, 1989) has provided, and continues to provide, the most useful indication of ways forward. Under activity-led staffing, a model of the activities the school has to carry out is created and a calculation of the staffing needed for such activities is made. This is quite a different approach to the convention of counting the pupils on roll and dividing the roll by invoking an assumption about class size, as two examples illustrate (see Simpson 1988, Thomas 1989). One computer modelling exercise, based on provision in one LEA, equalised staffing across the 5–16 age range (Kelly 1991). This approach provides a rational basis for governing bodies to bring pressure on LEAs to alter the funding formulas in their LMS schemes, to reduce the differential age weightings between Key Stages 1 and 2 on the one hand, and Key Stages 3 and 4 on the other. But a word of caution is necessary about improving staffing levels: without clear purposes, it may be wasted. As Alexander (1991) showed, in some classes where collaborative teaching was occurring (i.e. two adults in a class) children’s performance suffered through lack of collaborative planning. We found one case where an extra member of staff allocated to a school to help in Key Stage 1 assessment was seen as generating extra work for all other teachers, not reducing demands. Appropriately used, however, extra staffing could generate increased non-contact time, encourage some joint planning, and enable more specialist teaching (Alexander, Rose and Woodhead 1992) where necessary. In particular, non-contact time could enable teachers to do some of the preparation and marking currently undertaken at home. Classroom time Within current staffing levels, two approaches have been developed to help make the teacher’s tasks more manageable. The first, widely canvassed, is that schools should become more 168

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‘collegial’ (Campbell 1985), with each teacher taking responsibility for an aspect of the curriculum and thus relieving some of the pressure on class teachers to be an expert in all aspects. You offer your colleagues help in preparing material in, say, history in their classes and in exchange they help you in some other aspects. Although having substantial official support (e.g. House of Commons 1986), the evidence (PSRDG 1983, Campbell 1985, 1988, Southworth 1987) is that the approach is time-consuming, stressful, not necessarily effective in the long term, and problematic for head teachers. As we have implied above (p. 168), it may be part of the problem, not the solution, unless increased staffing becomes available. The second approach is to look at time spent within the classroom by individual teachers. This approach draws upon a strong tradition of observational research in the United Kingdom (e.g. Bennett et al. 1980, Galton and Simon 1980, Bennett and Desforges 1984) and has recently considered the ways in which time has been used in classrooms (Bennett 1989, Alexander 1990, 1991). Both researchers found that within the classroom, even with teachers thought to be representatives of ‘good practice’, the use of time was sometimes not sensible or the most effective. Bennett reported instances of teachers’ presentation of instructions about learning tasks being misleading or confusing, so that children did not understand the tasks set and the teachers’ purposes were not achieved. Time spent on monitoring children while they were working was also examined by Bennett, who reported that the quality of such monitoring was poor in ‘up to one third of the classroom activities’. He pointed out that: In such circumstances the teachers cite lack of time as the problem. However, this lack of time often appears to be teacher-induced…they allow themselves to be bom-barded by constant requests and demands by their children …. Most of these demands are, when analysed, of a low level, but they devour teachers’ time. Bennett went on to argue that the solution to this kind of teachercreated problem was twofold: to create class management strategies for individual diagnosis of pupil needs, and to train teachers in observation and questioning. 169

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The answer he proposed for class management was the further extension of collaborative group work within which most low-level demands, for example, for resources, or to clear up misunderstandings, could be met within the pupil group, not by the teacher. According to Bennett, where collaborative group work was in place, the ‘early evidence indicates a dramatic reduction in pupil requests—in fact, zero in several classrooms. The time cleared has been enormous’. His view was supported by SEAC (1991), which judged that managing assessment was easier in those classrooms where pupils had been helped to be more autonomous. Some LEA training programmes for the national curriculum have been based on the assumption that classrooms need to be organised around group work and independent access of pupils to resources, if teacher time in class is to be freed up for observation, assessment and recording for the national curriculum. In a sustained and detailed examination of primary education in one LEA, drawing on 230 schools, Alexander (1990) analysed time spent on different activities in primary classrooms. Amongst other things he found teachers managing time ineffectually by a commitment to lengthy questioning to draw out answers, when directly telling pupils would have been more sensible, especially since, in the end, the teachers resorted to direct instruction anyway. He also found that teachers did not spend appropriate time on those aspects of the curriculum often thought to be frills. Allied to this shortage of time for ‘non-basic’ subjects, was poor, low-quality input in terms of learning opportunities offered. Time spent by pupils in classrooms was dominated by language (one-third of the time) and mathematics (one-fifth), which raised questions about the adequacy of time for other aspects of the curriculum. This is an issue we examine further in Chapter 9. Although, like Bennett, Alexander examined group work, he pointed out that such an organisational strategy led, in some classrooms, to the setting of unchallenging work which reduced demands on teachers’ time but which was educationally undesirable. This was reported as a coping strategy by teachers in Key Stage 1. (See Evans et al. 1994.) Thus, the most recent evidence, from Bennett’s and Alexander’s work, suggests that even within existing staffing levels, the way teachers use their time in classrooms could be 170

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re-examined. Their re-examination might include organisational strategies to encourage pupil independence in matters of routines and access to learning resources, the balance of curriculum time, and quality and the value of teacher questioning to elicit answers that might be more sensibly generated by instruction. But we ought not to conclude that all the problems of time in classrooms are created by poor management by class teachers. Some are created by unrealistic demands. We found (see Evans et al. 1994) teachers reporting that, although they had previously managed to find time to hear pupils read every day, and believed it important to do so, since they had introduced the national curriculum, they had found it impossible to do so. This is supported by the SEAC evaluation of pilot SATs (SEAC 1991), and by evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee (House of Commons 1991). Class size and the range and number of teacher tasks are part of the classroom equation, along with class management skills. The use of para-professional support A point of considerable interest, as the local management of schools comes in, is the extent to which some of the activities currently undertaken by teachers, e.g. mounting displays, registration and transition, or supervision, might be carried out by para-professionals, who could thereby free some teachers’ time in the school day. In our research we found around five hours a week of teachers’ time being taken up with registration, transition and supervision—activities which, while important, do not need graduate qualifications. In addition, over two hours was spent on mounting displays. The amount of time that might be freed in this way is difficult to quantify precisely, and it does not lend itself easily to direct translation into school policy. This is because much of it is scattered in short bursts throughout the day, and some of it occurs within teaching time, such as when the teacher moves the class from their normal room to the hall, for example, for music and movement. There is also, especially at Key Stage 1, some reluctance amongst teachers (see Goodyear 1992) to divide labour between themselves and non-teaching assistants in ways that could be construed as divisive, as indicating that the teachers saw their responsibilities as superior to those of the assistants. This is an important factor in 171

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the ‘collaborative cultures’ of primary schools (Nias et al. 1989). It has also been argued that the non-cognitive aspects of the teachers’ work with very young children are very important influences upon social and moral development, in helping them become part of an institution larger than the family. On this argument, time spent by teachers in talking to children as they walk to the hall, in listening to them whilst helping them do up their coats, etc., feeds into the teacher’s overall knowledge of the child, and helps the child understand that the teacher is concerned about more than teaching in a limited cognitive sense. Also important is the argument (Thomas 1993) that activities that appear to an outsider to lack cognitive dimensions do, in fact, serve cognitive objectives and should not be seen as ‘non-cognitive chores’. Nonetheless, we think our evidence should force a reconsideration of the use of non-teaching assistants and other paraprofessionals. There is something odd about teachers citing lack of time as the main obstacle to their delivery of cognitive objectives, whilst at the same time spending up to six hours a week on mainly non-cognitive routines requiring relatively low levels of skill. Our argument for a more appropriate use of para-professionals is strengthened by our evidence that teachers who had most time with non-teaching assistants spent significantly more, not less, time than other teachers on display and supervision. It could be that in some schools the appointment of para-professionals, appropriately used, would provide teachers with more non-contact time than would be the case if the equivalent funding were used to appoint a part-time teacher. When Duthie examined this issue in Scottish primary schools, he suggested, despite considerable methodological difficulties in obtaining reliable evidence, that there would be work for one para-professional for every two teachers, ‘if maximum use is to be made of their services’ (Duthie 1972, p. 96). Class size and teacher time We did not find evidence that larger classes led inevitably to more time on preparation, or that larger classes were associated with longer times on work overall. It may be that larger classes are more difficult to manage, but they do not inevitably lead to more preparation. In our use of the term, ‘preparation’ includes marking and recording results, so that the logical assumption that if a teacher has a larger number of pupils, he or she will inevitably spend more time marking 172

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their work, was not supported by our evidence. Possibly, if there had been greater disparity in class size, some statistically significant difference would have emerged. Similar uncertainty about the effects of class size on pupil performance characterises reviews of the literature (Mortimore and Blatchford 1992, Dewhurst 1993). However, we were able to contribute to the debate about what size of class is regarded as too large for teachers having to implement the national curriculum. In 1992 we found that, although most Key Stage 1 teachers saw lack of time as the main obstacle to their implementing the national curriculum beyond a threshold of 28 pupils, significantly more teachers saw class size as the main problem (see Campbell and Neill 1992b). After class size reached about 28 pupils, it became seen as a cognate problem to lack of time, presumably because the teachers perceived such classes as inevitably leading to time pressures, especially when the end-of-Key Stage assessment and recording have to be undertaken. THREE CONSIDERATIONS FOR HEADTEACHERS We acknowledge that headteachers have de facto responsibility for the management of the school and have to satisfy themselves and their governors that their management style is effective. Part of this is a general responsibility for the way teachers’ time is used and managed. If the position we have argued earlier is accepted, three general points about the relationship between teachers’ time and headteachers’ management style need to be made. First, minimalist management (p. 158) assumes that headteachers will ‘service’ classteachers, in the sense that they will monitor and prioritise documents from outside, prevent or reduce interruptions and changes, and generally avoid the waste of teacher time that currently is permitted. Secondly, the vast majority of primary teachers are women with, though we run the risk of accusations of sexism by saying it, heavy domestic responsibilities. Their personal time, as opposed to their institutional time, may often be structured differently from that of male teachers. Lengthy, unpredictable after-school meetings, twilight hour training courses and other activities that assume somebody else is carrying domestic responsibilities, are predicated on unrealistic assumptions, however regrettable the 173

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situation may seem from an equal opportunities perspective. Formal training days and other provision, well planned in advance, perhaps at the weekends rather than in the evenings, may be a more amenable use of their time for professional and career development. Models of time management, even towards the end of the twentieth century, ought to be based on accurate consideration for the personal time of the (largely) female workforce, not upon other, possibly masculine, assumptions about personal time. Third, there is an important and contentious point about the expectations that headteachers hold for classteachers. The former often expect, understandably, that the latter should deliver the educationally worthwhile rather than the legal minimum. For example, many heads have urged that their staff should use the educationally worthwhile Records of Achievement, rather than the minimum record of national curriculum achievement legally required under the assessment arrangements for the national curriculum. And some heads have used school development plans as a means of increasing teachers’ responsibilities, rather than restricting them. We reiterate our findings. Teachers were working over 50 hours a week in term-time, and the most conscientious were working longer, over 60 hours in many cases. The management goal in this context, a context we believe to be becoming a permanent feature of primary teaching, is to seek to find reductions in teachers’ work, to restrict existing burdens and not to impose new ones. It is at least a reasonable hypothesis that all the new demands placed upon primary teachers by the Education Reform Act 1988 have not been costed in terms of the time needed to meet them. Taken together, the demands appear unrealistic. This means that time management is a potentially dangerous concept, in practice. Faced with absurdly demanding expectations, classteachers who do not meet them all effectively should not be made to feel that the reason for not meeting them is their failure to manage their own time properly. This would be to blame the victim. The answer to unrealistic demands is, for teachers, to prioritise them and, for policy makers, to staff primary schools in ways that enable teachers to gain the satisfaction of doing their work well.

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INTRODUCTION Our purpose in this chapter is threefold. First, we shall try to show that the national curriculum model, as it was conceived, and as it has emerged over the period since 1987, offered the dream of substantial and much-needed improvement to curriculum practice in primary schools in England and Wales generally. Second, the model assumed six preconditions in the professional context within which primary teachers were working; five of these were not met, so that the full delivery of the national curriculum became impossible for normal teachers. Thirdly, we shall examine some of the policy options available, whereby the curriculum could be made more manageable for schools. We should sound two notes of caution by way of introduction. The first is obvious. In 1992 the national curriculum was not yet fully in place in its statutory form in any school at either Key Stage 1 or Key Stage 2. At Key Stage 1, the last three subjects— art, PE and music—applied in statutory form only in 1992–3. At Key Stage 2, all nine subjects (ten in Wales) would apply to all relevant years of pupils only in 1995–6 at the earliest, provided that the possibility of further revisions is discounted. Declarations of the failure of the national curriculum could be construed as writing its premature obituary, the pessimistic obverse of the assertions, already made by government mini-sters and others, of its resounding and immediate success. We would stress the tentativeness of the available research evidence about implementation of the statutory orders, nearly all of which refers to Key Stage 1 only. Nevertheless, however tentative the evidence, 175

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there is enough of it to raise important issues about the management of the national curriculum. In doing so we have assumed that the fundamental basic curriculum model of nine or ten subjects, plus RE, is established and will survive any modification of detail. The second introductory point is more difficult to make briefly. Under the imposed reforms of the 1988 Act there has been a tendency amongst educationists to invent a ‘golden age’ of primary education in the past, whose destruction has been brought about by the reform process. The image of this golden age was derived from the Plowden Report (CACE 1967) in which rounded pictures were presented of good practice in a part of the report (para. 277 ff.) where ‘composite’ schools were seen through the eyes of an ‘imaginary visitor’. The image offered was concrete, detailed and suffused with light and joy, showing a school world of emotional security and well-being for pupils, combined with a range of artistic and cultural activities apparently unconstrained by time, or the pupils’ age, or intellectual shortcomings among staff or pupils: The nursery class has its own quarters and the children are playing with sand, water, paint, clay, dolls, rocking horses and big, posh toys, under the supervision of their teacher. There is serenity in the room, belying the belief that happy children are always noisy…. Learning is going on all the time but there is not much direct teaching. Going out into the playground the visitor finds a group of children with their teacher, clustered round a large, square box full of earth. The excitement is all about an earthworm, which none of the children had ever seen before. Their classroom door opens onto the playground and inside are the rest of the class, seated at tables disposed informally about the room, some reading books that they themselves have chosen from the copious shelves along the side of the room, and some measuring the quantities of water that different vessels will hold. Soon the teacher and worm-watchers return, except for two children who have gone to the library to find a book on worms, and the class begins to tidy up in preparation for lunch. The visitor’s attention is attracted by the paintings on the wall, and as he looks at them he is soon joined by a number 176

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of children who volunteer information about them. In a moment the preparations for lunch are inter-rupted as the children press forward with things they have painted, or written, or constructed, to show them to the visitor…. The sound of the music from the hall attracts the visitor and there he finds a class who are making up and performing a dance drama in which the forces of good are overcoming the forces of evil, to the accompaniment of drums and tambourines. As he leaves the school and turns from the playground into the grubby and unlovely street on which it abuts, the visitor passes a class who, seated on boxes in a quiet, sunny corner, are listening to their teacher telling them the story of Rumpelstiltskin. On this reading of the history of post-war primary education, children’s spontaneity, creativity, and curiosity were being killed off in the name of curriculum reform. As a picture of curriculum practice it was a fiction. The evidence from HMI surveys (e.g. DES 1978, 1982, 1985b) and academic research (e.g. Alexander 1984, 1992, Bennett 1976, Galton and Simon 1980, Barker-Lunn 1982, 1984, Bealing 1972) about the national picture of curriculum practice and pedagogy in primary schools in the 20-odd years before the Education Reform Act, revealed not a golden, so much as a rather leaden age. The curriculum was narrow, emphasising literacy and numeracy through repetitive exercises; despite encouragement, work in science was patchy and haphazard; standards in the social subjects were lower than might have been expected; pedagogy was often characterised by an undifferentiated focus on the pupils in the middle levels of attainment within a class, and expectations of the able children were undemanding. Continuity and progression in curriculum experience had remained elusive, and assessment and recordkeeping, other than in the basic skills of reading and number, were rarely systematic. Plowdenesque progressivism flowered largely in rhetoric, with progressive practice, however defined, being a minority taste amongst the teachers. It is difficult to make the point briefly, because a two-minute survey of the evidence comes out sounding suspiciously like teacher-bashing. But this would be an almost entirely wrong interpretation. The real problem lay in the absence of anything 177

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approaching a public policy for the primary curriculum before 1988 (see Campbell 1989). The primary teachers, as much as anyone else, were the victims of this policy vacuum and not its creators. What the 1988 Act introduced was a policy framework for the curriculum that had been previously lacking in primary education. THE CHARACTER OF THE DREAM There were five features of the proposed national curriculum that proved seductive to most of those working in primary education. First, there was the concept of entitlement. Articulated most clearly in the House of Commons Third Report (House of Commons 1986), a national curriculum would provide a legal framework of common entitlement for children that would remove the inconsistencies of curricular provision (see Richards 1982) which had arisen arbitrarily from class teacher autonomy. For the first time since 1944, pupils and parents would be able to know what the school should provide in curriculum terms, as would the school staff and governors. In effect, the notion of entitlement promised greater equality of curricular experience for children. Second, and linked to the concept of entitlement, was the promise of real breadth and balance. A statutory curriculum in which all foundation subjects, not just the core, would be allocated reasonable amounts of time and emphasis, seemed to offer a onceand-for-all opportunity to destroy the elementary approach to curriculum, with its narrow concentration on basic skills. The 1988 Education Act required a ‘balanced and broadly based’ curriculum, and the DES Circular 5/89 (DES 1989c) emphasised breadth and balance (p. 17), requiring, from August 1989, that each of the core and foundation subjects should be allocated ‘reasonable’ time for worthwhile study. Third, included in the legal definition of the curriculum, was a set of assessment arrangements which would require a radical re-thinking, not merely of assessment, but also of teaching itself. The TGAT report (DES 1988) was sold to the profession by its emphasis on the formative purposes of assessment. Before 1988, most assessment in primary schools had employed narrowly 178

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focused tests of reading comprehension and number, predominantly at the end of the infant and junior stages (see Gipps 1988, 1990). Under the TGAT proposals the emphasis would shift to continuous assessment, involving diagnosing individual pupils’ needs through observing them learning, talking with them about their learning and using the observations for planning the next steps in learning. Fourth, it was a modernising curriculum. It was not merely that science was included in the core, but that the kind of science involved acknowledged advances in physics, biology and chemistry; technology, including information technology, was in the foundation; mathematics included the handling of data, and most other subjects called for applications using computers. English called for literature that was global. The national curriculum was, in effect, an attempt to haul the primary curriculum towards a state of knowledge and information processing relevant to the last decade of the twentieth century. Finally, there was the relationship of the curriculum to standards. Primary education in England and Wales had been characterised by relatively low standards, especially in relation to children judged to be able (DES 1978, DES 1990b, Alexander, Rose and Woodhead 1992). The common and possibly facile explanation for this state of affairs was that teacher expectations were too low, especially in inner cities and other areas of poverty. Following a series of important observational studies at Exeter University (Bennett and Desforges 1984, Bennett and Dunne 1992, Bennett 1991, 1992), the demonstration of poor match between tasks set by teachers and pupil capacities (or, to be precise, sometimes poor teacher explanation of the task) lent force to the argument that the national curriculum was intended to raise standards in two ways. First, expectations of able children would be raised through the explicitly differentiated levels in which the attainment targets were specified. Able children at the end of Key Stage 1 would be operating at Levels 3 or 4, and at the end of Key Stage 2 at Levels 5 or 6. Secondly, standards would be raised simply by virtue of teaching being planned, delivered and assessed according to systematic programmes of study and set targets right across the nine subject areas. Standards would no longer be defined narrowly by reference to standards in English and mathematics. Thus the promotion of the national curriculum held out the promise of a transformation of curriculum practice in primary 179

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schools. As a conception of the curriculum for contemporary primary schools at the end of the twentieth century, it looked like a dream package. SIX PRECONDITIONS FOR EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION There are problems with the model (see Kelly 1990, for example), but the criticism we are advancing is not focused on the curriculum model itself but on what appear to be six assumptions about the professional contexts in which primary teachers work; they were assumptions, so to speak, about the bed into which the national curriculum was to be delivered. They were the preconditions that needed to be met if the dream was to become a reality. The six preconditions are as follows: 1 Primary teachers would approve of, and commit themselves to, the national curriculum. 2 There would be adequate curricular expertise in the primary teaching force and, if not, it could be provided through In-service training. 3 There would be available to every school adequate curricular expertise to deliver the national curriculum, mainly through its own staffing deployment. 4 Most class teachers in primary schools would have the curricular expertise and pedagogical skills to deliver and assess, with some limited support, a curriculum in nine subjects and RE, appropriately differentiated according to the levels of the national curriculum statements of attainment. 5 Delivering the national curriculum would not increase or intensify teachers’ term-time workloads beyond what was sustainable or reasonable. 6 There would be adequate time in the school day/week/term/ year to meet the ‘reasonable time’ expectation for all the foundation subjects and RE. These assumptions are not the stuff of curriculum theory—they are mundane considerations—but they are of great practical significance to those charged with delivering the curriculum. Our evidence, and that of other researchers, is that only the first precondition for effective implementation had been met, whereas 180

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the others had not. Our evidence concentrates upon 5 and 6 above, but the analysis that follows takes account of 2, 3 and 4 also, especially in relation to Key Stage 2. DELIVERING THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM: THE EMERGING NIGHTMARE The evidence about what it was like to be delivering the national curriculum was, in 1992, patchy and suggestive, rather than comprehensive and certain, not least because most published evidence relates to the introduction of the statutory orders for the core subjects only. We do not know what the picture will look like for the delivery of the full national curriculum and RE. There are surveys by HMI (DES 1989b, 1990b, 1991c) and research reports on the early implementation stages (Campbell and Neill 1990, Silcock 1990, Campbell et al. 1991, Campbell and Neill 1992b, Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte 1991, Core Subjects Association 1991, NUT 1991, Osborn and Pollard 1991, Osborn and Broadfoot 1991, Taylor and Stanley 1991, Acker 1992, Muschamp, Pollard and Sharpe 1992, NCC 1992). Teacher commitment to the national curriculum It quickly became clear that teachers at Key Stage 1 in general approved of the national curriculum, and had been attempting to implement it. There is no evidence of serious subversion or of refusal to implement. On the contrary studies at Bristol and Warwick Universities (Muschamp, Pollard and Sharpe 1992, Osborn and Pollard 1991, Campbell et al. 1991) showed the teachers supporting the principle, and objecting primarily to the pace, of the reforms. Moreover, the studies revealed that the teachers saw their professional skills as having been improved by implementing the national curriculum, especially their skills in planning, in wholeschool collaboration, and even in assessing children’s progress. The Bristol team reported (Osborn and Pollard 1991, p. 4) that some teachers spoke of the ‘positive effect of having a structure and guidelines to work within’ and that many felt that ‘the emphasis that the national curriculum placed on reviewing and reflecting on their practice, and on having to read more widely and to collaborate more closely with other teachers, was an enhancement of their professionalism’. Likewise teachers in our study (Campbell 181

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et al. 1991) spoke of the way they had been helped to become better teachers because of the need to plan and assess more systematically than hitherto. The findings from these research projects were supported generally in the survey reports by HMI (DES 1989b, 1990a, 1991c) and by other surveys, e.g. the Core Subjects Association survey (CSA 1991). Moreover, in respect of science in primary schools, there had been substantial improvement over previous practice (see DES 1978), with the science curriculum now being planned and delivered in a more sustained and systematic way. This is an important achievement, given the constraints within which teachers were operating. Thus the evidence about the first of the six preconditions was all in the same direction: infant teachers welcomed and supported the national curriculum, and far from being de-skilled by it, found the process of implementing it improving their reper-toire of professional skills. It is perhaps recognition of this view that turned the initial opposition of teacher unions into motions of support for the principle of a national curriculum at their annual conferences. However, the evidence in respect of the other five preconditions provided less good news for those who wanted to see the reforms work; it suggested that, for classteachers, delivering the national curriculum had become not a dream, but a nightmare. It was simply not manageable, even for experienced and able teachers. The reasons for believing this are different at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, mainly because the empirical evidence refers to the former mainly. Therefore, rather than deal with the evidence on each precondition separately, we shall consider the emerging issues for each Key Stage. Key Stage 1 At Key Stage 1 there were four clusters of problems. First, our research had provided evidence about two aspects of teachers’ workload: the extensiveness and the intensiveness of primary teaching. Extensiveness refers to the number of hours worked per term-time week, whereas intensiveness refers to the pressure during the working day. We have illustrated this more fully in Chapter 8. Our research showed conscientious teachers committed to implementing the national curriculum, but having 182

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to work what the teachers themselves considered unreasonably long hours. These varied a little according to the sample but, as we have argued in the previous chapter, the teachers were working between 50 and 55 hours a week, with one in five working a 60-hour week or more. Only about a third of this time was taken up with teaching, since the majority of their time was spent on non-teaching activities, such as preparation, marking, meetings, administration, In-service training and other professional development. Second, long hours were combined with intense pressure during the school day, with lack of time seen as the major obstacle to implementing the national curriculum. Delivering the curriculum was seen as an enervating treadmill, in which the teachers worked very hard but obtained little sense of achievement. Not all of the workload was attributable directly to the national curriculum, but the overload had carried over into their personal and domestic lives, and most of the teachers were experiencing stress (see Evans et al. 1994). The PACE project at Bristol (Osborn and Pollard 1991, Osborn and Broadfoot 1991) and from the Core Subjects Association (CSA 1991) came out with similar findings. Second, and despite all this, the broad and balanced curriculum was not being delivered. Our evidence in Chapter 4 showed that the three core subjects were taking, on average, at least half the timetabled time and that, at the very most, about 15 minutes a day was left for each of the other foundation subjects and RE. Most of these subjects at Key Stage 1 are practical, time-consuming activities, e.g. art, PE, music, technology, and 15 minutes per day (75 minutes a week) seemed inadequate for worthwhile treatment. We should add that for technical reasons concerning how time was recorded, the figure of 15 minutes a day per subject is almost certainly an overstate-ment. The core was squeezing out the other parts of the basic curriculum. This view was supported by Muschamp, Pollard and Sharpe (1992). We are able to examine this point in greater detail, drawing on new data gathered in 1992 from our Key Stage 1 cohort (see Evans et al. (1994) for fuller details). Tables 9.1 and 9.2 show these data. In our 1992 sample, teachers were asked to indicate which of the core and foundation subjects and RE they thought they had been able to devote adequate time to in their class in 1992. They were able to indicate all subjects, or none, or as many as reflected their 183

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Table 9.1 Perceived adequacy of time devoted to subjects in Key Stage 1 teachers’ classes, 1992 (n=97)

perception. Ninety-seven teachers replied, so that if they all thought that all the subjects had received adequate time, there would have been 970 responses; if they thought that none of the subjects had had adequate time, there would have been no responses. As can be seen from Table 9.1, there were 477 responses, suggesting that the teachers overall saw only about half of the curriculum as having had adequate time devoted to it. More detailed examination of column (c) in Table 9.1 reveals the teachers’ perceptions about individual subjects. In this column the figures are the percentage of teachers thinking that the particular subject had had adequate time devoted to it in the current school year. The differences in perceptions about different subjects are quite striking, given that, following DES Circular 5/89 (DES 1989c), from August 1989 all subjects were expected to have ‘reasonable’ time given to them. Teacher perceptions of what is adequate are not a definitive measure, of course, but their views are most important since they are the people responsible for the process of delivery. We can treat teachers’ views on adequacy in two ways, strictly and generously. On a strict view we might say that, where less than two-thirds of the teachers thought a subject had adequate time, there is a prima facie case for saying that there is a problem. On the generous treatment we might say that, where less than half the teachers thought a subject has had adequate time, there 184

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is a problem. On the first assumption, only mathematics and English, in the view of these teachers, had had adequate time in 1992; on the second assumption, science, PE and art had also had adequate time. On either assumption the same five of the ten subjects were seen as having had inadequate time. These were technology, RE, music, and especially geography and history. The latter two subjects came bottom of the pile, with fewer than three teachers in ten thinking that the time devoted to them was adequate. We were able to set Table 9.1 against actual time given to the subjects in ten weeks over the last half of Spring and first half of Summer terms in 1992. This is given in Table 9.2. Two findings from Table 9.2 are worth particular comment. There is an interesting and highly significant match (Kendall rank correlation p<.001) between the order of subjects in this table and that in Table 9.1 above, which showed teachers’ perceptions of the adequacy of time for particular subjects. If we exclude technology, the ‘top’ five subjects are identical and in almost identical order. Using the generous definition (more than 50 per cent of teachers thought the time was adequate) of adequacy above, our evidence is that the teachers perceived English, Table 9.2 Teaching time by curriculum subjects

Sum of individual subjects=37.5 hours 185

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mathematics, science, art and PE as having adequate time given to them and that they had actually given most time to them. The teachers perceived geography, history, RE, music and technology as having had inadequate time and, except for technology, gave the least time to them. The relatively high position of technology in Table 9.2 and its low position in Table 9.1 might be explained by the fact that it normally requires time-consuming, practical investigations, often using computers, and the time recorded, though relatively large, is still seen as inadequate. It should be remembered that in 1992 the statutory orders applied in the core subjects and in history, geography and technology, but not in art, PE or music. We are not suggesting that each subject needs the same amount of time for worthwhile delivery, merely that, when teachers’ perceptions of inadequacy matched a record of relatively low time actually spent, it is very strong evidence that the balanced and broadly based curriculum was not being delivered. Second, there was a heavy concentration upon the core subjects. There are two ways of calculating this time. The simple one is to note what proportion of the 18 hours given over to teaching included each of the core subjects. This measure gives the proportion of the teaching week during which a classroom visitor would find a subject being taught. This is given in column (b) of Table 9.2, which shows 60 per cent, 34 per cent and 19 per cent of total time included English, mathematics and science respectively. Thus English work was occurring during nearly two-thirds of the teaching week. The percentages exceed 100 because teachers often taught two or more subjects simultaneously. The more complex analysis reflects this simultaneous teaching. We can take the sum of time spent on the different subjects, (viz. 37.5 hours), and express the time spent on each as a percentage of this sum. This is done in column (c) using rounded percentages, and is a better guide to time spent by pupils as a proportion of teaching time in the week, assuming that, when several subjects are being taught at the same time, pupils are fairly evenly distributed between them. On our analysis, 56 per cent of teaching time was given over to the core, only 30 per cent was given over to the other foundation subjects, RE and other subjects, and 12 per cent was given over to teacher assessment and SATs. Since all SATtime and most teacher assessment was focused on the core subjects, the 30 per cent figure for the non-core proportion is 186

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unlikely to be an under-estimate. We think, irrespective of which analysis is used, that these findings show the core to be dominating the curriculum and that, for this reason, the other foundation subjects and RE were being squeezed out. Notional time for the curriculum and actual time at Key Stage 1 A further perspective is derived from a comparison of the official notional time expectations for each subject with the time actually spent. The subject working groups creating the draft orders were given guidance about the notional percentage of time expected for each subject at each Key Stage. These were summarised in an article in Education of 3 April 1992. For Key Stage 1, the percentages and assumed hours per week were as in Table 9.3. There are two problems with these percentages and hours. First, the total amount of time assumed to be available for lessons (from DES Circular 7/90) was 21 hours a week, or 4.2 hours a day, for pupils. This ignores ‘evaporated’ time in the school day, i.e. when pupils are moving about the school (transition) or being supervised at the end and beginning of lessons, and thus overstates the actual time available. This phenomenon is well established in the research literature (see Gump 1976, Bennett 1989) and in practice (ILEA 1989). The curriculum, in practice, is less tidy than the notional model allows. (A detailed analysis of this point is given below, pp. 190.) Table 9.3 Notional time expectations (per week) for Key Stage 1 teachers

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Second, the percentages assume that it is unproblematic to allocate teaching time to single subjects within a 100 per cent ceiling, whereas infant teachers often teach several subjects at once, a practice that tends to produce the 200 per cent curriculum, as we have shown in Table 9.2. Nonetheless, if we put aside such difficulties, we can use the percentages as a starting point for comparison. On this treatment, if we set the figures in column (c) and column (a) in Table 9.2 against these notional percentages in Table 9.3, it becomes clear that English (29 per cent, or 10.8 hours), mathematics (18 per cent, or 6.7 hours), science and technology (16 per cent, or 6.1 hours), art (9 per cent, or 3.3 hours) and PE (4 per cent, or 1.3 hours) are approximately at, or above, the notional expectation. History (2 per cent, or 0.9 hours), geography (2 per cent, or 0.9 hours), RE (2 per cent, or 0.6 hours) and music (1 per cent, or 0.5 hours) are well below their notional figures. Other teaching (3 per cent, or 1.1 hours) is at best at the lowest limit. This analysis is of teacher time, not pupil time (and therefore music’s position especially may be better than it looks). For this reason, and for methodological reasons, we are not claiming that the actual percentages or hours are very precise measures; but this analysis, too, leaves the same subjects poorly provided for, as appeared in the analyses from both Table 9.1 and Table 9.2. Third, there has been consistent pressure from right-wing think tanks for schools at Key Stage 1 to give greater emphasis to the teaching of reading and number. We do not dispute the need for rigorous, systematic teaching of reading and number. Our evidence is that there is no shortage of time for English and mathematics. (This is not to say that how the time is used should not be questioned; we are simply talking about the amount of time as recorded by the teachers.) On the contrary, the large amount of time given to the core subjects, and to English particularly, was contributing to the problem of curriculum manageability because it did not leave enough time for the other foundation subjects and RE. The emphasis on the core was squeezing out reasonable time for the other subjects, and thereby rendering impossible the delivery of the whole balanced and broadly based curriculum required by the 1988 Act. The fourth point arises from the fact that the ten-week period in which the data were being collected was the time over which the SATs were administered and teacher assessments finalised. It is 188

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reasonable to ask whether the distribution of time across the various subjects might differ somewhat from those in Table 9.2, had we collected data across the whole school year. In seeking to arrive at what are necessarily estimates about such differences, we have been able to draw on three elements in our evidence. First, from our 1992 data, we could compare the Year 2 teachers’ time distribution with that of the other teachers, who would not be engaged in the end-of-Key Stage assessment, and whose distribution of time across the subjects might be assumed to be more typical. We were able to show (Campbell and Neill 1992b, p. 39), that Year 2 teachers spent more time teaching (which includes administering SATs in our coding) overall and spent less time per week on English (91 minutes, 13 per cent of time on English), music (18 minutes, 60 per cent), mathematics (20 minutes, 5 per cent), PE (5 minutes, 8 per cent) and art (11 minutes, 6 per cent); and more time on science (20 minutes, 10 per cent), history (8 minutes, 17 per cent), geography (3 minutes, 7 per cent), technology (10 minutes, 6 per cent) and RE (3 minutes, 10 per cent). The picture from this evidence is unclear, for three reasons. First, only the differences in English and music were statistically significant and the difference in English was more likely to be, in part, a consequence of the younger age of the pupils in non-Year 2 classes. Second, the Year 2 teachers were spending a little more time than other teachers on those very subjects to which, in general, least time was given, namely, history, geography and RE, so it would be difficult to interpret the data as meaning that more time would be given to them outside SAT-time (or, to be more precise, in Years R and 1). Third, the difference in time on the core subjects was not consistent, maths and English being given less, but science more time at Year 2. This suggests that if the administration of SATs did affect time distribution, it did not do so in a systematic direction. The second element in our evidence is from the 1991 data (see Chapter 7), where we recorded Year 2 and other teachers in the Spring term period, but before SAT-time, which in that year occurred in the Summer term only. There was a difference then in the amount of time given to English (Year 2 teachers gave rather less time than others) but the difference did not reach statistical significance. There was no difference in the time given to all the non-core subjects. This again suggests that the proportional distribution of time in the ten-week period during which 189

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we collected data would not be significantly different at other times. The third element is from Sample 4, where the evidence was collected across a whole school year in 1991. This showed no significant differences between Year 2 and other teachers, and none between the time on subjects across the three terms of the year (see Chapter 7). For all these reasons we believe, despite an element of uncertainty in the evidence, that the pattern of time distribution we found during the ten weeks we collected data would have been generally similar in other parts of the year. The obvious exception to the above analysis is that time spent on SATs in 1992 (39 hours in the ten weeks), and therefore on the core subjects, might become available for the rest of the curriculum in the 28 weeks remaining in the school year. Assuming, very unrealistically, that all this time became devoted to the non-core subjects, each would obtain almost half-an-hour more time, for those weeks. To arrive at an annual figure of time, this half-anhour should be reduced proportionately to approximately 20 minutes extra per non-core subject. This would not raise the time available for history, geography, RE or music to the notional time expectation in Table 9.3. Evaporated time We referred earlier (Chapter 6) to the concept of ‘evaporated’ time, which is time notionally available for teaching but which, in practice, is taken up with transition (i.e. moving pupils from one location to another in lesson time) and supervision (i.e. looking after pupils towards the end of a session, helping them clear up, supervising them changing for PE and other practical activities). An extreme example of transition and supervision arises when a teacher accompanies pupils to a local swimming pool for a swimming lesson. If the journeys to and from the pool take 15 minutes each, and supervising them changing before and after swimming takes ten minutes each, a total of 50 minutes would be spent in transition and supervision. This is almost certainly longer than the time spent swimming, but most, if not all, of the time comes out of the notional time available for teaching. More commonly, a teacher might spend about three minutes at the beginning and end of, say, a music and movement lesson, taking 190

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the children from the classroom to the hall and back. Following an ILEA training document (ILEA 1989), we call this time ‘evaporated’, because it has been spent, but is invisible in the sense that it has not been officially accounted for in considerations about time available for the curriculum. Our coding system had one code for registration and transition (/////) and one for supervision (AS), including supervision outside teaching time. We could not disaggregate registration from transition, or supervision in teaching time from supervision outside it. We have therefore had to use best estimates, using the total time spent on each, and based on knowledge of normal practice in schools. In order to avoid over-estimation of evaporated time, in the discussion below we have assumed that all supervision occurred outside teaching time, and that registration alone amounted to 12 minutes a day on average. Since the average time on registration and transition was 2.7 hours per week, we have taken 1.7 hours per week, or 21 minutes a day, as being taken up with transition. The relevant data for the 1992 sample were as shown in Table 9.4. The issue at stake is the average time given over to teaching, and registration, transition and supervision. If the 4.2 hours of Circular 7/90 (Table 9.3) was notionally available to our teachers for teaching, there seems at first glance to be a discrepancy between that and our figures. But the discrepancy is explicable. If we assume 12 minutes a day (0.2 hours) taken up with registration (and all supervision occurred outside teaching time), it leaves 0.35 hours per day, or 1.75 hours per week, to be added to the 18 hours per week of our teachers’ teaching time. On this basis, 19.75 hours is accounted for. A further five minutes a day is accounted for by non-contact time, adding 25 minutes (0.4 hours per week). This gives us 20.15 hours per week, with some 0.85 hours per week unaccounted for, equivalent to about ten minutes a day. This was taken up with a range of Table 9.4 Data for the 1992 sample

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non-teaching activities sometimes carried out in teaching time, such as liaison, In-service training and other activities, that the teachers were unable to code as teaching. Our data, as we have said, refer to how the teachers, not the pupils, spent their time. But from the analysis in the previous paragraph, it is possible to estimate the time that pupils would spend on the whole curriculum. A more detailed analysis is given in Annexe 9.1 at the end of this chapter, which shows an almost two-hour shortfall in curriculum time between what is expected and what is available. Our best estimate of evaporated time is 1.75 hours a week, just over 8 per cent of the 21 hours’ teaching time. It should be 21 hours less the evaporated time of 1.75 hours, i.e. 19.25 hours. This is 1.25 hours more than our records of teacher time actually show. Even if we assume that all the theoretical extra time is spent by pupils on the six non-core subjects and RE, it would add only ten minutes a week to each subject. It would not raise geography, history, RE or music to the notional time expectation in Table 9.3. The evaporated time mentioned above, 1.75 hours, is equivalent to the notional time for at least one of the non-core subjects. We conclude that, in terms of time actually available to the Key Stage 1 teachers in the classroom, as opposed to the time notionally available to them in the minds of the authors of DES Circular 7/90, there was the equivalent of at least one curriculum subject too many. This is the predictable, and predicted, consequence of a curriculum reform policy, developed piecemeal and serially in single-subject committees, instead of one that started from considerations of the whole curriculum and its management in classrooms. Serial curriculum reform may work effectively for secondary schools but it has helped create an undeliverable curriculum at Key Stage 1. The third point about Key Stage 1 is that, paradoxically, teachers claimed to be spending less time hearing children read so as to cover the new subjects, such as technology, and manage assessment. This was also reported in Alexander, Rose and Woodhead (1992). Another class management strategy reported by our teachers (see Evans et al. 1994) was that of setting most pupils time-consuming, low-level tasks to keep them occupied, to free-up teachers to enable them to concentrate on assessing small groups of pupils or individuals. The irony here was that 192

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standards might be being lowered as part of teachers’ attempts to meet what they saw as the assessment arrangements. This problem might have been exacerbated by the practice of ‘multiple focus teaching’, where teachers organised their classes so as to enable pupils to learn in integrated ways through topics covering several subjects, or for groups of pupils within a class to learn different subjects. We called this practice ‘curriculum complexity’ (see Chapter 4), and the Key Stage 1 teachers in our research had much more complexity in their curricular organisation, than those at Key Stage 2. The more complex the class organisation, the more time-consuming planning, assessing and recording are likely to become, because statements of attainment from different subjects have to be aggregated for planning purposes, and disaggregated for assessment, recording and reporting purposes. Fourth, the formative purposes of assessment had been subverted by the pressure to provide accurate and fair end-ofKey Stage results for summative purposes. Teachers’ confusion over the expectations for assessment and record-keeping was allied to a fear—almost a paranoia—that sooner or later someone, probably inspectors, would be coming to check up on their records. We called this the ‘Key Stage Cops’ syndrome. It had led to the teachers abandoning formative perspectives in fearful and frantic attempts to get summative results ‘right’, whatever that meant. HMI (DES 1991b) found something similar when they reported teachers engaging in ‘fervent but unfocused’ assessment and recording. The publication of LEA ‘league tables’ towards the end of 1991 did little to allay the pressure on teachers to concentrate on the summative. The picture emerging from our research was supported, or not contradicted, by other early studies (e.g. DES 1991c, Taylor and Stanley 1991, Smithers and Zientek 1991, Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte 1991). It shows, despite the commitment of hard-pressed teachers, that the curriculum at Key Stage 1 in 1990, 1991 and 1992 had few of the features of the ‘dream package’: it was not providing the entitlement to breadth and balance, assessment was not integrated diagnostically into teaching, and if it was being modernised through science and technology it might be at the expense of the rate of progress in pupils’ achievement in reading. Above all, it could not be delivered in the time available: the curriculum quart could not be forced into the pint pot of the school day. 193

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Key Stage 2 Analysis of the task facing classteachers The argument about unmanageability at Key Stage 2 is mainly based on task analysis, rather than empirical evidence about the implementation of statutory orders, since little evidence was available in 1992 (but see below, p. 197). There are three elements here: the nature of the task facing the teacher, the expertise in the system, and the support available. Part of the problem is that the working groups based their recommendations for statutory orders on the best practice in their subject (see Thomas 1993). This is understandable, but the consequence for class teachers was daunting. They had, by law, to develop best practice in all subjects, not just one. They had to become the primary school equivalent of Albert Einstein, Madame Curie and Linford Christie rolled into one. Even in a slimmed-down version of the national curriculum, classteachers had over 400 statements of attainment to manipulate, detailed and confusingly presented programmes of study, poorly defined crosscurricular themes and religious education. In Years 5 and 6 the range of performance in a class was expected to be from probably Level 2 to Level 5 or 6 in each of the nine subjects of the national curriculum—see Table 9.5. In small schools, the range might be greater. The intellectual tasks demanded of classteachers were realisable only by Renaissance men and women. In this perspective, the assertion (Alexander, Rose and Woodhead 1992) that ‘Teachers must possess the subject knowledge which the statutory orders require’ (para. 120), began to sound like a plea of desperation. Secondly, there were few Renaissance men and women in the primary teaching force. The Primary Staffing Survey (DES 1987) found fewer teachers qualified as main subject mathematics teachers than there were schools and, even using the most generous definition of qualification, only 400 teachers in the system qualified in technology. The study by Bennett and his colleagues (1992) showed serious problems of perceived competence and confidence to teach and assess many foundation subjects, especially technology. Evidence about low standards in a number of the subjects, such as history and geography (e.g. DES 1978, DES 1989d), and in activities set in 194

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Table 9.5 National curriculum at Key Stage 2 (September 1992)

art lessons (e.g. Alexander 1992), should not lead us to be sanguine about confidence and competence in the non-core subjects. Thirdly, the infrastructure of support in the LEAs for In-service training that might have helped bridge some of the gap between the task demands and the competencies of the teachers has been eroded (see Keep 1992 for a fuller analysis). Schools were being turned into small businesses, but one characteristic of small businesses is that they are not good at training their employees. Thus, classteachers at Key Stage 2, and especially in the latter two years of it, were facing statutory obligations that they could not meet, even with high levels of commitment and effort, because hardly any individual teacher had the range and depth of knowledge required. In Years 5 and 6 the classteacher’s task of delivering the broad balanced and differentiated curriculum looked impossible. Notional time for the curriculum and actual time at Key Stage 2 A fourth issue is similar to that facing Key Stage 1 teachers: the availability of time for the curriculum as specified. We have said 195

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above that there was little empirical evidence in 1992 about teacher time on the national curriculum at Key Stage 2. This is mainly because the statutory orders did not apply to the full Key Stage at that time, and 1995–6 was the earliest that all the subjects were to apply to all pupils. Our evidence about Key Stage 2, provided in Chapter 4, was not as detailed as that for Key Stage 1 which we have used earlier in this chapter. Nonetheless, it enables us to examine the issue of notional time and available time for the curriculum. The notional times for the curriculum subjects at Key Stage 2, given as guidance to the subject working groups, were as shown in Table 9.6 (see Education, 3 April 1992). Minimum hours per week at Key Stage 2 were assumed to be 23.5 per week. We can compare this table with our evidence about Key Stage 2 teaching in Sample 4 (see Tables 4.2, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7 and 4.9). From these tables we can extract the information to enable us to construct Table 9.7, which is constructed in the same way as 9.2. Apart from the problems mentioned earlier about the percentages in Table 9.3, there are two other problems in making direct comparisons between Table 9.7 and Table 9.2. First, in Table 9.2, technology was separated out from science, and not combined with others as in Table 9.7. Second, subjects other than the core were not disaggregated in our teachers’ records. We therefore have to treat them in a combined form. However, taking column (c) in Table 9.6 Key Stage 2: notional hours and percentages of different subjects

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Table 9.7 Key Stage 2 teaching: time spent in 1991

Sum of individual subjects=28.9 hours

Table 9.7 as the nearest estimate of percentage of time spent (just as we did with the Key Stage 1 analysis in Table 9.2), we can show that about 60 per cent of time was taken up with the core, with another 7 per cent of time taken up with teacher assessment, probably mostly focused on the core. This leaves some 34 per cent for all other subjects, almost identical to the amount we showed to be available for the non-core subjects (excluding technology) at Key Stage 1. Thirty-four per cent of 23.5 hours is eight hours per week. This is 3.2 hours less than the notional time of 11.2 hours per week. Even if we take the recorded figure (9.8 hours), i.e. the maximum possible time given, in column (a) of Table 9.7, there was a shortfall of 1.4 hours per week. However, the above figures ignore evaporated time, which we estimate at 1.7 hours per week (see Table 6.2), after allowing an hour a week for registration and assuming all supervision occurs outside teaching time. Thus the actual shortfall is either (3.2+1.7)=4.9 hours per week, if we assume that the figures in column (c) are the best basis, or 3.1 hours, if we assume that the figures in column (a) are the best basis. Therefore, if anything, the gap between notional time and actual time available at Key Stage 2 is likely to be greater than at Key Stage 1, on our calculations. 197

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SOME POLICY OPTIONS FOR IMPROVED CURRICULUM MANAGEABILITY In this section, written as the Secretary of State announced a review of the curriculum (Patten 1993), we shall briefly outline and comment on some policy options for making the national curriculum manageable. However, we stress that the only aspect of manageability we are dealing with, as the focus of our research has been, is with teacher time. Problems of subject expertise and the quality of learning, amongst other issues, remain unresolved. A preliminary point is that the curriculum cannot become manageable simply by getting a better match of time available and time required. It can only become manageable in a framework where resources, especially staffing levels in the schools, enable the teachers to do their work without recourse to unreasonably long term-time hours. The prerequisite for curriculum manageability is increased staffing—both teachers and nonteaching assistants—to provide adequate non-contact time in the school day, and to reduce the size of the larger classes. Within such a resource framework, six possible solutions can be envisaged to match curriculum time available to time required. These are: 1 Lengthen the school day or the school year, and leave the statutory orders as they stand. 2 Abandon the nine subject plus RE model and the statutory orders and invent a new, more manageable model. This is proposed in the advice to the Secretary of State (NCC 1993). 3 Retain the existing model and the existing orders, but identify in the orders for each subject an essential statutory minimum and desirable but non-statutory remainder. 4 Retain the existing model and the existing orders but excise overlap and inessential material and write them all in a standardised format. 5 Retain the existing model and the existing orders, whilst keeping those in the core subjects statutory and rendering nonstatutory those in the non-core subjects. 6 Reduce the number of non-core subjects that are statutory at Key Stage 1.

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Of these, Solutions 1 and 2 are difficult to adopt as national policy. Solution 1 would also be difficult to implement with very young children, and on our analysis would require an extension of about 10 per cent to the teaching day or year. This is equivalent to two hours a week of teaching, or the equivalent of 3.2 weeks extra directed time per year. In addition, as we have shown, it would assume, on a teaching:preparation ratio of 1:0.8, a further 1.6 hours per week, or the equivalent of 1.8 weeks of directed time per year. Besides adding to the overall workload, its effect on teacher morale would be counter-productive. We have shown that teachers work for considerable amounts of time in their breaks and that they work well beyond the hours that they consider reasonable. To increase formal teaching time would almost certainly result in reduced voluntary involvement and thus damage the policy implementation which the time increase was designed to help. It would also assume, wrongly in our view, that there was nothing arbitrary about the content of the statutory orders; that the problem lay in the length of the school day, not the length of the curriculum. Most importantly it would ignore the contradiction in overall policy between the drive for a broad curriculum and the drive for testing and publishing results in only the three core subjects. The latter would mean that any extra time would almost certainly be devoted to the core subjects, which already occupy ‘too much’ of the timetabled time, as we show in Chapter 4. (See Campbell 1993 for a fuller discussion.) Solution 2 would damage morale also since it would be interpreted as meaning that the hard work and energy expended over a three-year implementation period had been largely wasted. It would probably be seen as ‘going back to the drawing board’, and would run the risk, however ideal a new model might be, of losing teachers’ commitment and lacking credibility. If the first model was impracticable, what guarantee could be given with confidence to teachers that the next model would be better? Solutions 3 and 4 have the advantage of acknowledging the problem facing the teachers, whilst attempting to retain the current conception of the broad and balanced curriculum. They would also build upon the existing experience of the teachers. There would, however, be some anxiety that Solution 3 would leave too many subjects having minimalist treatment; whilst Solution 4 might not lead to enough ‘loss’ of curriculum time. 199

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Solution 5 would run the risk of unbalancing the curriculum even more in favour of the core subjects, though if all subjects had to be taught to some extent, it would provide some protection against going too far back to basics. It could allow schools to choose which element within the non-core subjects they taught. Solution 6 would alter the notion of ‘breadth and balance’ and would waste some of the work already put in. To be effective, more than one subject, or a subject that occupies at least 10 per cent of the time, would have to be dropped. The least damaging subject from this point of view might be technology. Part of its content, information technology, could be dropped as a separate subject and be included as a skill to be developed across the curriculum (as it is in Northern Ireland). Most of the other objectives could be realised through science and art without increases in time. Our own judgement is that all the above are flawed approaches because they assume that decision-making should occur outside the schools. We think that, on the contrary, the decision-making should occur at school level. A solution to the curriculum dilemma over time should be found, as it will be ultimately, by the schools themselves. What would be required is fairly simple: 1 A five-year moratorium on further changes to the orders, so as to stabilise the curriculum, with official acknowledgement of the problem of overload (as given in NCC 1993 and OFSTED 1993). 2 A five-year developmental period in which schools would be obliged to implement a selection from the existing orders only up to a fixed proportion of the orders (say 80 per cent). 3 Decisions about which 80 per cent should be implemented in each school would be a matter for the schools and the governing bodies. 4 Control to ensure priority in the teaching of reading and number would be exercised, through the choice of targets to be tested by SATs. 5 Evaluation over the five-year period to monitor the degree of variation between schools, consistency in the curriculum implemented in schools, and the impact on standards. 200

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6 At the end of the five years, a slimmed-down version of the national curriculum for primary schools, which might incorporate optional elements, could be produced, based on what the schools have actually chosen and managed to implement. This proposal, which does not presuppose one right solution for all schools, might not be perfect, but it would transfer some real responsibility to the schools for their own curriculum, and would enable them to create the solutions to the problems put upon them. Their solutions are more likely to be manageable than those to be created by the officially sponsored revision by another committee in the new government-appointed quango (SCAA). It would also have the considerable merit of palpably indicating that the government really did, as it constantly averred, trust the professionalism of the teachers and the judgement of the governing bodies. ANNEXE 9.1: AN ESTIMATE OF THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN TIME EXPECTED AND TIME AVAILABLE FOR THE WHOLE CURRICULUM AT KEY STAGE 1 The following calculations are based on the notional time expectations in Table 9.3 (p. 187) and on two assumptions raised in the text, namely that ‘evaporated time’ is typically 1.75 hours per week and other teaching takes 1.1 hours only. 1 Weekly time available to pupils for the whole curriculum

=21.00 hrs.

2 Time taken up by: (a) Core subjects+technology =11.00 hrs. (b) Evaporated time =1.75 hrs. (c) Other teaching =1.10 hrs. Sum of 2 (a), (b) and (c)

=13.85 hrs.

3 Time available for non-core subjects (excluding technology) and RE is equal to weekly time less time on 2 (a), (b) and (c)=21.00–13.85 hrs. =7.15 hrs. 4 Notional time expectations for: (a) History and geography

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=2.1×2=4.2 hrs.

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(b) Art (c) Music, PE and RE Sum of 4 (a), (b) and (c)

=1.6×1=1.6 hrs. =1.1×3=3.3 hrs. =9.10 hrs.

Thus, time expected for non-core subjects (excluding technology) and RE exceeds the time available for them by about 2 hours.

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10 PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHING UNDER IMPOSED CHANGE Some contributions to theorising

INTRODUCTION We have been studying the work of primary teachers in England and Wales as they responded to a specific set of changes imposed upon them by some of the provisions of the Education Reform Act 1988. In particular, we have been examining the effect of the imposition of the national curriculum and RE upon their work. ‘Imposed’ change in education is a problematic idea; all educational provision in the maintained sector is essentially imposed, in the sense that it is legislated for, and logically, therefore, all changes in provision are ipso facto imposed. However, the changes to the primary school curriculum after 1988 were imposed in one particular sense. Curriculum change before 1988 had been piecemeal and voluntary; it had depended upon the initiative of individual teachers, schools or local education authorities. These individual initiatives could draw upon development projects from major agencies such as the Schools Council or the Nuffield Foundation, but such projects had no power at the implementation stage and no right of access to the processes of teacher training at either the initial or in-service stages. Although this arrangement was superficially democratic, in that it was based on assumptions of teacher and school autonomy in curriculum decision-making, it was ineffective in bringing about general curriculum change (see Steadman, Parsons and Salter 1978, Salter and Tapper 1981, Campbell 1985). After 1988 curriculum change was, for all practical 203

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purposes, universal and statutory, focused upon the delivery in every school of the national curriculum and RE. For the first time since 1944, the primary teacher’s autonomy in curriculum matters had been constrained by law. The constraint resided in the four components of the concept of curriculum embodied in the 1988 Education Reform Act, namely programmes of study; attainment targets divided into hierarchically structured criteria, called statements of attainment; assessment arrangements; and the nine-subject plus RE framework. The four components were established in law through statutory orders providing the enforce-able prescriptions by which teachers’ work on the curriculum was controlled. TEN CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIMARY TEACHERS’ WORK In the above context, the evidence about primary teachers’ work in this book can bear the following ten interpretations, using the data on all Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 teachers combined. 1 Despite the absence of an established baseline, teachers’ workload had increased substantially to the stage where a 50-hour term-time working week had become the norm. 2 The patterning of teachers’ time had been restructured, with time spent out of contact with pupils (55 per cent) being greater than time spent in contact with them (45 per cent). Teaching, strictly defined, took about a third of working time and about 85 per cent of the minimum time notionally available for teaching in the week (21 hours and 23.5 hours at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 respectively). 3 The accumulation of responsibilities and salary incentives did not substantially affect the amount of time spent on work (though it might affect the nature of the work itself). The main influence on the amount of time spent was the personal sense of ‘conscientiousness’ (see Chapter 3). 4 Teachers were spending substantial amounts of time on teaching the core and other foundation subjects of the national curriculum, and on assessing children’s progress. Despite difficulties inherent in the collective weight of the orders (see Chapter 9) they were attempting to deliver and 204

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assess the statutory curriculum. There was no evidence of refusal to deliver. 5 A substantial minority of teachers’ time, about 10 per cent of the working week, was spent on low-level activities which could, in principle, be carried out by para-professionals or voluntary help. 6 Time spent on teaching in relation to preparing could be typically expressed as a ratio of one hour teaching:0.9 hours preparation, though it should be remembered that the latter included marking and recording results, as well as planning lessons and organising resources. 7 Much of teachers’ time was spent intensively, in ‘simultaneous working’, because they carried out two or more activities at the same time. This is true for work overall, where the ‘115 per cent workload’ is shown in the final column in Table 3.3 in Chapter 3; and especially for teaching, where the ‘200 per cent curriculum’ is shown in Table 4.3 in Chapter 4. 8 Work carried over into break-times, with up to 40 per cent of break-times being used for work. 9 Although primary teaching was relatively isolated from other adults, with 50 per cent of teachers having no time with another teacher in their class, some aspects of teachers’ work overall involved professional collaboration. About 60 per cent of teachers worked for some time in the week with a paid teaching assistant in the class, and over four hours a week were spent in meetings, non-pupil days, inter-school liaison and In-service training, all in the company of, and interacting professionally with, teacher colleagues. 10 A substantial proportion (24 per cent) of teachers’ work was invisible to the public, carried out at home in the evenings and at weekends. As we have shown in Table 3.5 in Chapter 3, teachers spent just over 40 hours a week at school but, in addition, over 12 hours a week was spent on work off school premises, of which over five hours was spent at weekends. The detailed data that made up this overall picture have been provided in previous chapters and enable us to comment upon some particular theories about teachers’ work. These are the related theories of ‘intensification’ and ‘de-professionalisation’ or ‘de-skilling’. 205

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‘Intensification’ refers to the pressure on teachers to do more work than previously, in the same time—to improve productivity; ‘de-skilling/de-professionalisation’ refers to the pressure on teachers to implement the ideas of others, whereas previously they generated the ideas that they implemented. In commenting on them, we are simply intending to show where our evidence supports theory or appears to contradict it. We do not attempt a full-scale critique of the theories themselves, which would need fuller treatment than is available here. INTENSIFICATION OF TEACHERS’ WORK The ‘intensification’ thesis is traceable to the ideas of an American sociologist (Larson 1980) who argued that professional non-manual workers— ‘educated labour’, as he called them— experienced, under late-twentieth-century capitalism, increased pressure for productivity and efficiency in their work. This had resulted in reduced collegial relations, less time for relaxation in official breaks, and deterioration in the quality of the service they provided, as corners were cut. The thesis was applied to the position of teachers by Apple (1986) in a neo-Marxist analysis published as Teachers and Texts. Apple argued that intensification ‘represents one of the most tangible ways in which the work privileges of educational workers are eroded’. It ranged from the apparently trivial—not being allowed a coffee break— to having a ‘total absence of time to keep up with one’s field’, and the ‘chronic sense of work overload’. In education, according to Apple, the process was especially clear in schools dominated by ‘behaviourally pre-specified curricula, repeated testing, and strict and reductive accountability systems’. In particular, Apple cited one school where teachers spent increasingly large amounts of time in setting and marking test material, administration of the material and implementing prespecified curriculum activities. Under auricular systems like this, ‘getting done’ (i.e. getting through all the work) replaced quality teaching in the teachers’ objectives. In an extension to the argument (Apple and Jungck 1991), Apple argued, on the basis of a study of two elementary teachers who had introduced a computer-based mathematics programme in their classes, that the elementary teachers had less time for the affective aspects of their relationships with the pupils, because of time spent on assessment and bureaucratic tasks. 206

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Where teacher resistance to the intensification of their work occurred, it took the form of subverting some of the curricular objectives, or deliberately finding time in the day for less pressurised activities. Nonetheless, in order to deliver the curriculum, the teachers had to acquire new technical and managerial skills, and tended to see this as increased professionalism. Moreover, because of their tendency, voluntarily, to take on more work than was contractually necessary, teachers seemed to be colluding in their own intensification. Linking his argument to analyses of class and gender relations, Apple rejected the teachers’ perceptions of their own increased professionalism, saying that they ‘mis-recognised’ the intensification process and its inevitable de-skilling. In effect, he took the view that the teachers were guilty of operating on a false consciousness. The intensification thesis was taken up with varying degrees of critical scepticism by English writers (Lee 1987, Ozga 1987, Lawn and Grace 1987) who emphasised the ‘de-professionalisation’ and ‘proletarianisation’ of teachers. It seemed particularly applicable to the politics of education after 1988, since the curriculum and assessment reforms obviously required teachers to implement a curriculum invented by others and imposed upon all maintained sector schools. There are three great difficulties in attempting to test the intensification thesis as applied to education by Apple. The first is an historical one. It is not self-evident that contemporary primary teachers’ work has been intensified compared to, say, teachers in the early part of the twentieth century, where typically they had very large class groups and skill levels not associated with professional status. Furthermore, in the United States in the first 20 years of this century, pressures to improve productivity at the expense of quality—very similar to those operating now— were put upon teachers (see Callahan 1962 and the discussion of his work in Chapter 8 above). In this country, before 1926, teachers operated under regulations that gave little professional autonomy to teachers in curriculum matters. If intensification means that teachers are doing more work in the same time frame, or that they are required more to implement others’ curriculum and create their own less, a fundamental question, unanswered by Apple, is: ‘More than when?’ Second, the conflation of the concept of intensification with that of de-skilling makes it difficult to envisage a workplace 207

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culture where one might occur without the other. Yet this is exactly what Osborn and Broadfoot (1991) and we ourselves (Campbell et al. 1991) reported, with teachers clearly feeling both intensification of their work and the simultaneous enhancement of their professional skills. Acker’s work (1987, 1992) supports this interpretation. The third problem is the assumed correspondence in Larson’s analysis, though not necessarily Apple’s, between intensification and late-twentieth-century capitalist economies. Unfortu-nately, in the last decade of the century there were, even including China, so few non-capitalist economies left that it would be difficult to find appropriate bases for cross-cultural comparison. Nonetheless, cross-cultural analyses of teachers’ work (ILO 1981, 1991) stress the close resemblances in teachers’ work, rather than differences according to political economy. ILO (1981) pointed out the tendency to under-estimate teacher workloads and intensity in both developing and industrialised countries. Sweden, which has had one of the most socialist/ welfareoriented economies in the industrialised world, is cited (1991, p. 84) as an example by ILO of increasing intensification as teachers take on more moral and social responsibilities, previously held by families, communities and churches. And the highest number of specified hours per week (42.5) in industrialised countries (in 1988) was for the then-communist Czechoslovakia, followed by the strongly capitalist Singapore (ILO 1991, Table X, p. 85). The study by Paine (1990) of Chinese teachers’ conceptions of time between 1982 and 1987 reported that teachers serving as banzhuren (class advisers) worked long hours, ‘often going from 6.00.am. to after 5.00.pm.’, that teachers worked a six-day week, and that ‘many teachers suffer from exhaustion, fatigue and depression’. Although, as has been said, comparisons are difficult, given that the ILO data relied on secondary sources, the superficial picture does not suggest that a greater intensification is distinctly associated with capitalist economies. The thesis also runs into the difficulty that studies show that basic and actual hours of work of both manual and non-manual workers have steadily decreased over the century, and that the emerging model in a ‘post-Fordist’ occupational culture was for both educated and less educated labour to negotiate and control their hours of work more flexibly to suit their individual needs 208

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(see Hewitt 1993, Price and Bain 1988, New Earnings Survey 1991, Marsh 1991). The Apple thesis was tested against specific empirical realities by Hargreaves (1991) and Acker (1990 and 1992). Both writers found Apple’s treatment of teachers’ perceptions as ‘misrecognition’, ‘demeaning’ to the teachers and ‘churlish’, with Acker (1990) simply stating that, for her primary teachers, introducing the national curriculum had not led to de-skilling as they saw it, ‘Their enhanced skill feels real to them and looks real to me’ (p. 270). The evidence from Evans et al. (1994) supports Acker’s view strongly, but we think a more important logical point needs to be made about Apple’s treatment of the teachers’ views. If any view from the world of classrooms, contradicting the general intensification thesis, is to be seen as simply derived from false consciousness, the thesis itself cannot be subject to falsification, and therefore ceases to be interesting to researchers. In a sustained critical analysis of the intensification thesis, Hargreaves (1991) drew out what he described as the ‘propositions within the intensification thesis’ as a starting point for subjecting the thesis to the empirical realities of an investigation he had conducted into the use of contextually negotiated ‘preparation time’ guaranteed to elementary teachers in most of Ontario’s school boards. The teachers had gone on strike in 1987 in support of a claim for 180 minutes per week of preparation time. By 1991 they had a guaranteed minimum of 120 minutes’ preparation time per week, and the way they used this time was the focus of Hargreaves’s investigation. In particular, the impact of such guaranteed provision of time upon the individualistic culture of primary schools, and the extent to which it supported collaboration and a more collaborative culture was of particular interest to Hargreaves. The investigation used interviews with 12 principals and 28 teachers in 12 schools in two school boards. The eight propositions Hargreaves elicited were as follows: 1 Intensification leads to reduced time for relaxation. 2 Intensification leads to lack of time to keep up with one’s field. 3 Intensification reduces opportunities for interaction with colleagues. 4 Intensification creates chronic work overload that fosters dependency on outside experts. 209

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5 Intensification reduces the quality of service by encouraging cutting of corners. 6 Intensification leads to diversification of responsibility and, with it, heightened dependency on experts. 7 Intensification creates and reinforces scarcities of preparation time. 8 Intensification is voluntarily supported by many teachers and misrecognised as professionalism. This reformulation by Hargreaves is a considerable advance for the purposes of empirical testing of intensification thesis as it was formulated by Apple. Nonetheless, there are problems with it. Propositions 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 are all, in effect, dual propositions in which there is no logical or necessary connection between the first and second parts. For example, in respect of the fourth proposition, you could have chronic workload without dependency on outside experts. Likewise, in the fifth proposition, cutting corners might not lead to reduced quality of service. Moreover, some key ambiguities remain in the British policy context from the mid-1980s onwards. What meanings are to be attached to ‘keeping up with one’s field’ in a period that has seen the development of increased earmarked funding for In-service training of teachers, but only for the realisation of central government’s objectives? The ‘field’ has been redefined for primary teachers and, paradoxically from the point of view of the second proposition, part of the increase in workload is attributable to a frantic scurrying to understand and keep up with it. The time available, in the sense of funded In-service training time with supply cover to replace teaching time, to keep up with the newly-defined field has increased, and may be seen as contributing to intensification of work, not being hindered by it. Equally, what counts as ‘dependency on outside experts’ for British primary teachers in a period where they have had fewer opportunities to be dependent for accreditation upon higher education institutions? With some financial autonomy to buy Inservice training according to the schools’ definitions of their needs, and a statutory framework of five non-pupil days in which most professional development has been designed by the school staff, there is no prima facie case for assuming an increase in dependency on outside experts. On the contrary, for most schools the activities of the non-pupil days are defined by the school 210

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teachers, often according to a development plan negotiated in staff meetings and led by members of the school staff. The evidence in this book relates in the main to the first three propositions, since they are primarily concerned with the use of teachers’ time. (In addition, the evidence in Evans et al. (1994) relates to the element of ‘chronic work overload’ in the fourth proposition.) All three suffer (the first and third explicitly, the second by implication) from the lack of an historical baseline, as mentioned earlier and acknowledged by Hargreaves. Secondly, although it is not entirely clear, it seems from Apple’s work that the relaxation and interaction with colleagues refers only to time in the school day, not outside it—a rather narrow way of conceiving the issue. With these reservations in mind, we may draw upon our evidence. First, the time for relaxation in the school day may be examined by the use of time during official breaks and non-contact time. For our teachers, the former includes the time allocated for morning coffee break (typically some 15 to 20 minutes), lunchtime (typically some 60 to 75 minutes) and, where it occurred, afternoon break (similar to the morning coffee break). As we have shown in Chapter 6, our teachers had, in total, a little over three hours a week in breaks free of work. In respect of non-contact time, although formally allocated an average of just over 30 minutes a week, almost none of it was used for relaxation (see Table 6.2 in Chapter 6). Whether these two pieces of empirical evidence show reduced relaxation time in the school day, against some unspecified baseline in the past, is uncertain, but they do support the underlying argument of the first of Hargreaves’s reformulations about intensification, since they show that our teachers enjoyed much less time in the school day for relaxation than the amount they were officially allocated, and in relation to breaks to which they were statutorily entitled. The evidence about time to keep up with one’s field comprises, in our study, time spent on professional development, which included time on courses, conferences, etc., travel to them, meetings, including staff meetings, and non-pupil days. There are difficulties in deciding how much of this time should count as contributing to professional development and thus helping teachers keep up with their field, as we show in Chapter 5. If we take the minimum time, i.e. courses, conferences, travel to them and non-pupil days, the amount of time per week was just 211

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over two hours, or 4 per cent of teachers’ working week. If we take the maximum time of just over seven hours per week, the proportion rises to 13 per cent of the teachers’ working week. There are two conclusions about this evidence. First, compared to time spent on professional development by teachers in Hilsum and Cane’s (1971) study, even the minimum time spent by our teachers shows an increase. This is to be expected given the earmarking of In-service training grants in the late 1980s, compared to their absence in the 1960s/1970s, but in any case does not support the aspect of the intensification thesis embodied in Hargreaves’s second proposition. Second, and in contrast, our overall evidence shows teachers working over 55 hours a week in term-time. This is an increase of about ten hours over Hilsum and Cane’s teachers which, by definition, eats into teachers’ own time and therefore reduces the time available for reading, course participation and for following courses leading to further qualifications. In this sense, the intensification thesis would be supported. That the same aspect of the thesis can be both not supported and supported by the same evidence is perhaps an indication of the vagueness of its original formulation. The third proposition is in many ways the most interesting issue, since a change in the primary school culture may be involved. This is the idea that, contrary to the intensification thesis, a shift from an individualistic to a more collaborative culture has been occurring in primary schools (see Nias et al. 1989), though the strength of the former is not to be under-estimated (Hargreaves 1986). An individualistic ideology has had a long tradition in primary teaching both in England (e.g. Alexander 1984) and in the United States (see Lortie 1969). It has become common to refer to the shift as a move to ‘collegiality’ (see Campbell 1985, House of Commons 1986, Southworth 1987, Nias et al. 1989, Acker 1992), though the usage and meaning of the concept varies and the empirical studies have all used small numbers of case examples. There is some evidence from HMI (DES 1991c, DFE 1992, OFSTED 1993) and the National Curriculum Council (NCC 1992, 1993) that the requirement to deliver the national curriculum pushed primary teachers into more collaborative planning and assessment within a wholeschool perspective. Added to this, the requirement to produce School Development Plans, to engage in ‘agreement trials’ for assessment purposes, and 212

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the encouragement for curriculum co-ordinators to work through the school to develop their subject in co-operation with their classteacher colleagues increased the pressure towards collegiality and were thus a powerful set of forces on primary school culture. Our evidence reflects this view. The teachers spent 6.2 hours per week—11 per cent of their week—working in contact with other adults, though whether this led to authentic collaboration or ‘contrived collegiality’ (Hargreaves 1991) was unclear. Nonetheless, this was a larger amount of time absolutely, and as a proportion of the working week, spent in the company of colleagues, than was true of Hilsum and Cane’s teachers in 1971. Taken together with the evidence quoted above, our data suggest very strongly that our teachers were spending more time, not less, interacting professionally with colleagues than was the case 20 years ago. In this sense, it is extremely difficult to give credence to the aspect of the intensification thesis asserting that intensification led to reduced interaction with colleagues. Theories stressing ‘de-skilling’ or ‘proletarianisation’ (Ozga 1987, Ozga and Lawn 1981) are easier to test empirically. They propose that under imposed change teachers lose ‘ownership’ of their profession and experience a loss of professional skills because they are required to implement the ideas of others, instead of innovating for themselves. Our quantitative data render highly unlikely, again at the surface level only, these propositions about de-skilling. Our teachers were developing skills in assessment that had been previously, to put it kindly, a ‘primitive technology’ (DFE 1992) and were planning and delivering science (and possibly technology) in ways that were lacking previously (see DES 1978, 1987, 1988). When we interviewed the teachers in Sample 2, they confirmed that their professional skills had been enhanced by having had to implement the national curriculum. We discuss this further in Evans et al. (1994) but, like Acker (1992), we found their views both authentic and convincing. Thus we conclude that the intensification thesis in its highly generalised formulation by Apple and others is not only difficult to test empirically, perhaps because it is ultimately tautological, but also when broken down into discrete elements, some of its aspects are supported whilst others are not. The ‘de-skilling’ version of intensification looks implausible as a way of interpreting what happened to British primary teachers under the imposed change 213

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of the 1988 Education Reform Act. Here, as elsewhere perhaps, we may need a more cautious approach to theorising, based on more broadly based observations of reality, to more accurately understand the process of schooling and to respect both its complexity and the perceptions of those engaged in it.

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11 THE DILEMMA OF TEACHER CONSCIENTIOUSNESS

We have shown in Part I of this book the pervasive influence of teachers’ sense of ‘conscientiousness’ upon their working hours. We measured ‘conscientiousness’ by teachers’ response to one (rather lengthily expressed) item on the questionnaire. The item (Item 21P5), which included a near-verbatim quotation from the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document, defining non-directed time, read: It has been assumed that, in order to perform their professional duties during the school day (i.e. teaching, supervision, assembly, registration, staff meetings and other ‘directed’ time) teachers will need to spend an unspecified amount of time preparing for such duties in their own ‘non-directed’ time. As a general rule, and excluding holidays, how many hours a week do you think it is reasonable for you to be expected to spend in nondirected time (i.e. mainly planning, record-keeping, reportwriting, organising resources, keeping up-to-date, and all INSET)? The teachers had to respond by indicating the amount of time they thought was reasonable, choosing from five-hour ranges spreading from ‘None’ to ‘Over 30 hours’. As can be seen from Table 11.1, the responses ranged from 1–5 hours, to 21–25 hours, with the majority of teachers (89 per cent) answering either 1– 5, 6–10 or 11–15 hours. Taking the mid-point of each range, the average reasonable expectation for non-directed time for Samples 2, 3 and 4 combined was 9.9 hours. 215

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Table 11.1 Reasonable hours for non-directed time

For Samples 1, 2, 3 and 4 separately, the average figures were 8.9, 8.0, 8.8 and 10.2 respectively. Accepting both the range and the minor differences in averages, we can conclude that the teachers, in general, thought it was reasonable for them to be expected to work about ten hours in their ‘own’ time during the term-time weeks, which, added to the 33 hours of directed time, gave a term-time working week of 43 hours. With any work carried out in vacations ignored, this would give annual hours of 43 hours × 38 weeks plus one week of non-pupil days at 30 hours=1,664 hours annually. Assuming vacations and public holidays amount to six weeks a year, this is equivalent to a 36hour working week spread across 46 weeks of the year, and would approximate to the typical pattern of a basic 37-hour working week for non-manual workers nationally (see IDS 1992). As we have shown in Chapter 3, the actual hours worked by the teachers were some ten hours per week (and some 400 hours per year) more than the teachers considered reasonable. For every hour of directed time the teachers worked 0.64 hours (nearly 40 minutes) in their own ‘non-directed’ time. We have labelled teachers’ responses to Item 21P5 on the questionnaire as ‘conscientiousness’ for two reasons: we wanted to signify something of the vocational motivation—of the personal and moral sense of obligation—represented by their answers; and we wanted a term that could embody not only the virtue of vocational motivation but also the idea that teachers could spend too much of their own time on work, as might be implied by the use of the term ‘over-conscientiousness’, or ‘conscientious to a 216

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fault’. For this reason, ‘conscientiousness’, as we use it here, is intended to imply not so much value approval as value ambivalence. In using the term, for this item only, we have deliberately deviated from our decision, referred to in Chapter 1, to use morally neutral terminology. This is because we came to believe, especially after interviewing the teachers (see Evans et al. 1994), that the item actually represented a moral (or at the very least, personal) dimension to teacher motivation. The interviews revealed that a moral sense of obligation to do the best they could for their pupils was both a highly significant reason given by teachers for working long hours, and also seen as a cause of stress and conflict in their personal lives. THE INFLUENCE OF CONSCIENTIOUSNESS UPON TEACHERS’ WORK In previous chapters we have described the relationship between different aspects of work (e.g. preparation) and conscientiousness. Here we summarise the influence of conscientiousness through the overall patterns revealed in the multiple regression analyses for Sample 4, and for Key Stage 1 and 2 separately. For Sample 4 as a whole, conscientiousness was positively associated (linear trend) with the time spent on a number of aspects of work. They were as follows, and are for time spent on all days unless otherwise stated: Total time on work on school premises Preparation and professional development combined on school premises Teaching simultaneously with any other category of activity Administration simultaneously with any other category on school premises Teaching subjects simultaneously Marking on weekdays Professional development on school premises Professional meetings Professional meetings on weekdays Professional meetings on school premises

(p<.01) (p<.01) (p<.05) (p<.05) (p<.01) (p<.05) (p<.01) (p<.01) (p<.05) (p<.01)

For Key Stage 1 teachers in Sample 4, conscientiousness was positively associated with time spent on the following aspects of work. They are for all days, unless stated otherwise: 217

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Total time on work on weekdays Total time on work on school premises Preparation and professional development combined on school premises Administration simultaneously with any other category off school premises Teaching non-core subjects Working breaks Professional development Professional development on weekdays Professional development on school premises Professional meetings Professional meetings on school premises

(p<.01) (p<.05) (p<.05) (p<.01) (p<.01) (p<.05) (p<.05) (p<.01) (p<.001) (p<.05) (p<.01)

For Key Stage 2 teachers in Sample 4, conscientiousness was positively associated with time spent on the following aspects of work. They are for all days, unless stated otherwise: Preparation and professional development combined on school premises Teaching simultaneously with any other category Teaching subjects simultaneously All teaching Teaching mathematics Teacher assessment Preparation on school premises Marking on weekdays Lesson planning on school premises Marking on school premises Working breaks Travel to In-service courses/conferences Travel to In-service courses/conferences on weekdays Professional meetings Professional meetings on weekdays Professional meetings on school premises

(p<.01) (p<.05) (p<.01) (p<.01) (p<.05) (p<.05) (p<.05) (p<.01) (p<.05) (p<.01) (p<.05) (p<.01) (p<.01) (p<.05) (p<.05) (p<.05)

It can be seen from the above summary how pervasive an influence on teachers’ working time across the school year the factor of conscientiousness turned out to be. It affected some dimension of the total time they spent on work and on preparation and professional development combined; it affected the extent of simultaneous working, and aspects of teaching and preparation. In particular it affected the amounts of time spent on aspects of professional development, especially professional 218

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meetings. It was also of particular interest to note that, for both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, teachers’ high levels of conscientiousness went with longer times spent working in official breaks. However, a further dimension of conscientiousness was revealed in Samples 1 and 2. The data above refer to Sample 4, which were gathered across a whole year. In this sense they differed from the data in Samples 1 and 2, which were gathered during the national curriculum assessment and testing period. Conscientiousness for these teachers during this period was associated with total time on work (on and off school premises combined, and weekdays and weekends combined), with preparation, especially marking and recording results, and with professional reading. Levels of statistical significance for these associations were generally higher than for comparable teachers in Sample 4, and we interpret the difference between Sample 4 and Samples 1 and 2 as meaning that conscientiousness was a general factor in teachers’ working hours, but came into play most powerfully when teachers were put under pressure during their attempts to implement the government’s policy on assessment and testing towards the end of the Key Stage. A final point about conscientiousness is derived from the correlation analyses of the questionnaire items for Sample 4. These show that conscientiousness was positively and strongly associated with age and years of experience, both for the whole sample (p<.01 for both) and for the Key Stage 1 teachers (p<.01 for both), though not for Key Stage 2 teachers. The association with age was slightly stronger than with experience for all teachers, and for Key Stage 1 teachers only. The correlation with age/experience can be interpreted in two ways. Either conscientiousness is rewarded and reinforced by long exposure to the occupational culture of schools, especially at Key Stage 1 level, or the recent training or life-style or the stage of life history of younger teachers encourages reduced commitment to working in their ‘own’ time. This issue deserves further research, but the explanations are not mutually exclusive. If the latter is true, there is a possibility that as the current older teachers leave the profession, it will become less ‘conscientious’.

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THE PROBLEM WITH CONSCIENTIOUSNESS We would not wish to detract from the value of teachers’ vocational attachment to work, or from the strong professional identity that primary teachers create from extensive commitment to their pupils’ welfare (Lortie 1969, Nias 1989). English primary teachers’ professional responsibilities are more diffuse than those of their peers in France (Osborn 1985) and include a sense of responsibility not merely for cognitive goals but also for social, emotional and personal well-being. This diffuse responsibility has been encouraged, expected or required in a long train of official and semi-official documents, at least since the 1960s (e.g. CACE 1967, DES 1978) and stretching beyond the legislation of the 1980s (see NCC 1987, White Paper 1992, Chapter 8). These expectations tend to be reinforced by parental pressure (see ILEA 1986), with parents of younger primary pupils especially placing high priority on their being happy at school as well as learning the cognitive skills associated with reading and writing. It is easy to see why such diffuse responsibilities have been laid upon primary teachers. Very young children need to feel secure in their school environments, especially given the fact that international trends show teachers having to take on greater social and emotional responsibilities as the authority of family, Church, law and other community support structures weakens (ILO 1991). Social imperatives drive primary teachers towards an ethic of care. For teachers of very young children, in particular, the establishment and maintenance of warm, caring and diffuse relationships have been seen as prerequisites for the achievement of cognitive goals (David, Curtis and Siraj-Blatchford 1992), though alternative perspectives (e.g. Cox and Dyson 1969, 1970) have seen debased versions of concerns for pupils’ social welfare becoming a substitute for cognitive objectives. There is a tendency to romanticise the caring ethic, and even, in Fullan and Hargreaves (1991), to polarise it against an ethic of responsibility. Yet we would argue that the ethic of care as a central value in primary teachers’ occupational culture contributes to teacher overload. INFLATING EXPECTATIONS As we have shown above, one set of role expectations is that teachers meet the social and emotional needs of their pupils. 220

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Whilst this has been a constant feature of their role in Western countries (see ILO 1991), in England and Wales the recent trends in legislation have added to, or extended, three other elements. The most obvious is that the curriculum requirements have made more public and more stringent expectations for pupils’ cognitive achievement. There has also been the introduction, through the publication of end-of-Key Stage test results, open enrolment policies, and the funding of schools being based largely on pupil numbers, and of a powerful drive to ‘market accountability’ (Troman 1989). Thus the teacher, previously able to insulate him or herself from concerns about whole-school development and to concentrate upon the needs of the pupils in the class (see Alexander 1984, Campbell 1985), now has to take account of the implications of his or her work for the whole school, and especially its market image mediated largely through the reporting of pupil achievement in end-of-year or end-of-stage reporting. Third, we have shown in Chapter 8 that the teacher has typically also to take responsibility as curriculum co-ordinator for an aspect or aspects of the curriculum throughout the school, not just in his or her own class (House of Commons 1986). Managing aspects of the work of other teachers is part of the contractual obligation of all teachers. Thus, the obligations and expectations are now threefold: to pupils’ welfare, to the national curriculum and to colleagues and school. A further factor arises from the fact that most primary teachers are women. Evetts (1990), in her study of women in primary teaching, noted that, ‘Women teachers will have responsibilities in at least two spheres: the public sphere of work and the private sphere of home and family’ (p. 115). She added that the difficulty of fulfilling work and family commitments became ‘particularly acute’ when there were children in the family, but also drew attention to the emerging demographic factor of increasing numbers of dependent elderly relatives whose care often falls disproportionately upon the shoulders of women. In this context it should be noted that, in a study of 3,019 primary and secondary teachers, Varlaam, Nuttall and Walker (1992) found few differences in rank order of factors affecting morale and motivation, but ‘having sufficient time for family and private life’ was more important amongst married teachers than others. (Although there is a sense in which this finding states the 221

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obvious, since married teachers are more likely to have more substantial family commitments than unmarried ones, the fact that it is obvious does not mean that it is not a real force on teachers.) The factors found to be by far the most commonly unsatisfactory (in the teacher’s present post and current circumstances) by Varlaam and his colleagues, were those relating to stress, excessive workloads and paperwork and recordkeeping, inadequate resources, and insufficient time for family and private life. These findings are not surprising, but such dissatisfactions are likely to be particularly salient for the primary teaching force, which is largely female. This interpretation was supported where Varlaam and his colleagues analysed factors considered unsatisfactory by phase (Table 11, p. 17, op. cit.). Their analysis showed more infant and primary teachers than secondary teachers considered ‘having sufficient time for family and private life’ as unsatisfactory/very unsatisfactory in their current job (60 per cent infants, 65 per cent primary, 54 per cent secondary). There is a much higher proportion of women in primary than in secondary teaching, and almost all infant teachers are women. Thus, for the majority of primary teachers, there are the added demands arising from what Sharpe (1984) has called the ‘Double Identity’. (See also Hewitt (1993) for an extended discussion of women’s working hours.) These demands could either become manageable, or be seen clearly as unmanageable, if the role inflation had been limited by contractual bounds. But the demands were being inflated in a contractual framework that was itself—because of the way ‘nondirected’ time was defined—literally without limit. Indeed, part of the definition—‘such additional hours as may be necessary to enable them to discharge effectively their professional duties’ (School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document 1989, para. 36 (1) (f)) —seemed to assume that if professional duties were to be increased, as they had been, the non-directed time would simply have to follow suit. It embodied an open-ended commitment of teachers’ own time to work. Within this context, ‘conscientiousness’, whatever its benefits to the pupils, has acted as a mechanism, actual or potential, for exploitation of teachers. Driven by their sense of obligation to meet all work demands to the best of their ability, the majority of teachers found themselves devoting much longer hours in their 222

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own time to work than they considered reasonable, and attempting to meet too many demands simultaneously in order to achieve government objectives for educational reform. This was despite the fact that some of the demands—for example, those concerning the provision of a broad and balanced curricu-lum— were structurally impossible (see Chapter 9). Others, such as those concerned with Key Stage 1 assessment, were confused and unworkable. There were three dispiriting consequences. The teachers found themselves and their pupils scampering across the curriculum in a superficial way (NCC 1992, OFSTED 1993) in an attempt to cover everything. Second, they found a reduced sense of satisfaction in their work because they rarely managed to obtain a sense of achievement, despite working hard (see Evans et al. 1994). Third, there was evidence (Campbell et al. 1991, Muschamp, Pollard and Sharpe 1992) that Key Stage 1 teachers were hearing children read less frequently than they thought necessary in order to meet all the other curricular objectives. That is to say, they were reducing their own fundamental educational objectives in order to meet governmental ones. They were entrapped by their own conscientiousness. There are three issues raised by the strength of the influence of ‘conscientiousness’ upon teachers’ work. First, even though they were operating within a framework which, from the mid-1980s onwards in Britain, had been gradually constructed so as to impose legally binding, contractually defined duties upon teachers, and which had included the development of systems of appraisal and performance-related pay, the teachers were primarily motivated by a sense of vocation or obligation to their pupils. With the exception of the small number of deputy heads in Sample 4, salary status was not associated statistically with the amount of time spent on work. The occupational culture of the school remained stubbornly at odds with the assumptions of central government’s legislation on working conditions, and especially perhaps for the impact of performance-related pay. The second conclusion is that ‘conscientiousness can damage your health’. Along with social work, teaching was found to be the most stressful of the professional occupations in the Oxford Employment Life survey (Gallie and White 1993). Long hours devoted to work reduced the opportunities for leisure outside schools and relaxation in school (see Chapter 10), and ate into the 223

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personal and domestic lives of our teachers. The average termtime working week of 50-plus hours concealed a small group (10 per cent) of teachers working more than 60 hours a week, a situation most saw as unreasonable. It is unlikely, as Fullan and Hargreaves (1991) argue, that anyone other than the teachers themselves will take steps to reduce work overload, since most of the overload is in the teachers’ own time. The publication of two official reports indicating that the national curriculum was not deliverable or, where it was, depth in learning was sacrificed to superficial coverage (NCC 1993, OFSTED 1993), should give teachers the grounds, permission or excuse for acknowledging that they have been required to attempt to do the impossible, and thus to restrain their inclination to conscientiousness. The third conclusion applies particularly to those charged with managing the schools, which includes managing the teachers. A major function for heads and other managers in the post-ERA period might be to find ways to limit teacher workloads by identifying priorities for their schools, and filtering out demands which make the most conscientious teachers’ workloads unreasonable. Acker claimed (1987) that the mixture of vocationally driven motivation and high workloads amongst elementary school teachers in the United States led to ‘burn-out’, especially amongst women teachers. It might be worth headteachers bearing in mind the point we made at the end of Chapter 1. There is no evidence that very long hours on work lead to better quality of teaching (and there is some evidence, in Evans et al. (1994), that they adversely affect teaching quality). Although we would not wish to be read as arguing against the vocational element in teachers’ motivation, we hope that heads recognise its dangers also.

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APPENDIX I METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS

PRIMARY ANALYSIS—DATA PREPARATION Both questionnaire and diary data were entered on to primary files using a digitising tablet; for the diary data this was supplemented by entering the teachers’ handwritten codes manually, the digitiser giving the time-scale. Questionnaire data were cast directly into SPSSX data file format. The primary files for the diary data consisted of four pairs of rows per day. Each pair of rows covered four or five hour periods; recording started at 7.00 a.m. and finished at 12.00 p.m. One row of each pair covered activities in school, the other out-of-school activities. Within a row, a period of activity was delimited by its start and end times, with two-letter codes indicating the one or more activities occurring. Periods without school activity were left blank. Dates were entered for checking purposes, and an indication given of when a day was a weekend, to allow separate analysis of weekdays and weekends. A critical point in all the diary records is that the recording system required teachers to enter all codes which occurred within a given activity period. We did not request teachers who were teaching several subjects simultaneously to indicate when they switched from a table doing language to one doing number, for example: this would have been too much of a burden. While we discussed the possibility of splitting a session equally between activities (for example, if a teacher spent an hour teaching three subjects, allocating them 20 minutes each in our records) we did not feel we could make such judgements with certainty. Our system therefore more closely resembles the teacher’s timetabled activity, rather than his or her second-to-second activity. This will especially be the case 225

APPENDIX I

during teaching periods when rapid switches between activities are possible. When the teacher is out of contact with children, for example at a meeting or reading, our data show more single activities in which the recorded activity will be a closer approximation to the actual activity. PRIMARY ANALYSIS—DATA TRANSFORMATION The primary analysis program produced a SPSSX data file in which each individual teacher’s questionnaire data were combined with the appropriate data totals from his or her diary, and a matching SPSSX analysis file which combined category names from a master file of SPSSX commands for the questionnaire items and a file of category definitions for the diary items. The latter file was also used to create the data file; it defined the components of simple and composite categories, the latter being categories such as total teaching time. Five matched pairs of files were created, one for each of the main work categories and one for ‘other’ and combined activities, such as total work. These pairs of files could be run immediately under SPSSX. The primary analysis program first checked for coding errors —illicit codes, times, and numbers of rows per day. The duration of each activity was then totalled from the start and end times of each occurrence. Composite categories were of two main types. In most cases the category was scored if any of a given set of activities were occurring in a period (i.e. an ‘OR’ score; any of A OR B OR C). In some cases, such as the category for the total of teaching different subjects, the different activities tended to co-occur, so that the time spent in the composite category might not greatly exceed that for the individual categories. In others, such as ‘Supervision + Registration + Worship’ the individual activities tended to be alternatives, so that the composite category approached the total of the individual categories. In a minority of cases the composite category was scored only if two activities co-occurred (i.e. an ‘AND’ score; only if A AND B coincided). In this case A and B were often ‘OR’ combinations, e.g. the composite category was the co-occurrence of any teaching code and any preparation code. 226

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Where appropriate, separate totals were made for weekdays, weekends, time in and outside school and for combinations of these. SECONDARY ANALYSIS Descriptive statistics, including histograms (though the figures in this book were prepared with Microsoft Chart) and inferential statistics, were calculated using SPSSX. The rationale of the individual analyses is discussed in Chapter 2. Analyses of variance were performed using MEANS with the test of linearity option. Cross-tabulations were performed using CROSSTABS with the chi-square option. Factor analyses were performed using FACTOR, using Varimax rotation. The number of factors to be used was decided with the aid of a scree plot. Multiple regressions were performed using REGRESSION, with forward entry of predictors. A preliminary check to eliminate predictors which were too highly correlated was made with CORRELATION. Wilcoxon tests, and Kruskall-Wallis non-parametric analyses of variance for initial analyses of the smaller samples, were performed using NONPAR TESTS. In this book we have presented parametric analyses of variance for all samples, though some samples are on the small side for this purpose. The two sets of analyses of the same samples gave virtually identical results; where there were differences they related to small groups within the samples, which we discarded in any case, as explained in Chapter 2. INDICATORS OF RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY Self-recording systems, such as that used in this research for ‘recording’ the time data, are not self-evidently reliable, since those involved in the recording do so in conditions that do not allow the collection of interobserver reliability data. Moreover, volunteers may have motives that are different from nonvolunteers; for example, they may wish to exaggerate their workloads for political purposes. (The diary records were submitted anonymously so that personal interest could not be served by exaggerating the workload). Such problems of reliability cannot be completely eradicated in self-recording systems, but some internal checks can be made. 227

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In this study we included three items on the questionnaire that served this purpose. Teachers were asked to say whether the time overall they spent on work in the recorded week was about the same, more or less, than in other weeks in the term, and whether time spent on professional development was about the same, more or less. They were also asked to ‘estimate’ whether their workloads had increased since the same time last year. Where the sub-groupings of the questionnaire answers were large enough to permit analysis, we were able to show statistical differences that suggest strong validity in the responses. Teachers who said that they had spent more time, or about the same time, on Professional Development in the recorded week actually recorded significantly more time than those who said that they had spent less time (p<.01 ANOVA). Likewise, teachers who said they were spending more time in the recorded week than in other weeks of the term actually recorded significantly more time (p<.05 ANOVA) than other teachers; those who said they were working longer hours compared to the same period in the previous year were working longer than other teachers (p<.05 ANOVA). That is to say, overall the figures from the diaries were consistent with the questionnaire answers, even though any individual could not know what the collective picture would be when s/he completed the diary and the questionnaire.

228

APPENDIX II QUESTIONNAIRE

THE USE OF TEACHER TIME IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS TEACHER QUESTIONNAIRE Please complete this questionnaire at the end of the one week recording period. The questionnaire is in two sections—Section 1 asks for factual information, while Section 2 asks for your opinions or perceptions. SECTION 1: Please tick the box to the answer that applies to you or your work. Male £ 21–30 £ Over 60 £

Female £ 31–40 £

1.1 1.2

Sex: Age:

1.3

Including the current year as one full year, how many years’ experience of teaching infants have you had? 1£ 8£

2£ 9£ 21–25£ Over 35 £

1.4

3£ 10 £

4£ 26–30 £

41–50 £

5£ 11–15£

6£

51–60 £

7£ 16–20 £ 31–35 £

Salary Scale: Main Scale £ Incentive Allowance B £ Incentive Allowance D £

Incentive Allowance A £ Incentive Allowance C £ Deputy Headship £

1.4a If you have an incentive allowance, is it: Permanent £

Temporary £ 229

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1.5

School Type: Infant £ First £ Combined 5–12£

1.6

51–100£ 251–300 £

101–150 £ Above 300 £

151–200 £

How many pupils are registered in your class? Below 17 £ 28–30 £

1.8

JMI £

Number of pupils on roll in your school: Below 51 £ 201–250 £

1.7

Junior £ Other £

17–20£ 31–34£

21–24£ Over 34 £

25–27 £

What is the age composition of your class? mainly single-age group £ more than two age groups £

two age groups £

1.8a Have you any children in your class who are in Year 2 of the national curriculum? Yes £

1.9

No £

How much non-contact time per week is officially allocated to you (whether or not you normally have it)? None £ 61–90 mins. £

1–30 mins. £ 91–120 mins. £

31–60 mins. £ Over 120 mins. £

1.10 How much time per week do you spend working alongside a colleague, so that there are two teachers to one class group? None £ 61–90 mins. £

1–30 mins. £ 91–120 mins. £

31–60 mins. £ Over 120 mins. £

1.11 How much time per week, to the nearest hour, do you spend working with at least one paid assistant (i.e. not a teacher) in your class group? None £ 11–15 hrs. £

1–5 hrs. £ 16–21 hrs. £

6–10 hrs. £ Over 21 hrs. £

1.12 Are you responsible for co-ordinating an area, or areas, of the curriculum (whether or not you have an incentive allowance for it)? 230

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Yes £

No £

If YES, please indicate which area or areas you coordinate, with a tick, using the most appropriate name(s) in the following list of subjects. (E.g. if you are responsible for Language or Reading, tick English.) English £ Technology £ Geography £ PE £ Home-school links£

Mathematics £ Science £ Art £ History £ Music £ Topic £ ESL £ Special needs £ Other £

SECTION 2: In this Section please tick the answer that most nearly reflects your opinion. Answer for yourself, not for how you think other teachers would answer. 2.1

The following list identifies six problems in teachers’ working conditions. Which one do you consider is the most serious obstacle for you in implementing the national curriculum and assessment? Tick ONE only please. Poor pay. £ Poorly maintained buildings. £ Low level of learning resources, materials or equipment.£ Lack of time £ Lack of knowledge/information £ Large class size £

2.2

Think of the overall (i.e. in both columns) entry you have made in the Record of Teacher Time concerning the total amount of time spent by you on work in one week. Do you think that the time spent by you in other weeks this term would be: Rather similar £ Considerably less £ Considerably more £ Can’t say/don’t know? £

2.3 Think of the overall time you have entered as spent on INSET activities (in Column B only) in the Record of Teacher Time, using the codes IN, IT, ID, IS and IR. For the term as a whole, do you think that the time spent in these INSET 231

APPENDIX II

activities by you in other weeks this term would be: Rather similar £ Considerably less £ Considerably more £ Can’t say/don’t know? £ 2.4

If you had had an extra teacher allocated to you for the equivalent of one morning per week for the current year (1990–1991) to help you implement the National Curriculum and its assessment, for what purpose would you mainly use her/him? Tick ONE only please: To help with assessment and recording in your class To teach smaller groups in your class more intensively To give yourself non-contact time for preparation To free you to work alongside your colleagues Other (please specify one only below): ..............................................

2.5

It has been assumed that, in order to perform their professional duties during the school day (i.e. teaching, supervision, assembly, registration, staff meetings and other ‘directed’ time), teachers will need to spend an unspecified amount of time preparing for such duties in their own ‘non-directed’ time. As a general rule, and excluding holidays, how many hours a week do you think it is reasonable for you to be expected to spend in nondirected time (i.e. mainly planning, record-keeping, report writing, organising resources, keeping up-to-date, and all INSET)? None £ 11–15 hrs.£ 26–30 hrs.£

2.6

£ £ £ £ £

1–5 hrs. £ 16–20 hrs. £ Over 30 hrs. £

6–10 hrs. £ 21–25 hrs. £

Do you think that, compared to the Spring term 1990, the overall amount of time (i.e. directed and nondirected time combined) you are spending on work this term has: Remained about the same £ Increased £ Decreased £ 232

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Can’t say/don’t know? 2.7

£

Finally, thank you very much for completing this questionnaire, which is, of course, answered anonymously. You will not be able to be identified as a result of completing it. However, it would help the analysis greatly if the LEA for whom you work could be known. Please use this space to fill in the name of your LEA: ..................................................... ..................................................... .....................................................

233

APPENDIX III RECORD OF TEACHER TIME

234

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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243

INDEX

Acker, S. 6, 181, 208, 209, 212, 213, 224 activities, major 9–10, 11; and total time 49–51; see also administration; other activities; preparation; professional development; teaching activity-led staffing 167–8 administration time 100–15, 117, 217; contact time 103–6; definition and scope 11, 100; and management of time 165; overall 101–3; by paraprofessionals 171, 205; total 49– 51, 55, 56; variations 132–5, 143, 151 advisory teams 6 age: of pupils see Key Stages; of teachers 22, 23, 219 Alexander, R., Rose, J. and Woodhead, C.: on administration 110; on collaboration 168; on curriculum 45, 63, 69, 72, 81, 177, 179, 193, 194, 195; on expectations 221; on intensification of work 212; on management of time 160, 168, 169, 170; on National Curriculum 45; on noncontact time 29, 111; on politics 6; on preparation 54; on school size 26

AMMA see Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association analysis 36–9, 43–4; methods 225– 7 annual time: preparation 88–9; total 60; variations 127–38 Apple, M. 206–9, 213 Arnold, F. 164 art see non-core subjects Ashton, P. 69 assembly 51, 55, 107–8; see also registration, transition etc assessment (mainly associated with National Curriculum) 28, 41, 73, 74–6, 171, 204; and conscientiousness 218, 223; and manageability of curriculum time 178–9, 189–90, 193, 201; Teacher Assessment 74–6, 80, 125, 218; and teaching time 69, 78, 79–80; and variations 119, 120, 124, 125, 127, 129–30 Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association 16, 41, 42 assistants and para-professionals 29–30, 33, 171–2, 205 Association of Education Committees Trust 42 Bain, G. 208 Baker days see non-pupil days Barker-Lunn, J. 177 Barrett, E. 110 244

INDEX

Bealing, D. 177 Bell, L. 8, 156, 159 Benavot, A. 73, 78 Bennett, N. 63, 164, 169–70, 177, 179, 188 Black, P. 54 Black Papers (Cox and Dyson, 1969) 68, 220 Blatchford, P. 172 Blease, D. 100 breadth and balance of curriculum time 178, 200 breaks 108–9, working and nonworking 161, 211; total time on 59–60; see also administration time Broadfoot, P. 181, 183, 207 Burstall, C. 27 CACE see Central Advisory Council for Education Callaghan, J. 6 Callahan, R. 160, 207 Campbell, R.J. 16; on conscientiousness 221, 223; on curriculum change 203; on curriculum complexity 73, 81; on curriculum coordination 30; on curriculum manageability 178, 181, 182, 189, 199; on intensification of work 207–8, 212; on management of time 158, 163, 165, 168, 173; on preparation 85; on total time 41, 42; see also Evans Canada 209–10 Cane, B.S. see Hilsum capitalism 208 care ethic 220–1 Cato, V. 6 CCR (curriculum complexity ratio) 72–3, 77, 81 Central Advisory Council for Education 69, 176, 220 characteristics of participating teachers 21–39; analysis 36–9; employing authorities 36; perception of National Curriculum obstacles 30–3;

perceptions of time 33–6; professional biography 22–5; professional contexts 25–6; working conditions 26–30 characteristics of teachers’ work 204–5 China 208 chi-square test 37 class size 26–7, 32–3, 173–4 classroom time concept 168–71 collaborative work and collegiality 29, 30, 168, 169, 171–2, 212–13 commitment to National Curriculum 180, 181–2 comparisons: with other countries 8, 61, 160, 208, 209–10, 212, 220, 224; with other occupations 7– 8, 61–2, 163; see also variations complexity, curriculum 71–4, 77, 81, 193, 205, 217–18 concepts of time 155–61; institutional 155–6, 158–9, 160; in past 159–61; personal 155, 156– 8, 173; see also time Connell, R. 6 conscientiousness 33, 204, 215–24; inflating expectations 221–4; influence on work 217–20; intensification of teachers’ work 206–14; and manageability of National Curriculum 182–3; and management of time 162, 165; and preparation 90–2, 99; problem 221 contact time 9, 51–3, 165, 204; administration 103–6; different from curriculum time 64; see also registration, transition etc; teaching time Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte 45, 54, 161, 181, 194 coordination, curriculum 30–1, 221 Core Subject Association 181, 182, 183 core subjects (English, mathematics and science), time spent on 31, 41, 54, 67–70, 72–3, 76–80, 81–2, 204, 218; and 245

INDEX

manageability of National Curriculum 175, 179, 183–90, 196–8, 201; variations 120, 124, 126, 140 correlations 38 courses and conferences see professional development Cox, C.B. 68, 220 Craig, I. 156 CSA see Core Subject Association curriculum complexity ratio 72–3, 77, 81 curriculum time 9, 51–3, 63–82; broad and balanced 71; coordination 30–1, 221; core subjects 68–9; different subjects 67–8; manageability see manageability of National Curriculum; nature of primary teaching 81; science incorporated 69–70; Teacher Assessment 74–6, 80; variation by Key Stage 76–80; variations between samples 65–7; see also complexity; core subjects; noncore subjects; preparation; teaching Curtis, A. 220 Czechoslovakia 208

data analysis see analysis David, T. 220 Dean J. 156 Department of Education and Science: on curriculum (1991c and 1992) 70, 111, 163, 181, 182, 212; on history and geography (1989d) 195; on length and control of school sessions (1989a) 60, 69, 106, 164; on National Curriculum (1990c, 1989b and 1990b) 45, 70, 73, 75, 85, 163, 179, 181, 182; on primary education generally (1978, 1985b, 1989 and 1990) 69, 70, 177, 178, 179, 182, 184, 187, 191, 192, 195, 213, 220; on staffing (1987) 69, 70, 195, 213; on standards (1990a) 69, 70, 182;

statistics (1991b) 26, 193; see also Task Group Department of for Education (DFE) 212, 213 de-professionalisation and deskilling 205, 207–8, 213–14 deputy heads 150–1 DES see Department of Education and Science Desforges, C. 169, 179 Development Plans, School 174, 212–13 Dewhurst, J. 172 diary data see Record of Teacher Time differences see comparisons; variations ‘directed time’ 3, 162; total 57–8, 60; see also administration; teaching displays 55, 109–10; see also administration time Dunham, J. 6 Dunne, E. 179 Duthie, J.H. 172 Dyson, A.E. 68, 220 Education Act (1944) 68, 107 Education Act (1981) 6 Education Reform Act (1988) 5, 7, 44, 71, 178, 203–4; and intensification of work 214; and management of time 161, 162, 166, 167, 174; and science 69; see also assessment; National Curriculum ENCA (Evaluation of National Curriculum Assessment) 125 English see core subjects entitlement concept 178 Equal Opportunities Commission 45 Erickson, F. 157 Etzioni, A. 3 Europe 8, 61, 220 Evans, L. (with Packwood, Neill and Campbell): on class size 33; on conscientiousness 217, 224; 246

INDEX

on curriculum complexity 73–4; on intensification of work 209, 211, 213; on management of time 161, 163, 166, 170–1; on meanings of long hours 19; on National Curriculum 45, 183, 193; on personal lives 8; on preparation 53; on professional development 96; on total time 45, 46; on variations in working patterns 122–3 evaporated time 106, 190–4, 201 Evetts, J. 221 examination changes 6 expectations: increased see intensive time; of public 179, 221–4 experience of teachers 22, 23, 219 extensiveness of time see total time extra-curricular activities see otheractivities factor analysis 38 false consciousness about professionalism 207, 209, 210 France 220 Fullan, M.G. 70, 220, 224 Gallie, D. 224 Galton, M. 63, 112, 169, 177 gender of teachers 22, 23, 94, 221– 2, 224 geography see non-core subjects Gipps, C. 179 Goodyear, R. 171 Grace, G. 6, 207 Gump, P.V. 164, 188 Handal, G. 83 Hargreaves, A. 8, 83, 209–11, 212– 13, 220, 224 Hawking, S. 156–7 headteachers 224; deputies 150–1; management of time 164, 173–4 Hewitt, P. 45, 61–2, 208, 222 Hilsum, S. (mainly with Cane) 7, 17; on administration 107; on collaboration 213; on contact

time 165; on curriculum 68; on other activities 116; on ‘own time’ and ‘invisible work’ 4–5, 9–10, 13; on preparation 83; on professional development 95, 212; on total time 6, 45, 46, 51– 3, 59, 162 history see past history (subject) see non-core subjects holidays 13 House of Commons Select Committees: Achievement in Primary Schools (1986) 30, 69, 163, 164, 167, 168, 178, 221; Standards of Reading in Primary Schools (1991) 163, 171 Hoyle, E. 165 ILEA see Inner London Education Authority ILO (International Labour Organization) 208, 220–1 images of teaching 3; see also research incentive allowance 24, 25 Incomes Data Services 61, 163, 216 individual variations in time 141– 51; contexts of work 143–50; deputy heads 150–1; preparation 89–90; total 46–9; see also variations inefficiency 169, 170 infant schools see Key Stages Inner London Education Authority 30, 69, 106, 163, 167, 188, 191, 220 in-service training see professional development institutional time 155–6, 158–9, 160 intensive time 163, 165–7, 174, 182–3, 205, 206–14; see also notional and actual time International LabourOrganization 208, 220–1 ‘invisible time’ 9, 57, 205; see also ‘non-directed time’; other activities; preparation; professional development

247

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James Report (1986) 94 Jamison, J. 110 job specification change 163 Jungck, S. 206 Kamens, D.H. 73, 78 Keep, E. 195 Kelly, A. 168 Kelly, V. 180 Key Stages 27–8; and administration time 101–3, 104–5, 108, 111; and conscientiousness 216, 217–19, 223; and curriculum time see manageability of National Curriculum; explained 16–17; and other activities 115–17; and preparation time 84–93, 96–8; and teachers see characteristics of teachers; and teaching time 65– 7, 76–81; and total time see total time; see also variations Knight, B. 8, 156, 158–9 Kyriacou, C. 6 Labour Force Survey (1989) 62 Larson, S.M. 8, 206, 208 Lawlor, S. 68 Lawn, M. 6, 207, 213 Lawton, D. 70 Lee, J. 207 legislation 6, 68, 107; see also education Reform Act Letwin, O. 68 Lever, D. 100 liaison 110–11; see also administration time linear trend 37 LMS schemes 167–8 location 10, 12 Lortie, D. 212, 220 Louis, K.S. 160 Lowe, B. 45, 161 Macdonald, B. 70 manageability of National Curriculum 175–202; options for improving 198–201

management of time 155–74; 50hour working week 161–5; headteachers 173–4; management of time (continued): implications 167–73; intensive time 165–7; see also concepts of time marking see preparation Marsh, C. 45, 61–2, 163, 208 mathematics see core subjects meaning, problems of 18–20 meetings 55–6, 95–6, 97; and conscientiousness 217–19; variations 121, 136–7; see also professional development Meighan, R. 64 Meychall 110 Meyer, J.W. 73, 78 Mindel, G. 19 minimalist management 173 Ministry of Education 69 mixed schools see Key Stages modernising curriculum, concept of 179 ‘moral’ curriculum 64 morale damage 199–200; see also intensive time Morrison, M. 156, 172 multiple regression analysis 38 Muschamp, Y. 181, 183, 223 music see non-core subjects NAS/UWT: Teacher Workload Survey 45 National Association for Teaching of English (NATE) 163 National Curriculum: attractiveness of 178–80; and curriculum complexity 72–4; delivery 181–98; effects see theorising; implementation 30– 3; manageability see manageability of National Curriculum; and management of time 166–7, 171 (see also manageability); obstacles to 30– 3; and preparation time 53–4, 85–6, 95; preconditions for effective implementation 180–1; 248

INDEX

and professional development time 55; and teaching time 72– 4; and total time 45; see also assessment; core subjects; noncore subjects National Curriculum Council 54, 198, 200, 212, 220, 223–4 National Union of Teachers 181 Naylor, J. 110 NCC see National Curriculum Council Neale, S. 19 Neill, S.R.St.J. 16; on curriculum 81, 181, 189; on management of time 158, 163, 173; on preparation 85; on total time 41, 42; see also Evans New Earnings Survey (1991) 61, 208 Nias, J. 161, 166, 171, 212, 220 non-contact time 28–9, 102, 107– 12, 204, 205, 211 non-core subjects (art, music, history, geography, technology, PE), time on 69, 71, 72, 218, 31, 54; and manageability of National Curriculum 175, 179, 183–90, 195–8, 201–2; management of 170; variations 124, 126 ‘non-directed time’ 3, 33–4, 46, 162; total 57–8; see also ‘invisible time’; preparation time; professional development non-pupil days 95, 96–7, 121, 136– 7, 210 notional and actual time for National Curriculum 187–90, 196–8, 201–2 Nuffield Foundation 203 NUT (National Union of Teachers) 181 Nuttall, D. 222 OFSTED on curriculum organization and practice 200, 212, 223–4 organising see administration; preparation

Osborn, M. 181, 183, 207, 220 Osborne, A. 156 other activities time 115–17, 205; defined 11; management of 165, 173–4; total 49–50, 51, 57; variations 137–8, 139, 143, 151 other occupations and countries see under comparisons overall time 9, 161; administration 101–3; variations 119–20, 125–8; see also total time overwork see intensive time ‘own time’ see personal time Oxford Employment Life Survey 224 Ozga, J. 6, 207, 213 Packwood, A. see Evans Paine, L.W. 208 para-professionals see assistants parents, contact with 55, 112–13 Parsons, C. 203 Pascall, D. 54 past: concepts of time 159–61; as ‘golden age’ 176–7 Patrick, H. 112 Patten, J. 54, 198 PE see non-core subjects perceptions of teachers: false consciousness about professionalism 207, 209, 210; of obstacles to National Curriculum implementation 30–3; of time 33–6 personal development see professional development personal factors: and preparation time 90–2, 99; see also conscientiousness personal time (‘own time’) 4–5, 33, 155, 156–8, 173, 209, 211, 222 physical education see noncoresubjects planning see preparation Plowden Report (1967) 176 politics and policy 6; see also National Curriculum Pollard, A. 181, 183, 223 Portugal 61

249

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positional factors and preparation time 92–4 Prais, S.J. 6 preparation time (including marking, planning and organising) 22–4, 83–94, 99; and conscientiousness 215, 217–19; defined 11; influences on 89–90; personal factors 90–2, 99; positional factors 92–4; and theorising 205, 209–10; total 49– 50, 52, 53–4; variations 119–20, 122–3, 130–2, 139, 140–1, 151; weekdays and weekends 87–8 Price, R. 208 Primary Schools Research and Development Group 166, 168 primary teachers’ work see time professional biography 22–5 professional contexts 25–6 professional development time 6, 34, 94–9; and conscientiousness 215, 217–19; defined 11; and manageability of National Curriculum 180, 195; management 165; and salary status 99; and theorising 209, 210, 211–12; total 49–50, 52, 55– 7; variations 119–21, 132–5, 143, 151; voluntary 12–13 professionalism: deprofessionalisation and deskilling 205, 207–8, 213–14; false consciousness about 207, 209, 210; see also entries beginning professional proletarianisation see deprofessionalisation PSRDG see Primary Schools Research and Development Group qualifications for National Curriculum implementation, lack of 194–5 quality reduction 207, 209 questionnaire 18, 228–32

reading: children’s, time for 163, 171, 193, 223; professional journals 55–6, 95, 97, 121, 136– 7, 219 (see also professional development) Record of Teacher Time 13, 40, 43, 57, 225, 233; examples of 14–16, 141–50 registration, transition, assembly and supervision time 64, 66, 104, 105–6, 113–14; and manageability of National Curriculum 190–2; management of 164, 171–2; total 51, 55; variations 141 relativity of time 156–7 research: approaches to 7–13; evidence 18; meaning, problems of 18–20; methodology 13–17; problems 10–13; purpose 5–7; recording 13–16; see also analysis; samples responsibility, sense of 220 Reyes, P. 160 Richards, C. 178 Rose, J. see Alexander ROTT see Record of Teacher Time Rumbold, A. 3 ‘running commentary syndrome’ see intensive time Rutter, B. 156 Ryan, W. 6 salaries 7, 24, 25–6; and conscientiousness 223; and preparation time 93–4; and professional development time 99 Salter, B.G. 203 samples 16–17; see also Key Stages SATs (standard assessment tasks) see assessment SCAA 201 School Development Plans 174, 212–13 Schools Council 203 science 182, 213; incorporated 69– 70; see also core subjects ‘Scientific Management’ 160 250

INDEX

SEAC on Key Stage 1 Pilot 73, 85, 170, 171 sex see gender Sharpe, R. 181, 183, 223 Sharpe, S. 222 Silcock, P. 45, 163, 167, 181 Simon, B. 63, 169, 177 Simpson, E. 168 ‘simultaneous working’ see complexity Singapore 208 Siraj-Blatchford, I. 220 size: of class 26–7, 32–3, 173–4; of school 25, 26, 93 Smith, B. 160 Smithers, A. 45, 194 social care ethic 220–1 Southworth, G. 169, 212 sports see other activities SPSSX analysis 225–7 staff meetings see meetings standard assessment tasks see assessment standards, raising 179 Stanley, J. 181, 194 Steadman, S.D. 203 Stillman, A. 110 stress 222, 224; see also intensive time Strong, C. 4, 7 subjects taught see core subjects; non-core subjects supervision 51, 114–15; see also registration, transition etc Sweden 208 Tabor, D.C. 110 Talbot, C. 110 Tapper, T. 203 Task Group on Assessment and Testing (DES, 1988) 75, 178–9, 213 Taylor, P. 163, 181, 194 Teacher Assessment (TA) 74–6, 80, 125, 218 Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act (1987) 3, 5, 57–8, 95, 156, 158 Teachers’ Pay and ConditionsDocuments and

Orders (1987, 1989 and 1990) 3, 25, 46, 164, 215, 222 teaching time 165; and conscientiousness 217–18; defined 11; and theorising 204, 205; total 49–50, 52; variations 128–30; and variations 123–6, 143, 151; see also contact time; core subjects; curriculum time; National Curriculum; non-core subjects technology see non-core subjects temporary allowances 93 TGAT see Task Group on Assessment and Testing theorising 203–14; characteristics of teachers’ work 204–5 Thomas, N. 168, 172, 194 time directed and non-directed 57–8; see also administration; characteristics; conscientiousness; curriculum; manageability; management; National Curriculum; other activities; preparation; professional development; research; teaching; theorising; total time; variations Tomlinson, J.R.G.T. 26, 115 topic work see non-core subjects total time 9, 19, 40–62; administration 55; annual extrapolation 60; breaks 59– 60; comparisons with other occupations 61–2; and conscientiousness 217–18; curriculum time and contact time 51–3; data analysis 43–4; individual variation 46–9; main catageories 49–51; and manageability of National Curriculum 182–90; and management of time 161–5; other activities 57; overall 44–6; preparation 53–4; professional development 55–7; variations 119–20, 143, 150; weekend work 59; see also overall time 251

INDEX

transition see registration, transition etc Troman, G. 221 types of schools see Key Stages typicality of recorded periods 34–5 United States 160, 207, 212, 224 vacation time 13 value-laden interpretation 18 variance, analysis of 36–7 variations in working patterns 118–51; across year 127–38; between samples 2 to4 139–41; difference between Year 2 teachers and others 118–27; see also comparisons; individual variations; Key Stages Varlaam, A. 222 ‘visible work’ 8–9 vocation, teaching as 220–1

voluntary work 12–13, 46, 207; see also other activities; preparation; conscientiousness Wagner, K. 6 Walker, A. 222 Walker, R. 70 weekend work 59, 87–8, 205 Weston, P. 110 Whetton, C. 6 White, M. 224 White Papers (1985 & 1992) 6, 164 220 Willes, M. 64 women teachers see gender work time see time working conditions 26–30 year, school see annual time Zientek, P. 45, 194

252