Planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time was supposed to make things better for teachers: at least 10 per cent of their non-contact time would be ringfenced and protected to ensure that planning and marking work could be done in school hours, not in their own time.

But nearly 20 years after it was introduced for the academic year 2005-06, has it lived up to that promise?

The change should have been felt more in primary schools than in secondary.

For teachers in secondary schools, who already had free periods on their timetable, the PPA entitlement was welcome but not revolutionary. The main difference was that some of their free time was highlighted as PPA and therefore - in theory - protected against being taken for cover or other activities.

Teacher workload and PPA

The change for primary school teachers, however, should have been seismic.

Previously, they would have been with their class pretty much all day, every day. Now, with PPA, they might spend Wednesday afternoon catching up on lesson prep while someone else taught their class.

Unfortunately, despite the helpful intentions, PPA remains a contentious topic for school leaders and teachers of all phases, and many would argue that the intended benefits have not come to fruition.

Here’s why.

Issue 1: covering PPA is difficult

Ever since the introduction of PPA, school leaders have criticised the lack of government funding to support it.

While leaders might be keen to allow their teachers to take advantage of this hallowed planning and marking time, practical limitations - like providing enough staff for cover - have been a constant source of complaint, particularly at primary level.

While secondary timetablers just need to ringfence some free periods as designated PPA, primary leaders face greater obstacles.

Ideally, primary PPA would be covered by another qualified teacher, perhaps one employed for this specific reason. Given schools’ budget constraints, however, more often than not unqualified teachers are used instead.

TeacherTapp data shows that the most common substitute during PPA in primary is a higher level teaching assistant, being used in around a third of cases. A teaching assistant is used in 13 per cent of situations. Another teacher, meanwhile, is only used to cover PPA 24 per cent of the time.

Issue 2: standards can drop during PPA cover

The schools minister in 2005, Jacqui Smith, claimed that PPA would mean “schools can focus more intensely on higher school standards for all”.

However, with unqualified teachers tending to be used to cover PPA in primary schools, it’s not surprising that teachers often have concerns about the learning taking place in their absence.

When asked about the quality of learning during periods of primary PPA cover, only 39 per cent of teachers surveyed by TeacherTapp agreed that the quality is “as high in those lessons as it would be normally”.

A significant majority of primary teachers are concerned about a dip in learning during PPA cover.

Issue 3: allocated PPA time is far from guaranteed

Despite being “protected”, PPA can vanish faster than the lid of a glue stick. But how often do teachers lose their PPA?

According to a different TeacherTapp survey, “just one third of teachers had their PPA entitlement as normal” .

Teachers who lost their precious PPA time most commonly did so because they were asked to attend a meeting or directed to do some other work.

Secondary teachers are more likely than those in primary to lose their PPA because they are asked to provide cover. Having PPA time rescheduled, however, happens more in primary than in secondary.

PPA should be immovable, yet it often seems to be viewed by school leaders as a more flexible entitlement.

Issue 4: PPA time is inadequate

PPA time can offer some respite in a hectic teaching week. But it would be a mistake to believe that PPA alone can clear a typical teacher’s planning, prep and marking workload.

For example, during mock exam season, a secondary English teacher would barely put a dent in their marking mountain if they were relying on PPA.

What’s more, precious PPA time is invariably swallowed up by tasks unrelated to planning, preparation and assessment.

PPA offers a “weak protection” against teachers’ overall workload, argues headteacher Matthew Evans. “What use is a protected 2.5 hours each week if undirected tasks have increased by 10 hours?” he asks.

Teacher retention expert Dr Haili Hughes agrees, telling me that: “Working in a school with poor behaviour systems or an excessive accountability culture leads to PPA being swallowed up by other tasks. This ‘empty work’ - especially admin and data - needs to be stripped away and minimised so [the time] can actually be used for PPA.”

Ensuring that staff get the PPA to which they are entitled is a key element of protecting teacher wellbeing. But without a wider consideration of marking expectations and the tyranny of “empty tasks”, PPA time seems like a puddle of water in a desert, rather than an oasis.

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So what could we do differently? The government has embarked on huge listening exercises around curriculum and assessment, and soon it will ask for views about special educational needs and disabilities. Meanwhile, Ofsted has done its Big Listen on accountability. But we desperately need a national discussion around workload that goes further than any previous government has gone - and PPA should be central to that.

If we were to do such an exercise, we could begin to unpick the workload problems that have continued to plague the profession despite the introduction of PPA. We could source meaningful solutions from those experiencing the issues, instead of getting a few favoured educators on a government panel to come up with all the answers.

If there were such a review, what would I suggest around PPA specifically?

Suggestion 1: make taking PPA at home viable

In a recent statement, education secretary Bridget Phillipson said that “teachers can carry out their planning time at home, improving flexible working for staff”. Meanwhile, an Education Endowment Foundation project will consider whether schools encouraging teachers to take PPA time off-site will have a positive impact on teacher retention.

A move to off-site PPA would, however, require a significant shift in how schools operate.

Teacher Tapp data shows that, at present, only 33 per cent of primary teachers are allowed to take their PPA at home. Yet that’s still a sizeable proportion relative to secondary school teachers, of whom just 9 per cent are allowed to complete PPA off-site. ;

How can we explain these differences?

Primary PPA is often combined into a block of hours over an afternoon, whereas secondary PPA is usually scattered across random periods. As a result, working from home is only viable at secondary at present if PPA just happens to land on the first or final period.

The chance to take PPA at home would no doubt appeal to many teachers. But if the government is serious about using off-site PPA as a carrot to stop teachers from leaving, financial assistance is needed to help schools overcome practical barriers.

Suggestion 2: sacrifice PPA in return for an end to empty tasks

As we have seen, PPA time is often lost, rescheduled or wasted because of a litany of time-consuming tasks: excessive marking, pointless meetings, report writing and unnecessary admin.

Would teachers be willing to accept a loss of PPA in return for a statutory agreement that brings an end to time-sapping undirected tasks? Possibly not.

But this feels like a conversation worth having, all the same. Losing a couple of (inconsistent) hours of PPA would sting. But might the potential gain of many more freed-up hours across a term swing such a deal?

Suggestion 3: reduce student contact time to allow for more PPA

If we are going to keep PPA, however, we might need to look at culling some other sacred cows in education.

What would happen, for example, if schools were to finish an hour earlier a few times per cycle, sending students home with extra homework? What consequences might arise if schools were to cut back on pastoral periods to free up more spare time for teachers? What about reducing the number of subjects that students study, to allow for teachers to adequately plan, prepare and assess?

These controversial suggestions may well infuriate certain stakeholders within education. Just raising these questions will seem offensive to some.

Yet, amid the backdrop of a recruitment and retention crisis, something has got to give. Now is the time to consider radical approaches to ensure, finally, that the job of teaching becomes more manageable.

PPA has to be part of that conversation. It is 20 years old next September - let’s not spend another 20 years thinking that it fixes challenges it has barely even begun to solve.

Mark Roberts is director of research and an English teacher at Carrickfergus Grammar School in Northern Ireland and author of books including The Behaviour Whisperer