The most popular (?) day for meetings is… Wednesdays! Forty-four percent of classroom teachers have a meeting on a Wednesday; the next highest is Monday, with 31%. Similarly, 61% of heads have a meeting on a Wednesday; 41% on a Monday. Teacher Tapp extends its sympathies to the 4% of heads, and 3% of classroom teachers with a regular, scheduled meeting on a Friday (hopefully the kids are sent home early?) And offers an envious salute to the 9% of classroom teachers and 1% of heads who say they don’t have a regular scheduled after-school meeting *any day of the week*!
A higher Ofsted rating brings many advantages – not least, attending fewer meetings. For example, in outstanding schools, *13%* of staff have no regular after-school meeting – but this drops to just *3%* in schools rated requires improvement or inadequate. We’re now busy speculating about causality: do RI/inadequate schools have more meetings in an effort to make improvements? Or do meetings reduce teachers’ productivity so much that they drag down the Ofsted rating? Answers on a postcard please.
We asked whether you would feel uncomfortable arguing for a higher salary. Most teachers (80%) said they would. The gender split proved interesting: 83% of women agreed they would feel uncomfortable – only 67% of men agreed. And seniority brings greater comfort in arguing for your worth: 23% of heads would feel comfortable arguing for a higher salary, against 17% of classroom teachers.
