Questions from Governors
What's the legality of all this? As a governing body, what do we have to do?
The statutory changes to the teacher' contract will be phased in over three years. Stage 1 comes into effect on 1 September 2003. The contractual changes require the transfer of administrative and clerical tasks from teachers, that schools have regard to the work/life balance of teachers and that all those with leadership and management responsibilities have a reasonable amount of time within school sessions set aside for this. The guidance accompanying the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document provides a useful source of advice for schools in implementing this change.
Is there a common approach to remodelling that all schools will be required to follow, as there was, for example, with Performance Management?
As a result of the National Agreement there will be a set of common actions required across all schools, specifically the implementation of contractual change. These changes must be in place by the dates indicated in the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document as they are contractual entitlements for all teachers. With regard to the wider issues of remodeling, schools will have the flexibility to tackle issues in thei particular school in a way that suits their own individual needs. Schools are at very different stages in terms of their capacity for change - what is innovation for one is old hat for another! The key to success is ownership of both the issues and solutions. LEAs have been allocated funds to support schools in the remodelling process by the Welsh Assembly Government via the Rate Support Grant. Each LEA has appointed a person with responsibility for the implementation of the National Agreement & the remodelling process. The name of the person responsible in your LEA can be found here.
Is this just another Welsh Assembly Government & DfES initiative?
Remodelling is based on sustainable objectives which are fundamental to raising standards and will form the context for all other changes and developments. Part of the whole remodelling process is to bring the government and schools closer together so that, in partnership, everyone is working towards a greater understanding of workload issues in schools.
Where should we start in addressing work/life balance issues with the headteacher, who seems to be a complete 'workaholic'?
Work/life balance is quite a personal matter and is difficult to define and measure but as the governing body you do have a responsibility to ensure that the headteacher’s workload is kept to a reasonable level. One way to start might be to review the governing body’s practices, in relation to the headteacher's workload - for example meeting schedules and committee structures. Another strategy might be to agree a work/life balance objective with the headteacher at his/her next annual performance review.