✕

Important update from TheSchoolRun

For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.

What this means for subscribers:

  • Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
  • In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
  • As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.

A few changes to be aware of:

  • The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
  • The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.

*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.

What is PPA time?

What is PPA time?
All teachers are entitled to time out of the classroom to prepare and mark lessons. We explain how it works and how it affects your child.

Since 2005, all teachers have been entitled to PPA time: time away from their classroom for planning, preparation and assessment. This means that every week, your primary-school child will have some of their lessons taught by another member of staff.

What’s the point of PPA time?

PPA time was introduced to help ease teachers’ workload by giving them time during their normal working week to plan and prepare lessons and work on assessments for the children they teach. The aim of PPA time is to reduce the number of hours that teachers need to put into planning lessons and marking during evenings and at the weekend.

How much do teachers get?

All teachers are entitled to a minimum of 10 per cent of their regular teaching hours as PPA time. For most full-time teachers, this works out at about 2.5 hours per week. Their PPA time must fall within their normal teaching day; it can’t be bolted on at the beginning or end of the day, or given at times when they’re not timetabled to be teaching.

PPA has to be allocated to teachers in blocks of at least 30 minutes. It’s up to the school’s leadership team to decide how to allocate PPA time: in some schools, it might be taken in three short sessions, while in others, a teacher might have a whole afternoon out of class once a week.

Are all teachers entitled to PPA?

In short, yes. All employed teaching staff, including headteachers, deputy heads and those with other responsibilities like Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) are entitled to PPA equating to 10 per cent of their teaching hours. Teachers who have leadership responsibilities also have additional time out of the classroom for Leadership and Management time, but this is on top of, not instead of, PPA.

Part-time teachers are also entitled to PPA equivalent to 10 per cent of their teaching time, so a teacher who works 15 hours a week, for example, will get 90 minutes’ PPA time. If a part-time teacher works so few hours that their PPA time ends up being very small – such as 20 minutes a week – it can be combined into a longer session once a fortnight.

Newly qualified teachers have the same PPA allowance as fully qualified teachers, but supply teachers don’t receive PPA time.

What can teachers do in PPA time?

As the name suggests, teachers must use their PPA time for preparation, planning or assessment. So, for example, they might use it to work out their lesson plans for the coming week, gather resources for an upcoming topic, mark recent classwork or write school reports. It’s up to the individual teacher how they use their PPA time, but the headteacher can insist that they stay on the school premises (although it’s recommended that they’re flexible about this).

Teachers shouldn’t be asked to give up their PPA time to cover for an absent member of staff or deal with issues such as behaviour problems that crop up in their class while they’re away from the classroom.

Who will teach your child during their teacher’s PPA time?

The best practice is for schools to employ qualified teachers to cover PPA time. This might involve a school having one (or more) part-time or full-time teacher who doesn’t have a class of their own and spends all their time teaching the different classes while the regular teacher is having their PPA time.

In reality, this can be difficult, especially in small schools or those on tight budgets. Often, they find other ways around the problem. For example, a class might do enrichment activities such as music or sport with an external agency (like the local schools music service) during their teacher’s PPA time; or they might be taught by a higher-level teaching assistant.

Sometimes, schools manage by ‘doubling up’ classes to free a teacher up for PPA – so, for instance, two separate classes might have an afternoon together with one teacher and their usual TAs, while the other teacher takes their PPA time. This is not recommended by the teaching unions, but can be a way of making PPA time work without the school having to employ extra staff.