Although it is generally accepted that people work best at a temperature between 16°C and 24°C, there are no specific legal maximum working temperatures for schools or for offices or other workplaces.  

There are some sources of legal protection for school staff and pupils: 

• The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 requires employers to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their staff and others present in the workplace (eg pupils), thereby providing a need to seek to protect against excessive working temperatures.
• The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 require employers to ensure that temperatures in workplaces should be ‘reasonable’ although it does not specify a maximum reasonable temperature. 

These legal requirements can be enforced by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors who may issue legally binding notices to employers obliging them to comply with the requirements.

The Burgundy Book 2023 (National Conditions of Service for Teachers in England and Wales) is incorporated into the contracts of employment of all teachers in community, foundation, voluntary controlled and voluntary aided schools, and in the vast majority of academies. The key benefits cover appointment, resignation, retirement, occupational sick pay, occupational maternity rights and collective dispute procedures.

The Burgundy Book should be read in conjunction with your employment contract, the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document/School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions (Wales) Document and locally negotiated workplace policies and procedures.

All teachers should have 10% of their weekly timetable allocated to PPA. This should be in blocks of no less than 30 minutes, during the timetabled school day. It should not be placed outside under any circumstances. For example, allocating PPA after the school day has finished is a clear breach of your terms and conditions.

Remember that how you use your PPA time is at your discretion. You cannot be directed to use PPA time for any particular purpose. It should be used exclusively for the planning, preparation and assessment that you, as a professional, deem necessary for your work.

Gained time does form part of directed time and the STPCD. The ‘rarely cover’ provision applies equally during gained time.

Teachers are entitled to maternity leave of one year. Some of this is paid and some is unpaid. If you have worked for one year you are essentially entitled to:

• 4 weeks full pay
• 2 weeks 90% pay
• 12 weeks half pay plus SMP (£172.48)
• 21 weeks SMP (£172.48)
• Up to 13 weeks unpaid

Remember, to retain maternity pay received under the Burgundy Book scheme, you are required to complete at least 13 weeks’ full time service, or its part-time equivalent, on your return to work.

Current policy means that teachers are not required to cover for absent colleagues unless there is an absolute emergency or they are specifically employed to do so.

Providing cover for absent colleagues is not a good use of teachers’ time – and the inappropriate use of support staff to provide that cover is a major and growing problem in schools.

“Teachers should be required to provide cover only rarely, and only in circumstances that are not foreseeable (this does not apply to teachers who are employed wholly or mainly for the purpose of providing such cover).”

Teachers are entitled to a certain number of days paid sick leave each year.

• 1^st year teaching – 25 days full pay and 25 days half
• 2^nd year teaching – 50 full days pay and 50 half days pay
• 3^rd year teaching – 75 full days pay and 75 half days pay
• 4^th year and after – 100 days full pay and 100 days half pay

Your employer has to write to you when you go down to half, or no pay if you are on long term sick leave. The sick leave year normally runs from 1 April to 31 March, and a new entitlement starts each year on 1 April. However, teachers absent due to illness on 31 March will not be entitled to the subsequent year’s allowance until they are recovered and are back at work. 

Part time workers cannot be directed to come in to work on days they would not normally be at work. This includes for training purposes.

The 1265 calculation for part time workers is pro-rata so additional directed hours after the school day should also be reduced to match the lower teaching commitment. Part time staff are still entitled to 10% PPA time too.

Where part-time teachers carry out the whole responsibility attached to a TLR post, they should receive the full value of the TLR payment. This may be pro-rata as part of a job share or reduction in responsibility.

There are three dates that a teacher can hand in their notice:

• 28^th Feb – leave at the end of spring term
• 31^st May – leave at the end of summer term
• 31^st Oct – leave at the end of Autumn term

If you want to resign at any other time you would have to negotiate this with your head teacher. For settings outside primary/secondary maintained sector, please check your individual contract for notice periods.

If you do have time off unpaid, your salary should be deducted at the rate of 1/365 not 1/195. Although we work 195 days we are paid through the year. Check your employer’s sickness absence policy to see what your entitlement is to paid & unpaid leave. Most reasonable employers allow a certain amount of time off for emergencies.

All teachers are automatically placed in this. It is a very good scheme and the NEU advises members to stay in it! It is also hugely important that you login to their online portal and check your payment history, as any breaks in service are much harder to rectify later. Mistakes can, and have been made in the past between TPS and payroll.

Teachers are contracted to be ‘available to work’ 195 days a year. Directed time describes all the hours that you are ‘directed’ by the head. Your school should produce a calendar of the 1265 hours showing how this time is allocated.

Ensuring a directed time calendar, negotiated by NEU members, is in place is the first step towards tackling teacher workload at your school.  A directed time calendar is important to ensure teachers’ hours are reasonable and is standard practice within the profession.

Your school should determine your pay within the guidelines set every year by the STRB (School Teachers Review Body) and incorporated into the STPCD (School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document).