Forty-hour working week requires a change in thinking
The XNUMX-hour working week in primary education is still not working well in many schools a year after introduction, the AOb. What is going wrong and what can you do about it.
In many schools, teachers are still working too many hours since the introduction of the XNUMX hour working week. Boards and directors still impose the model and the tasks and hours too forcefully, notice AObdirectors José Muijres and Anton Bodegraven. “Teachers want or have to do too much work in too little time. They have difficulty rejecting tasks for the sake of children. Boards sometimes reason: as long as they don't squeak, we'll leave it that way ”, says Muijres.
Bodegraven hears from teachers that they cannot do the work in forty hours. “That is wrong for reasoning: you have to schedule so many tasks that it can fit in XNUMX hours. The forty-hour working week is not a magic bullet to solve the workload, but a way to provide insight into and limit workload. ”
Tip: Have a conversation and make choices.
“Discuss the workload and make choices about which tasks you can and cannot do as a school. The outcome may be that you hand over some things to parents and that you can no longer do everything, ”says Bodegraven.
Storage factor
Schools that work with the consultation model should make separate agreements with all team members about the division of teaching hours and other tasks. The consultation model includes the add-on factor, which in consultation amounts to 35 to 45 percent extra time on top of the lesson hours for lesson preparation and assessment. Muijres sees that managers regularly place too many tasks under the add-on factor. “If you take XNUMX minutes from each task, it can make sense on paper, while it wrinkles in practice,” she says. Bodegraven adds: "It is important that the team and managers make good agreements about tasks that fall under the add-on factor." Some schools use computer programs such as Cupella's Task Policy to determine the year schedule and year task. The outcomes are often imposed on employees as a fait accompli, Cupella's will is law. “Here too it happens that employers enter numbers to make everything correct on paper, while they do not look at the actual work in a week,” Bodegraven notes.
Tip: The PMR has the right of consent in the choice of the consultation model or the basic model, the add-on factor and which tasks fall under it.
Mandatory in school
A number of employers have used the XNUMX-hour working week to oblige teachers to be present at school for eight hours every day. According to the collective labor agreement, that is their incorrect motivation. Nowhere in the collective labor agreement does it state that teachers must be at school all hours. Muijres therefore prefers to speak of the XNUMX-hour range of duties. “If you start from tasks, it is not so relevant when and where you do them. A working week of Monday and Tuesday nine, Wednesday six and Thursday and Friday eight hours is also XNUMX hours. And occasionally working more than XNUMX hours a week is also possible, as long as that is compensated for another week. ”
Tip: You can compensate overtime between two holidays.
Lost vacation
A frequently heard complaint is that teachers have lost vacation due to the new collective labor agreement. However, the working time for a full-time job has not changed: 1659 hours per year. “In the past, the collective labor agreement stated that teachers were free if the children were. That amounted to 42,5-hour working weeks. With the 428-hour working week, teachers now accrue 10,7 hours of holiday leave per year, about XNUMX weeks, ”explains Bodegraven.
How should it be? School board RENN4 for special education in Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe has been working with the forty-hour working week for about ten years. And that is good. Read more in the article below from Education magazine 13 why it works so well. Download: Forty-hour working week requires different thinking
