We are conscious that we do not unnecessarily increase the workload for our staff and we look at many ways to maintain a work-life balance.
KEY: ■ Teaching staff ■ Support staff
■ ■ Meetings are set out at the beginning of the year on the school calendar. Clear pattern of meetings which allow for key department time.
■ ■ After school meetings are kept to a minimum. Staff are only expected to attend 1 x one hour meeting each week and cancelled if meeting is not essential. Not all support staff are required to attend every after school meeting (depending on your role).
■ ■ Parents consultation carried out online and staff have the opportunity to conduct these from home. Designated time slots mean meetings do not over run and you are only required for the timeslots allocated. In addition meetings such as transition/options etc. are run virtually so limited number of senior staff only required.
■ ■ Where appropriate, we allow staff to complete some essential training using online platforms (i.e. safeguarding / prevent) so this can be fit in at a more convenient time.
■ ■ Availability of IT Support all day via a specific email link.
■ ■ Open Evening for prospective students and their families reduced to one per year for Year 5/6 (during Term 1). One additional Open Evening for Sixth Form staff at Bourne Academy (during Term 2).
■ We operate a 5 lesson per day timetable, i.e. 25 lesson week. Teaching allocation is no more than 21 lessons per week with reduced allocation for staff with extra responsibilites.
■ Directed time is when teachers are directed by their head teacher to be at work and available for work. This is a maximum of 1,265 hours per academic year. Our directed time allocation is consistently under 1,265 hours.
■ Structure in place for faculty/department partnerships. Promotes collaboration in each subject across the Trust.
■ Reduced number of lesson observations. Where these do happen the approach is development rather than graded.
■ Cover is kept to a minimum and staff are only required to cover lessons in extreme circumstances.
■ Cover supervisors are employed to cover lessons as required which helps to reduce instances of rarely cover.
■ Supply staff are bought in to cover for non-teaching areas as well as teaching staff for example teaching assistants, technicians etc.
■ Structure in place for faculty/department partnerships. Promotes collaboration in each subject across the Trust.
■ Staffing levels carefully considered allow for smaller class sizes.
■ Assessment policy developed to reduce teacher marking workload. Forensic marking introduced.
■ Data collection occurs three times a year for each year group. This consists of entering a progress indicator and an attitude to learning grade. One of the three collection points a short report is also completed which consists of setting two short targets only.