QTAD Q&A

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 131 No 4, 26 June 2026, page no.23

Should I be expected to plan lessons if I am on leave?

Teachers may be absent from their normal day-to-day duties for a variety of reasons. This could be leave in its various forms, or they may be absent and attending to other professional duties. 

Under the industrial instruments that guide teachers’ employment, teachers are not required and should not be expected to work while on leave. This includes planning expectations. Importantly, the granting of leave is as a respite from work and there should not be any workload intensification in the lead up to accessing leave. There should be no requirement for teachers to plan for when they are absent, on top of the planning that they are already undertaking for their work before the leave period.  This is consistent with the workload management clause (9.3) and principles of good workload management clause (9.4) in the certified agreement.

Industrial guidelines and departmental policy determine planning requirements. There is no official DoE policy or legal requirement to provide lesson plans if you are on sick leave. Teachers across the state are employed under the same conditions. As such, local “school-based” policies that require teachers to provide planning when on various forms of leave — especially sick leave — are contrary to statewide guidelines. 

The management of planning when on leave is determined by whether it is planned or unplanned leave, and the type of leave being taken. It is recommended that schools develop a bank of resources (“contingency plans”) to manage the absence of employees on short-term and unplanned absences or leave. These contingency plans could be embedded into a school’s subject/year level unit plans and then used to manage the teacher’s absence. 

If the leave period is planned and for a period of five days or more, schools may employ a contract teacher to manage the teaching load. This teacher should receive non-contact time and be responsible for the daily and weekly plans, using the school-based subject/year level unit plans as their guide. 

If the leave is planned and is for one or two days duration, the school’s subject/year level unit overview and any “contingency plans” should suffice.  However, many teachers will be able to expand on this and provide basic planning outlines when absent on planned short-term leave, for example, to attend PD. If the planned absence is for three or four days and the school is seeking more detailed planning to manage the absence, the teacher should be provided with some release time to provide more detailed planning. If the planned leave is for five days or more days, the contract teacher employed to manage the absence is responsible for the planning.  

The QTU/DET joint statement on planning outlines that, dependent upon the circumstances, it could be appropriate for school leaders to ask a teacher to provide a planning overview to be made available to the teacher who will replace them while on leave. This would generally be the school-based subject/year level unit plan, depending on how schools develop their whole-school planning. However, teachers are not required to provide detailed, day-to-day plans, differentiated planning or specific lesson plans. If the school is seeking more detailed planning to manage the absence, then release time to develop this planning must be provided prior to the leave. 

It is important to note that the provision of planning may not be possible, dependent upon the nature of the leave and, in the case of illness, teachers should not be pressured to do so. As such, the type of leave that is occurring must be considered. People accessing leave such as bereavement leave or emergency leave, for example, should not have to provide planning.