Remodelling the Workforce

The National Workforce Agreement

This agreement acknowledged the pressure on schools to:

raise standards
tackle unacceptable levels of workload for teachers

It introduced a series of significant changes to teachers' conditions of service to be introduced in three annual phases.

The agreement arose out of social partnership and the workforce agreement monitoring group (WAMG) which is made up of representatives of the signatories. The national WAMG has also overseen its implementation and provided guidance and support to schools and local authorities.

The agreement acknowledges the vital role played by school support staff and has led directly to the:

establishment of higher level teaching assistant (HLTA) standards
certificate in school business management (CSBM).
helped create other new roles in schools for adults who support teachers' work and pupils' learning.

The agreement called for a structured change process which would help schools implement the contractual changes and embrace wider workforce reform. The provisions of the NWA carry the force of the law. All schools and other institutions employing teachers under the School Teachers pay and Conditions of Service have a statutory obligation to have implemented the following changes.

Administrative and clerical work -24 tasks removed from teachers
Work life balance-teachers hours reduced
Leadership and management time for post holders
Limited cover for absent teachers- reducing from 38 hours to only rarely cover by September 2009
10% guaranteed time for teachers to for Planning and Preparation and Assessment (PPA)
Dedicated headship time
Exam invigilation removed from teachers

Here are the Department for Children, Schools and Families School Teachers' Pay and Conditions (523kb 137 page pdf) and Guidance on School Teachers Pay and Conditions 2007 (159kb 55 page pdf)

1st phase September 2003

routine delegation of administrative and clerical tasks
introduction of work/life balance clauses, and
introduction of leadership and management time for those with corresponding responsibilities.

2nd phase September 2004

introduction of new limits on covering for absent colleagues (38 hours per year).

3rd phase September 2005

introduction of guaranteed professional time for planning, preparation and assessment (PPA)
introduction of dedicated headship time, and
introduction of new invigilation arrangements.

link to external website The National Agreement Timeline

Remodelling

Remodelling is wider than the National Workforce Agreement. It is a change process to support schools and their communities (Extended Services) in managing a number of key initiatives successfully and develop effective and long-term change programmes that meet their own specific circumstances.

link to external website Training and Development Agency for Schools - Remodelling

Use the link above to view the following case studies of remodelling in schools.
Managing change, working collaboratively video
Hilary Emery, TDA's executive director, describes how the TDA's change management process helped Gateshead local authority, schools and its partners work around issues in early intervention and prevention.
School improvement planning framework
Learn how the framework can help schools realise every child's learning potential.
Case studies on extended services
Examples of schools, clusters and local authorities setting up extended provision – from sustainable childcare to effective multi-agency working.
Case studies on the national agreement
Schools share approaches to implementing the national agreement, including PPA, leadership and management time, cover and work/life balance.

The process of managing change within the school (in implementing the National Workforce Agreement) and in the community (through Extended Services). The remodelling change process enables and encourages schools and their partners to:

identify and agree where change is necessary
facilitate a vision of the future shared across whole-school and stakeholder communities
collaborate internally and externally, with other schools, organisations and agencies, in an effective and productive way
create and implement plans for 'tailored' change in an atmosphere of consensus
embed an inclusive and proactive culture of long-term progress, and
improve standards for staff, stakeholders and pupils.

The process has 5 stages:

Mobilise- schools become more aware of the need for change.
Discover- focuses on uncovering issues around workload and other school priorities.
Deepen- acquiring a greater understanding of the scale and scope of the changes needing to be made and the challenges involved.
Develop- analyse the root causes of issues that need to be addressed, and prioritise those that are having the greatest impact and can be resolved.
Deliver- plans that were formed in the develop stage are fully confirmed and agreed and start to be implemented.

Remodelling Tools

Different tools can be used at different stages of the remodelling process, depending on the desired outcomes.

The resources here are designed to assist school change teams in the employment of the techniques. The tools are:

the five whys
process mapping - "brown paper"
brainstorming
day in the life of
problem solving team building (PSTB)
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT)
fishbone analysis
force-field analysis

For each of the tools there is a summary of the resources needed and the intended outcomes.

Remodelling Change Tools (581kb 89 page pdf)

Remodelling Impact and Sustainability Self Assessment Framework (55kb 4 page pdf)

Impact and Sustainability Workshop (168kb 21 page pdf)

Limits on cover reducing to only rarely cover from September 2009

Schools should expect to implement the objective that teachers should only rarely cover from 1 September 2009. In the meantime, schools should set their own interim targets, informed by the latest Office of Manpower Economics (OME) data which serves as a benchmark, to ensure they are ready to meet the objective of teachers rarely covering from 1 September 2009.

Planning, Preparation & Assessment Time in Schools

Every school teacher in England is now legally entitled to use 10% of their timetable for the planning, preparation and assessment of lessons.

The new Planning, Preparation and Assessment (PPA) system is the third phase of changes to the way teachers work to make sure they can spend as much of their time as possible teaching and raising standards. The government described the move as "a historic change to teachers' working conditions".

The introduction of the PPA regulations follows the implementation of changes which mean that teaching cover is limited to a maximum of 38 hours per year, and that teachers do not have to perform administrative tasks.