QTAD Q&A
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 127 No 7, 30 September 2022, page no. 26
We have rostered playground duty (PGD) at our school – if we are on a school excursion for the entire day, are we required to swap duties with someone and complete our duty another day?
Industrial instruments and DoE policy contain no definitive answer to this. The impact on PGD of excursions and school camps is managed at the school level.
The potential impact on PGD and subsequent loss of non-contact time should be identified in the planning stages of any excursion or camp, and those responsible for filling these “gaps” should be identified as early as possible.
It would be reasonable to suggest that teachers who are going on an excursion or school camp for the whole day or a number of days should be relieved from PGD for those days, but it must be agreed during the consultation stages of planning.
It is also important that teachers get their required breaks while on excursion/school camp and are not on “active duty” for the entirety of the day.
Consideration also needs to be given to those teachers undertaking the additional PGD, to ensure that they are still receiving their weekly entitlements to meal breaks and rest pauses.
Am I entitled to any additional NCT if I am a subject or year level coordinator?
Full-time secondary school teachers are entitled to a minimum of 210 minutes of non-contact time per week.
Full-time primary school teachers are entitled to a minimum of 150 minutes of non-contact time per week.
While undertaking a coordinator role within the school (e.g. subject, year level coordinator) may form part of a senior teacher action plan, the role does not attract additional non-contact time industrially. Of course, many schools schedule additional non-contact time for teachers when undertaking such a role.
It should be noted that only award entitlement to non-contact time can be made up once lost due to variation to school routine. Any over-allocation lost does not have to be made up.