Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the number of (a) paid and (b) unpaid overtime hours worked by (i) primary and (ii) secondary school teachers in each year since 2010.

The information requested is not held centrally. Teachers are not paid overtime as part of the national framework of terms and conditions.

The School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) sets out the terms and conditions, including working hours, of teachers employed in maintained schools in England. The STPCD requires teachers to be available for work on 195 days each year, of which 190 are teaching days (the other 5 being inset days). Teachers are also required to be available for 1265 hours each year to be allocated reasonably across these days. The 1265 hours make up the directed hours, which are available for headteachers to direct the work of teachers. In addition to the directed time, teachers must also work "such reasonable additional hours as may be necessary to enable the effective discharge of the teacher’s professional duties."

Non-maintained schools, including academies and free schools, are responsible for determining the pay and conditions of their staff themselves. Such schools are not obliged to follow the statutory arrangements set out in the STPCD, although they may still choose to do so if they wish.

The Department collects robust information about teachers’ working hours through regular surveys, including time spent on teaching and non-teaching activities.