Created on: 02 Dec 2025
Contractually, teachers have 7.5 hours a week to ‘prepare & correct’ for 22.5 hours of teaching, learning and assessment.
Our workload dispute has two aims:
Ensuring the Scottish Government keeps to its promise will mean that teachers will have 9 hours to prepare and correct for 21 hours of teaching. This is a first step, with further campaigning needed to increase ‘preparation & correction’ time further, especially when our independent research on workload found that:
On average, the teachers who participated in the research reported working 46 hours in the target week. This is 11.39 hours spent on work-related activity beyond the 35-hour contractual working week stipulated based on a weekly teaching load of 22.5 hours.
The three activities that consume by far the largest time commitment outside contracted hours are planning and preparing lessons, preparing resources, and marking and feedback for pupils. These core activities are consistently reported as the main drivers of workload that cannot be accomplished within contractual hours.
On average, teachers who completed the time use diary spent almost four hours on work-related activity at the weekend. Interviewees’ accounts suggest school policies vary regarding expectations that teachers access work-related emails in evenings and weekends [because of a lack of time during the school day].
We’re not running a major workload dispute to simply swap 1.5 hours of weekly teaching with extra work at the direction of the employer. Our workload campaign aims to both reduce weekly class contact and increase time for ‘preparation & correction’. Having more time to ‘prepare and correct’ for fewer lessons will reduce workload for all teachers and begin the process of giving more professional time to teachers during the day, and more personal time in the evenings and over weekends.
Winning our dispute will mean 9 hours preparation & correction for 21 hours teaching. Having 1.5 hours more of weekly preparation & correction time from a reduced weekly class contact adds up to almost 60 hours a year – the equivalent to two weeks’ less teaching for each full-time teacher. This also means more permanent jobs for the thousands of teachers on temporary contracts.
Our independent research found that teachers simply did not have enough time during the working day to do everything that was needed in school – the effect is to push ‘preparation & correction’ time into evenings and weekends:
In addition, on average, main grade teachers spent one hour communicating with parents/ carers/ colleagues/ external agencies, 39 minutes on behaviour referral, 25 minutes on pastoral work, and 42 minutes for out-of-class learning conversations. Interviewees confirm that time for administrative and student wellbeing processes was taken from time allocated to the core tasks of planning and preparation, creating time pressures for class committed teachers.
This is what the independent research that we commissioned found on the effect of long working hours on family life:
“Interviewees reported negative effects of extended working hours on family life, especially the contraction of quality time to spend with their own children and partners.”
“Others commented on the stress of frequently delegating domestic duties (e.g. shopping, childcare, preparing meals) because they needed to work late or make time for schoolwork at weekends. Teachers referred to panic attacks, stress and anxiety arising from an inability to complete all that was required of them. Others noted going without food and drink at school because breaks and lunch periods were consumed with administrative duties and preparing convenience foods for their own families due to tiredness and/or to create more time in the evenings for schoolwork. The routine spillover into family time for female and male teachers meant reduced leisure time, and many duties were transferred to partners, which sometimes created tension at home”
Many teachers will recognise these experiences. There is only one way to begin the process of rolling back workload and taking back your own time in the evenings and weekends- by standing up for teachers, those with permanent jobs and those without, and voting to take industrial action to reduce workload.
Vote Yes and Yes in the two-question statutory postal ballot and post your ballot paper as soon as possible. Add your vote and encourage your colleagues to vote too!