4. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the most effective use of teachers’ planning, preparation and assessment time in schools? OAQ(5)0092(EDU)

Thank you, Hefin. I expect teachers to exercise their professional judgement in ensuring planning, preparation and assessment time is used effectively to support their teaching. Arrangements should be designed to allow teachers to use their judgement based on their needs and the needs of the school and their learners.

It’s good to hear that the Cabinet Secretary supports that flexibility. At the Children, Young People and Education Committee last week, the NUT said that PPA is a big issue in primary schools in particular. It was Neil Foden of NUT Cymru who said that schools were freeing teachers for the required 10 per cent of their teaching time and releasing them from their workloads, which is to be welcomed and a good thing. However, he also said that many schools are achieving this by using staff without qualified teacher status, such as classroom assistants or higher-level teaching assistants. This can mean—and this is what he said—that pupils are not being taught by a qualified teacher for the equivalent of one month in an academic year. We need to find a solution to this if that is the case. So, where there is a need, perhaps, to reduce teaching capacity in some schools, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to use that teaching capacity to cover PPA, perhaps as a floating teacher with responsibility for covering PPA, or find other creative solutions to this particular problem?

Thank you, Hefin. If I can be absolutely clear, because I believe the regulations governing who can teach in Wales are clear: only qualified teachers—those with QTS—can undertake specific work, i.e. teach. That is a very different situation that we have in Wales than you would see across the border, and a differentiation that I am very pleased about. Schools can employ a suitably qualified floating teacher. Like you, I recognise that there are benefits to continuity and quality assurance from having floating teachers who are employed either in a single school or, perhaps, in a cluster of schools to provide cover for absent teachers or to ensure that those teachers have the PPA time that they need. I would see that as good practice. Ultimately, staffing structures, however, are a matter for individual schools, governing bodies and the LEA.

Cabinet Secretary, as the chair of two governing bodies, I often think that teachers have a similar working lifestyle to us. They need to do a lot of preparation. They have to do a lot of work in the evening and in what people refer to constantly as the holidays. But, sometimes, you need to have that protected time—when we are in the office environment but when they are in the school—so that they have access to colleagues and sources of advice, and so that they can plan. It’s really important that there is that 10 per cent or so of time protected for them.

I agree with you absolutely. We have a commitment to allow that time to be made available. Members will be aware that I recently visited Finland, which is a nation that is constantly held up as the bastion of great education. One of the things that they are trying to do in Finland to improve their education is to ensure that there is PPA time in school for their teachers. They recognise that teachers currently don’t have the opportunity to sit down together to discuss individual pupils or to plan and to look to see how they can take their schools forward. So, PPA is an important aspect. We have looked at ways in which we could increase PPA. You would know that an independent report—independent of Government—recently talked about a shortened school week that would then allow a single day for PPA. It was not welcomed with much enthusiasm by members of your own benches, I must say, but we need to look at creative ways to ensure that teachers do indeed have that PPA time.