Campaign to address release time and workload

By

Joan Lemaire

Federation will resist any attempt to devolve more work on to workplaces.

In response to member concerns about increasing workload and insufficient release time, Federation will campaign in a number of ways.

The National Partnership on Improving Teacher Quality will provide additional funding to the Department of Education and Training (DET). Federation will argue that an essential element of improving teacher quality is the provision of additional release time. The union will seek to provide additional release time to primary teachers and teachers in primary promotions positions to ensure equity with the provision in secondary schools. Emphasis will also be given to providing additional release for beginning teachers, both permanent and temporary, in their first two years of teaching and to providing more release time for professional development for all teachers.

In TAFE, the campaign is to maintain existing hours and reject the attempt to impose an additional 57 hours face to face teaching per year.

On the issue of workload, Federation will continue to support members to assert their existing rights and entitlements. These entitlements include the following:

• 30 minutes preparation time for primary teachers prior to the commencement of the school day
• "Class teachers are not required to attend SRE [special religious education] classes" as set out in the Department's Implementation of Religious Education Policy
• the Teachers Handbook requirement for a lunch break of one hour which allows 30 minutes duty, if necessary, and 30 minutes off duty
• the award conditions for the allocation of period loads in high schools including extra and in lieu of periods.

Information on these entitlements will be sent to schools in term 3.

Federation will seek negotiations with DET to address workload issues associated with the role of teaching principals in small schools. In particular, the union will discuss the need for more release for these principals to deal with administrative issues.

In term 3 Federation will develop a school workplace workload audit tool to assist teachers to determine which work is non-essential or unnecessary and work which is not adequately supported by DET including occupational health and safety, use of technology, and curriculum and policy implementation.

The audit will aim to help schools make collective decisions about manageable workloads. The results will be used in negotiations with DET to seek additional release time. In these negotiations Federation will call on DET to provide at least one hour of release time per school day for teachers teaching ED/BD (emotional disturbed/behaviour disordered) classes.

Federation will resist any attempt by DET to use the global financial crisis and the job freeze in the public sector to devolve more work on to schools. The union will seek that DET provide "education impact statements" for all new DET initiatives which will outline the intended effect of the initiatives and the workload implications.

Joan Lemaire is Senior Vice President.

For further information

July 2009 contents