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Your entitlements

Entitlements

As an NQT, you have various entitlements that are designed to help your professional development so you can successfully pass the induction year.

Below is a useful checklist you can use to ensure that your school is meeting its obligations to you. 

  • A 10% lighter teaching timetable than other teachers in the school for your professional development time, plus 10% of the remaining 90% of your timetable free for PPA time. Effectively, you need to be teaching 81% of the timetable. This only applies in England and Wales.
  • An individualised planned programme of support, monitoring and assessment.
  • Objectives for your professional development to help you meet the induction standards by the end of the year.
  • An assessment report sent to your local authority (in England and Wales) at the end of each term.
  • Procedures to express grievances and discuss problems if you are not happy with the induction provision at your school and/or local education authority (or ELB) level. 
  • A ‘reasonable’ job (‘unreasonable’ would be defined as the school asking you to teach an age group or a subject for which you have not   been trained. It would also be unreasonable to ask you to teach pupils with especially demanding behaviour. Finally, you should not be given any non-teaching responsibilities; or be expected to do more planning and assessment than other staff).
  • Regular meetings with the school induction tutor, including regular reviews of progress.
  • An observation of your teaching every six to eight weeks, with oral and written feedback which is constructive and given shortly afterwards.
  • An assessment meeting with your headteacher and your induction tutor at the end of each term.    

 Download ATL's publication, Induction: making it work for you, full of further advice on how to get the most out of your first year in teaching.   

Help and support 
For further advice on this issue, ATL members can speak to their school rep, their branch secretary or their regional official. They can also call the London (020 7930 6441), Cardiff (029 2046 5000) or Belfast office (028 9078 2020) or email info@atl.org.uk.

For out of hours enquiries, call the out of office hours helpline on 020 7782 1612 (Monday-Friday, 5-8pm during term time). Don’t forget that ATL also offers a Crisis Line for members who have suffered assaults or trauma either at work or in their private lives (08705 234 838).

If you are not a member, join now.

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