Hey Tappsters!
⌛This is the last week to score tickets for our prize draw sponsored by HUE HD PRO visualisers! FIVE lucky winners will scoop £100 takeaway vouchers each 🍔🌮.
Here’s how to take part: Answer questions five days in a row on Teacher Tapp to earn tickets. You’ll see them in your app under prize draw, and we’ll email you each ticket (if you’ve opted to let us). Collect as many tickets as you can by 30th November. After 3:30pm on 1st of December, we’ll draw the five winning tickets. 🎉
Note: no need to do anything with your tickets – they’re automatically entered. BUT, you might like to check your tickets when the winners are announced to see if you have the matching code!
We’ll share the winning ticket codes on our socials and email the winners. Full terms and conditions here.
Now, onto results…
Performance Related Pay
Autumnal performance reviews were once a standard part of the school year – targets reviewed, new ones agreed, and a chance to reflect on how to move forward.
However- this year, things changed. In July, the Department for Education announced that schools would no longer be required to use the Performance Related Pay (PRP) system from this academic year.
The removal of PRP aimed to reduce the “overly bureaucratic process” of agreeing individual teachers’ pay rises and to “help improve teacher workload.”
But how many teachers are still set targets linked to results? And how many still have pay increases tied to those results?
The graph below shows how things have changed over time. The dark red (right) are people with a results-based target and it’s related to pay. Pink middles have a results-based target, but not related to pay. Greens don’t have any results-based targets.
As you can see, things have changed a fair amount! Fewer and fewer teachers had targets related to pay even before this year – and it’s almost halved again since November 2022 in primary (19% dropped to 10%) and secondary (21% dropped to 11%) since 2022.
How are your appraisals recorded?
Each school will have a system for recording appraisals – but how many are using generic tools like spreadsheets versus specialist software?
In 2020, just under half of you (48%) were using generic computer software (like word or Excel) but now that’s up slightly at 54%.
It’s likely not because you’re eschewing special software – that’s stayed about the same (21% this year, 22% in 202). Instead, fewer teachers are recording on paper (15%, down from 19%).
How do you feel about the appraisal system your school uses? Are you someone who enjoys the process? If you have question suggestions about appraisals – get in touch either via the app or by emailing england@teachertapp.co.uk
PPA at home?
At the same time as the announcement about PRP, the new governement also announced that PPA would be allowed to be taken at home.
In September, we asked about how many teachers were going home for PPA time. Now, a few months in, we asked again about working at home during PPA, and discovered it’s now 11%, up from 9%, but that’s such a small change it could be normal variation. Jury is still out. (And probably will take until next September to really work its way through).
Staff wellbeing
PPA at home is often cited as one approach to improve teacher wellbeing, but when teachers do finish for the day – what helps them unwind?
Television, comfort food and speaking to a family member are the top three most popular options for de-stressing (78%, 59% and 58%). The same as last year. Perhaps nothing can beat watching telly with your partner, eating chocolate, and offloading about work!
However, one option which has fallen significantly is alcohol use.
During the pandemic lockdowns, the use of alcohol to calm in the evening rose from 33% to 47%. This echoed trends in national surveys showing alcohol consumption increased among adults at this time (here is one from Cambridge University that found 1 in 3 adults drank more during lockdown).
However, this year the use of alcohol has dropped to 29% from 39%, while comfort eating jumped up from 40% to 59%, and talking to family members from 49% to 58%.
When accounting for age, alcohol use drops among younger teachers. Just 24% of teachers in their 20s use alcohol to calm down, compared to 33% of teachers in their 50s. Men were also more likely to report using alcohol to relax compared to women (35% vs 27%).
Without wishing to be overly dramatic about it, if you do feel you are drinking to cope with the job, it might be worth checking out Alcohol Change who provide a range of ways to help you reduce your intake. (There’s an interesting quiz you can take to check your consumption rates).
What can leaders do to help with wellbeing?
Good news! Most classroom teachers work in schools with a caring leadership team 🥳.
75% of classroom teachers agreed their leaders cared about staff wellbeing, 18% of strongly.
This is UP on previous years and is a seven percentage point increase since November 2021.
But what could leaders do to improve wellbeing at schools? The top answer was reduced admin (64%), shortly followed by better communication (63%) and then better student behaviour (51%).
And finally, how much teaching is done by deputy heads?
A Teacher Tapper got in touch to ask how often do deputy heads teach? And does it change depending on the size of school?
Delving back into data, (as we’ve asked this before) we could find that in both primaries AND secondaries, the most common response is teaching for two or more days (37% and 39%). However, primaries are far more likely than secondaries to have deputies who “only cover” or “never” teach (28% vs 7% and 13% vs 6%).
Of course, school size does make some difference. Smaller secondary schools are somewhat more likely to have deputies teaching for two days or more (44% vs 34%).
But size affects primary schools the most; smaller primary schools are much more likely to have deputies teaching for two days or more (50% vs 13%).
🎩 Top events
We have a NEW top event this week: The 2025 Teaching & Learning Summit from Inner Drive
Have you used our events feature and enjoyed the CPD you received? Let us know how it went by emailing england@teachertapp.co.uk. Remember, the app offers a wide range of in-person and online events! Visit the Events page to find something for everyone.
Ups and Downs
On the rise 📈
Schools using automated systems to notify parents of absence – Now 86% of schools have automated systems set up to notify parents when their son or daughter is absent – up from 80% in 2022, and 78% in 2018.
Heading down 📉
Fewer lessons stopped due to poor behaviour – Good news! Fewer teachers reported their lessons stopped due to students’ behaviour compared to November last year (35% DOWN from 42%).
Daily Reads
This week our most-read blog was an explainer on the 40/40/40 principle.
Have you seen a great blog you think would make a great daily read? Let us know by emailing england@teachertapp.co.uk and we will check it out!
