The International Schools Review Forum

sid wrote:
> I prefer hours to percentages. Percentage adds in another variable:
> percentage of what? Of a forty hour work week? Of a forty five hour work
> week? Of a thirty five hour work week?
> Or is it a percentage of the available teaching time, which is generally
> less than the total working hours?
> With straight-up hours, we see how much actual contact time people have.

This is true. The % comparison was useful, I felt, as we were looking at two different models for a new year in the same school.

As a way of comparing across schools then I agree that hours/minutes is more helpful.

I prefer knowing my contracted time and my instructional time in terms of hour and minutes compared to percentages. It makes for easier comparison across positions.

sid wrote:
> Our school defines a FT teaching schedule up to 16.5 hours a week. That
> includes homeroom but not duties, after school activities, etc. Most
> teachers come in around 14 to 15 hours. A couple teachers a year need to go
> a little above, and they don’t have to do duties or after school
> activities.

This sounds almost exactly like my school.

Illiane_Blues wrote:
> sid wrote:
> > Our school defines a FT teaching schedule up to 16.5 hours a week. That
> > includes homeroom but not duties, after school activities, etc. Most
> > teachers come in around 14 to 15 hours. A couple teachers a year need to go
> > a little above, and they don’t have to do duties or after school
> > activities.
>
> This sounds almost exactly like my school.


Same I got 20 classes a week teaching load, that makes it around the same. With duties its around 20-22 hours a week.

It can be tricky to tabulate when you add in things like seminars or tutor or homeroom or advisory type classes. Is a 10 minute homeroom "teaching" time? Contact time? Is it linked to a weekly or monthly advisory of some kind? Is prep required for such a class? When you are on a rotation schedule you might work more one week and less the next. If you have schedules with once/week shorter periods it can be even more tricky to calculate.

At one school I taught 87% plus a seminar, but only two preps. At another I taught 30% but had significant extra responsibilities (program coordination, administrative duties); normal was about 60%. Those are my extremes. But perhaps my most stressful job was one at which my teaching contact time was average--maybe 60%--because of the number of preps (6), extra responsibilities, and poor administration. My easiest was one at which I taught about 65% with four prepssimply because we were well run and had super support.

I would say in my experience the average is about 2/3.

Just wanted to add that there was a typo in my previous post--77%, not 87%. Apologies if people thought that anyone required that much work!

@Thames Pirate

There are some days where your teaching load might be 87% or higher. You have classes all day and only lunch off.

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Thames Pirate
>
> There are some days where your teaching load might be 87% or higher. You
> have classes all day and only lunch off.

It seems likely that @Thames Pirate was referring the her average weekly load and not a specific day, since the topic title mentions 'per week', and @Thames Pirate also refers to a weekly teaching load prior to mentioning that number.
But @Thames Pirate can correct me if I'm wrong.

At the moment - 65% + advisory

I've had up to 84% + homeroom

@Heliotrope

Both of our statements can be equally valid. Im not restricted to commentary that doesnt mean the rigors of your definitions.

@unsure

My highest was 80%

> @unsure
>
> My highest was 80%

Mine was at a British state school (US = public school) - so maybe not a good comparison here. During our 'free time' we were also expected to do at least one cover per week, so it was probably closer to 90%. With up to 35 students per class and 6 to 8 preps, I lasted 6 years then fled to IE.

@unsure

Mine was in a US public DS (a British maintained DS). I had 4 preps and my classes were at 30 students. So maybe not the best comparison. I never worked harder for so little and was never respected less. I stayed 2 years.

Does '4 preps' mean four classes to prepare lessons for?

Yes, 4 different lessons per day, for 4 different subjects.

Yes, I was referring to weekly; at that school we had some weird scheduling quirks that were very hard to quantify, even on a weekly level (rotating ABC schedule with shorter periods but an extra class on Wednesdays).