February 2012

The know zone

  • Fault lines
    As keen readers of this column know, ‘vicarious liability’ is the legal doctrine that makes employers answerable for the actions of an employee in the course of his or her employment. But how does this translate to extra-curricular school activities? Richard Bird explains. More
  • Stay in touch?
    Teacher contact ratio is a topic of perennial importance but attempting to work out what the ideal figure should be is always a frustrating business, says Sam Ellis More
  • Lead vocals
    Quotes from Confucius, Douglas Adams and Aristotle More
  • Action man
    Until this spring, Graeme Hornsby is assistant principal (business management) at Lutterworth College, Leicestershire, a school with a £10m budget, 400 staff and 2,000 pupils where he has worked since 1989. A keen triathlete, he regularly undertakes a 600-mile round trip to see his beloved Celtic FC play. More
  • E-safety first...
    Online safety is in the spotlight throughout the world in February. More
  • Adding value
    A simple answer to saving money More
  • A level playing field
    UCAS has proposed allowing students to apply to university after they receive their A level results, even though it means moving the A level teaching period and shortening the exam window. Is it the best way to improve the admissions system? What are the implications? Members share their views. More
  • Leaders' surgery
    Healthy outlook provides food for thought & Early retirement calculations More
  • Old challenges for a new year...
    While the ongoing pension negotiations were high on the agenda of last Council, on 8-9 December, intelligent accountability was also a hot topic, with discussions in various committees on Ofsted, local authorities and the role of governors. More
  • Failing to plan...?
    The National Curriculum Review’s expert panel report, published in December, concurred with ASCL’s view that it is pointless to change the curriculum until we’ve agreed what purpose the curriculum is expected to serve. This debate has not happened, says Brian Lightman. More
  • Podium panic!
    Keeping the guest speaker sober and on-message while peppering your own presentation with song titles and wondering what some of the gongs are actually for – all concerns as prize-giving ceremonies loom large… More
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Teacher contact ratio is a topic of perennial importance but attempting to work out what the ideal figure should be is always a frustrating business, says Sam Ellis.

Stay in touch?

Those who attended Hull University in the late 1960s may remember someone who subsequently became an MP and who, when speaking at student union meetings, made an art form of voting in abstention no matter what the proposal. (I give a further clue to his identity; he recently served as a judge for a well-known literary prize.)

Throughout my teaching career, I worked with colleagues who could apply this same skill to any decision concerning a choice of two things. Today’s topic, teacher contact ratio, would frustrate them greatly.

In a timetable, teachers are either in planned curriculum contact with students or they are not. We need to define terms, however. ‘Planned curriculum contact’ are those periods on teachers’ timetables that should also be on the school’s curriculum plan. These include class lessons and support periods where teachers work with pupils on a planned and regular basis, within classes or outside, or in inclusion situations. A school can decide what it includes in the planned contact category, provided it works in consistent manner.

Local decision

Some schools might count an element of ‘on call’ as teacher contact time; others would run that out of management time. That is a local decision but it needs to be consistent. Periods that are not planned curriculum contact are those like PPA and management time.

Periods for ‘rarely cover’ would fall into this category but given that they will be used very rarely I would question the value of that. Time teachers may spend working with pupils on an ad hoc basis during management time is not planned curriculum contact.

Just because everyone in the room has a nose does not mean that the room itself has a nose. The reverse is true for contact ratio. The whole staff contact ratio is a useful statistic but the values for individual members of staff are not. The chart shows an ineffective school with the teacher period allocation in a 25-period cycle.

If you divide the total teaching load (=103) by the total in the “employed” column (=190) you get the contact ratio which is. 0.54 in this case. For reference, if this was the value in a real state school it would be in financial ruin! Typical values for this statistic are in the 0.7 to 0.8 area.

Aspirational value

There is no magic number when it comes to contact ratio. You can compare values between schools but I suggest that is best done through discussion; statistics from the web can be misleading. I would use a reference target of 0.78 (10 per cent PPA + 10 per cent management + 2 per cent error = 22 per cent, leaving 78 per cent or 0.78 contact). Some schools will be able to work above this value; in others it will be aspirational.

The contact ratio should be used as a planning tool. With a contact ratio of 0.78 the average teacher teaches 0.78 × 25 = 19.5 periods. Given a curriculum plan for a future year of say 1,950 teacher periods a school with a contact ratio of 0.78 would need 1,950 ÷ 19.5 = 100 full-time equivalent teachers.

Shifting the contact ratio is a key financial driver, as illustrated in previous Leader columns. See www.ascl.org.uk/resources/library/funding_tools for support materials and more detail concerning contact ratio and some exercises.

th {text-align: left} th, td {vertical-align: top; }

Teacher
Roll
FTE
Employed
Teaching load
PPA
Management
Other non-contact
Sneezy Main Scale (NQT)
1
25
19
2
0
4
Sleepy Main scale
1
25
22
3
0
0
Dopey
Main scale
0.6
15
13
2
0
0
Doc
Head of dept
1
25
18
2
5
0
Happy
Head of year
1
25
16
2
7
0
Bashful
Assistant head
1
25
10
1
14
0
Grumpy
Deputy
1
25
5
1
19
0
Snow White
Head
1
25
0
0
25
0
Totals

7.6
190
103
13
70
4
  •  Sam Ellis is ASCL's funding specialist

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