School staff union leaders have criticised the controversial idea of removing a cap on teachers’ working hours after reports that the Department for Education has been considering this.

At the Conservative party’s annual conference today, both Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, and Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, dismissed the idea. 

According to a report in the Guardian, the Department for Education has been exploring getting rid of a cap on the number of hours teachers can be directed to work.

Dr Bousted said that she hoped it was “the last gasp of a secretary of state for education who was not having a good time”, referring to the now-departed Gavin Williamson, who lost his job in the recent Cabinet reshuffle. 

“Teachers in England work the longest time outside the classroom,” she said.

Teachers in England ‘already work much longer hours than other countries’

”[They] work double the amount of other high-performing countries, around 55 hours a week. So we already work much longer hours than the OECD average.”

She referred to the 2017 British Skills and Employment Survey showing that teachers reported double the exhaustion rates of other professions, describing this as “critical”, and accused the government of attempting to start a “woke war” with teachers on the issue, “particularly after the pandemic when teachers went so far above the call of duty”.

“Rather than abolishing that directed time limit, what you’ve got to say is, ‘How do we use that directed time better?’ because the problem for most teachers is not that they mind working hard - they don’t. What they mind...is the work that they do which is unproductive.”

According to a report in the Guardian, there are also proposals being considered by the government to introduce testing at key stage 3 and to hand more powers to Ofsted.

Mr Barton has also criticised proposals highlighted in the report. 

He said: “So if the answer to your question is, ‘Let’s look at 1,265 [hours] and let’s introduce more tests at 14’ you’re really asking the wrong question there.

“It has to be about how you improve the quality of teaching and impact for every young person from every background - it’s a no-brainer. So I’m hoping that was a bit of kite-flying.”

Extending the school day has been at the heart of the debate around Covid catch-up.

Sir Kevan Collins, the former government recovery commissioner, had wanted to introduce a longer school day as part of a £15 billion Covid recovery package.

However, it was not included in a £1.4 billion announcement from the Department for Education earlier this year, which was focused on tutoring and teacher development. Sir Kevan subsequently resigned over the funding shortfall. 

The School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) states that a classroom teacher can only be directed by the headteacher to work for up to a maximum of 1,265 hours over 195 days of the year.