Hey Tappsters!
October half-term is now on the horizon (the favourite of the half-term holidays, as voted by Tappers), and Autumn term one is nearly ticked off.
Here is this week’s essential edu-data…
How much PPA do you want?
In the Department for Education’s Pay and Conditions document, it stipulates that ALL teachers should have a minimum of 10% PPA on their timetable.
This means if you teach for five hours a day, five days a week, then every week you should have 2.5 hours of PPA (and if you have a two-week timetable, five hours of PPA split across the fortnight).
Last month, Bridget Phillipson wrote to the School Teachers Review Body (STRB) asking them to explore flexible working options. One way flexible working could be accommodated in schools is to reduce contact time in school to facilitate working from home. Some schools have started to introduce this already, and Dixons Academy made headlines last month with the news it was moving to a 9-day fortnight
Is MORE PPA always better? Apparently not. When given a choice of a 10, 20 or 30% minimum PPA time, not everyone was pumping for the maximum amount.
In fact, in primary schools they were more likely to select 20% PPA than 30% PPA!
What’s going on? Why wouldn’t primary teachers want more time for planning and prep?
One reason could be that in primary, some teachers still have to plan and mark the work, which might even be delivered by an unqualified teacher or HLTA. In fact, back in June, when we asked if the standard of teaching was as high as usual during PPA, only 39% of primary teachers agreed. 😢
In secondary schools, timetabling for PPA can lead to split classes, but it’s not always the case. Instead, secondary teachers are likely thinking the students will simply be in a different lesson.
English teachers were the most likely to go for 30% PPA, while maths teachers were the least likely (68% vs. 59%). One reason could be the many more hours English teachers spending marking than maths ones!
Would more PPA time convince you to move to another school? Let us know through the ‘contact us’ option in the app or on social media 📲!
Misbehaving pupils
Perhaps more PPA feels appealing if your time is currently taken up dealing with behaviour issues. The ‘new year’ angelic behaviour has definitely faded as students settle into their routines and standards start to slip.
Compared to Autumn 2023, things are looking a bit better in secondary schools but slightly worse (again) in primary.
In primary, most behaviours have worsened by 2-5 percentage points, with the exception of mobile phone use.
Meanwhile, in secondary schools, there’s been a drop of 1-4 percentage points across all areas – although we are still a little ahead of when we asked last year. By November, it could be back to usual.
While these figures aren’t huge, they do point to a pattern—behaviour seems to worse in primary but might (still tentative) be getting better in secondary. We noticed similar trends with classroom disruptions at the end of September too,
For more information on how you can use Teacher Tapp data to support the behaviour issues found in schools, take a look at our Teacher Tapp Insights – we have reports on Homework, Parent Relationships and School Uniform.
Teachers who ❤️ interactive whiteboards
From classroom behaviour to classroom technology – is a lack of an interactive whiteboard enough to put a primary teacher off applying for a job in a school? 👩💻
For some, yes it is!
Teachers in their 20s are far more likely to swipe left on a school without smartboards compared to teachers in their 50s (53% vs 35%).
What is it that puts you off? Is the lack of the whiteboard itself, or the worry that no whiteboard means that technology is eschewed in other ways?
If you’re a teacher who couldn’t teach without their smartboard, share your thoughts on tech in the classroom and tagging @TeacherTapp on X, and @teachertapp.bsky.social on Blue Sky! 💭
Marking vs Planning
Whether you’re using a smart whiteboard, whiteboard, or no board at all: planning and marking still needs to be done.
In the battle of planning vs marking, it seems that planning is the activity that more teachers are devoting time to on a Saturday or Sunday – in both primary and secondary.
⛔️ 73% of primary school teachers didn’t mark at all last weekend, whereas only 36% didn’t plan.
🚫 A slightly lower percentage of secondary teachers spent no time marking (64%) and 39% didn’t plan.
⏰ Just under a third (30%) of primary teachers spent more than 2 hours planning, whereas this was slightly less common in secondary with 25% of secondary teachers doing the same.
📚 However, when it came to marking, the fortunes reversed: 13% of secondary spent more than 2 hours marking, compared to 8% of primary teachers.
🎭 And the subject most likely to be getting the red pen out on a weekend for more than three hours? English! (7%).
👨👧 Whereas for planning, those most likely to be spending three or more hours are the KS2 teachers (17%)
🙅♀️ And it seems that those who weren’t planning were also likely to be those not marking, with 87% of those who spent no time planning, also reporting they spent no time marking.
Toileting issues in primary
Children start school the year they turn five, and for some, that’s before they are toilet trained.
One in five (20%) of EYFS/KS1 teachers have three or more pupils who are not yet toilet trained in their classrooms.
Part of the challenge for schools is ensuring these children can be changed. The arrangements made for these children are usually for staff to change them (83%) or a mixture of staff and parents (12%), and a very small number just using parents (3%).
🎩 Top events
A new event topped the chart this week! Primary Quiz: Surviving Sats.
This is a FREE on demand and online event – if you are interested in more events like this, the events tab in the app lets you filter by topic, price and location. Go to the app and start exploring what is on offer for teachers like you!
Ups and Downs
On the rise 📈
Schools with a policy for menopausal women – more schools have put policies in place for female staff going through menopause, now 25% UP from 16% in 2022.
Heading down 📉
Sleepless nights – Fewer teachers say they have had disturbed sleep from worrying about work compared to October last year, it is now 16% DOWN from 20%.
Daily Reads
This week our most-read blog was a senior leader special about changing leadership development to avoid creating schools full of people suffering from imposter syndrome.
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!
