QTAD Q&A

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 130 No 1, 14 February 2025, page no 23.

How much playground duty should a full-time teacher do each week?
The better approach is “are teachers getting their basic entitlements to meal and rest pause breaks according to the award and certified agreement?”

Schools should arrange the playground roster in a consultative way with the support of the LCC. Teachers should not be unreasonably deployed to undertake playground duty and should ensure that they receive their break entitlements. 

Meal breaks must be for a minimum of 30 uninterrupted minutes per day, with full-time teachers accessing a total of 225 minutes per week of unpaid meal breaks.  In addition, teachers are entitled to a 10-minute paid rest/pause break each day, which counts towards rostered duty time. This should be provided in a break separate to the time allocated for the uninterrupted meal break and cannot be averaged across the week.  

For example: 

Meal break times: 40 minutes + 30 minutes = 70 minutes per day or 350 minutes per week. 

Teacher entitlement: 45 minutes + 10 minutes = 55 minutes (average per day) or minutes per week. 

Balance = 75 minutes of spare time which could be used for playground duty. 

This school has agreed to reduce the uninterrupted meal break to a minimum of 30 minutes per day through the LCC. Therefore, a full-time teacher working at this school must receive one 30-minute uninterrupted meal break and one 10-minute rest pause in opposite breaks daily as a minimum and will receive at least 275 minutes across the week. 
Further information can be found in QTU brochures on meal breaks (www.qtu.asn.au/bradmealbreaks) and bus and playground supervision (www.qtu.asn.au/bradbps). 

Are you receiving your correct non-contact time? 
The following allocations are for full-time teachers per week:

Teaching staff engaged through the Permission to Teach (PTT) registration provisions will also be provided with additional non-contact time funding during the PTT period. This does not exclude these teachers from their additional non-contact time entitlement when progressing to provisional registration.

Non-contact time is calculated on a pro-rata basis if you are working part-time. Refer to the QTU Timetabling Guide (www.qtu.asn.au/qtuguide-timetabling) to establish what your non-contact time entitlement is according to your fraction and the sector you work in.

Making up lost non-contact time
All classroom teachers are entitled to access NCT, and NCT lost due to planned school activities should be replaced/made up.

Planned school activities are those things that form part of the school calendar and are known, e.g. excursions, school camps, sports carnivals (swimming and athletics carnivals), school assemblies, graduations, QCS, exam blocks, practice fire drills and practice lockdowns.

Unforeseen activities, such as evacuations, visits by Parliamentarians, critical responses (e.g.: lockdowns) are not seen as planned school activities.

Additionally, sick leave, carer’s leave, student free days, professional development (where the teacher requests to attend rather than being required to attend by the school), industrial relations education leave and public holidays are not recognised as planned school activities, nor are they recognised as a way to repay lost NCT.

A process to replace lost NCT should be agreed following consultation through the local consultative committee (LCC). This process should include the timeframe in which NCT lost as a consequence of planned school activities will be replaced and options for how. 

NB: The arrangements for replacement of NCT lost due to planned school activities need to be determined in advance. These should not include going below the minimum NCT award-entitlement in future weeks, even when there is additional NCT in previous weeks.

Further information can be accessed from the QTU document: Unpacking the non-contact time clause from the certified agreement (www.qtu.asn.au/unpacking-nct).