Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 January 2008 09:21:56
It's a widely accepted fact that teachers work from home and that the job goes way beyond the school hours given. These days beyond the obvious marking and materials for preperation, which one can pop in a bag and take home, there a range of admin tasks which teachers do on the computer at weekends or in the evenings (or over the "vaccations"). This BBC article makes clear though we need to think about what we are doing at home.
For me it has highlighted a few issues that make me feel uneasy and most aren't related to the data protection issues involved.
The first thing this report does is highlight the fact that it is impossible, if you are on a full post, to do the job you are required to do in the time you have available. This is appears true whether you are talking about primary, secondary or FE teaching.
Secondly the fact we all have a computer now means that there are jobs which could legitimately be left at work in the past which we can do at home now.
Thirdly the scope for things going wrong and a teacher being punished for an error of judgement is growing not just because of the increase in society of the "blame culture", but also because of things like this.
Finally there is the point that anybody reading the BBC article will now basically be aware of if we are going to protect ourselves we need to take the approach of anything that you have to put in the shredder when it is finished with shouldn't be going home with you.
Following on from the above I have come to the following conclusions:
1. If teachers are having to work so hard at home on an ever increasing range of tasks to meet an ever growing set of targets and external demands other things are going to suffer. These are likely to be: 1. the teachers health, 2. the teachers family relationships (including their children), 3. their students because their teachers aren't properly relaxed and able to give their best. Also excellent candidates who want a decent homelife will be deterred from coming into the profession.
2. If teachers do decide to work, basically, in line with their contracts and try to complete all tasks within the time which they are paid for the amount they are going to be able to get done is going to be less. The workload that teachers have at the moment is obviously too much and therefore something needs to change. On one level things will only change if people don't work from home and the gaps are fully exposed, but on another what teacher who values their career is going to want to be one of the people exposing the gaps.
3. If teachers are having to take sensitive data information home to check, update, or to use in some other way then it is clear that the idea of admin staff being able to do these tasks for teachers, (which some claim is the case), is not possible. Even if somebody else puts the data in you still need to check the data if your performance is being measured on it and how it compares to a range of national benchmarks.
And on that note I'm off to do a spot of non-sensitive work before church; tomorrow the students are back and having managed to take atleast a full week off over the Christmas break I am now living with the consequences.