“Make the school day 30 minutes longer” – Education chief

Tuesday 21 July 2015

Secondary school students should be spending an extra half-hour in class every day, according to Education Director Justin Donovan.

And he has said that teachers in Jersey have a good deal compared to their UK counterparts, with “significantly more” pay than those in the UK and shorter teaching days.

In evidence to a Scrutiny panel yesterday, Mr Donovan – who took over last year as the top man at the Education department – said that he thought the teaching day should be extended.

He said: “We should be teaching more days than we are. We teach two fewer days than the UK and the school day is slightly shorter. I think secondary schools are finishing 30 minutes earlier than they should be.

“In the UK, teachers also have five days a year for professional training but in Jersey we currently get two and an air show. We need more and I would want one to be a Island-wide conference every couple of years.

“Working for more and longer days is a sticking point for teaching unions – asking people to work more when you’re restraining their pay isn’t easy but teachers in Jersey are very well paid, significantly more than the UK. Teachers are lucky here: they generally have lovely kids, there’s no Ofsted, they have shorter days, the schools are good and they are well paid.”

His comments are unlikely to go down well with teaching unions. Last week the NASUWT – which represents the vast majority of teachers in Jersey – claimed that the imposition of a pay freeze would make it harder for schools to attract and retain top quality teachers here in Jersey.

Mr Donovan said that the cuts planned in the public sector were having an effect on his department – but added that the extra investment that education was going to receive was helping to insulate them.

He told the panel: “In terms of hard cash, in 2016 we will have £2.8m more than we have this year but most of that growth in budget will go to covering the demographic growth in pupils.

”So we don’t have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to our budget. We can meet our aims but it gives us very little flexibility.

“Staff cuts were not expected so we will be minus £1.2m in unmet staff savings in 2016. That will have an effect. We planned, for instance, for a new IT system costing £0.5m but this will have to reprioritise within the budget.”