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During the normal school term, teachers generally work about 60-70 hours a week. This is the breakdown:
- Teaching in the classroom (about 32-40 periods depending on sub-grade) (16 to 20 hours a week)
- Lesson planning & preparing of additional resources to engage the students better (negligible)
- Remedial lessons (3 hours a week)
- CCA (supervise the students) (about 3 hours a week; this excludes CCA planning which includes RAMS, liaising with instructors & external vendors)
- Marking of students' work (negligible; takes up at least 5 hours a week and may be greater if we are talking about EL/MTL compo & humanities essays)
- Contact Time/Principal's Time (may be weekly or monthly depending on the school)
- IP Department work (e.g. EL/Math/Science/Humanities/MTL Department) which may involve planning and organising school events/activities, organising & preparing for level meetings, preparing & editing level worksheets, preparing level online lessons (now schools are hot on using ICT)
- Non-IP Department work (e.g. CCE/ICT/PD Department) which may involve planning and organising school/staff events/activities
- ALP/LLP/PD research work
- Engaging parents on students' progress in school
- Writing of reports/student remarks in the following events: nominating students for awards, student remarks for report book, student testimonials, discipline cases/school refusal/special needs (reports are required), referring students for counselling
- Updating student results
- Occasional reflections on teaching for PD purposes
- Courses to attend
- Setting of exam papers
- Examining students for oral/marking of cohort-wide exam papers
- Classroom decorations
- Checking-in with students on their well-being

The above is a non-exhaustive list. I believe the complaining by teachers stems from the overwhelming number of non-core tasks that teachers need to complete on a weekly basis. By the way, teachers do work on weekends too (even the most efficient ones). Middle managers (LH/SH/HOD) definitely do much more than what's listed above as they are doing more work on the school level and they definitely sacrifice a lot of sleep every week to complete their work. Therefore, it is true that teaching only accounts for 25-30% of the work for a teacher and the rest of the other 70-75% goes to what I have listed above.

Hope you are able to see the big picture now before you lament on this forum about why teachers are complaining about the amount of work that they are tasked to do.

is the interview hard?

Wish to have a discussion here as I often heard from my teacher friends that teachers should just teach, and not dealing with all the non-teaching work.
I feel it bewildering why teachers have this misconception that teachers shouldn't be dealing with admin/non-teaching work. Other professional roles like police, firefighters, lawyers, doctors, and engineers all have their fair share of non-core tasks, and I don't hear any of them complaining about the "extra" work.
It's even more absurd hearing some teachers complaining about taking a CCA.
Shouldn't teachers go into the teaching career knowing that they have to perform both the teaching and non-teaching tasks, and not expecting anything less?


Reply:

During the normal school term, a typical MOE teacher works about 60-70 hours on average. This is the breakdown of work an MOE teacher does on a weekly basis:
- Teaching in the classroom which may include relief periods and recess duties (about 30-36 periods a week) (15-18 hours)
- Weekly lesson planning and preparing additional resources/activities to better engage students
- Remedial lessons (about 2-3 hours a week)
- CCA (about 2-3 hours a week) + CCA planning (planning CCA schedule/activities, liaising with instructors and vendors, RAMS, allocation of tasks, etc.)
- Contact Time/Level Meetings/Committee Meetings (can be weekly or monthly, depending on school)
- Marking of students' work and assignments (at least 6 hours a week, and the amount of time spent on marking per week is higher for EL/MTL compositions & humanities essays)
- IP Department work (e.g. EL/Math/MTL/Science/Humanities Department) which typically includes organizing school events or activities, creating or editing level worksheets, organising and/or preparing for level meetings, preparing level online lessons (now, schools are very hot on using ICT in the classroom)
- Non-IP Department work (e.g. PD/ICT/CCE/SWC Department) which typically includes organizing staff/school events or activities (typically at least one big event per officer every term)
- ALP/LLP/PD research work/Prepare students for Competitions
- Writing of reports for the following: discipline cases, student testimonials, student remarks for report book, referral for counselling cases, referral for special needs cases, nominating students for various awards
- Parent Engagement on a monthly basis, which includes Parent-Teacher Dialogue Session
- Occasional self-reflections on teaching made mandatory by the school
- Assessment-related matters: Setting and vetting of exam papers, examining/timekeeping students for EL/MTL Oral, Marking of cohort-wide exams
- Classroom Decorations
- Checking-in on students' well-being
- Going on courses during term time for Professional Development & to improve teaching and learning in the classroom

This list is non-exhaustive. There are many more mini tasks that a teacher is required to do, but I believe I have listed the main ones. Middle managers like LH/SH/HOD would have a higher workload due to their job scope... their work is scoped to have a greater impact on the school level. From what I see in my school, they typically sleep less than 5 hours a day from week to week as they need to balance between heavy workload and family commitments. I sincerely believe that many teachers do work on weekends too. As mentioned previously, teaching only accounts for 25-30% of the workload of a teacher. The other 70-75% goes towards the admin that is listed above.

Hope this will enlighten you that your teacher friends are lamenting only because they are overwhelmed by the amount of work that they are required to complete on a daily basis. Many teachers joined teaching believing that being a teacher is mostly about teaching in the classroom... only to be overwhelmed by the heavy administrative load that is exhausting and never-ending. If only the calculative parents and the public could understand and have more empathy for what teachers are going through on a daily basis.

"I don't hear any of them complaining about the "extra" work." - Maybe it isn't as overwhelming as what I have listed since most probably manage a few projects at once? Do bear in mind that teachers manage not only a few projects, but at least 50 parents and over a hundred students, some of whom with family or personal issues.

"It's even more absurd hearing some teachers complaining about taking a CCA."

"Shouldn't teachers go into the teaching career knowing that they have to perform both the teaching and non-teaching tasks, and not expecting anything less?" - Hope you will have greater empathy for teachers after reading the insights that I have posted. The non-teaching tasks in schools could definitely be reduced further to allow teachers to focus on quality teaching and learning in the classroom.

Actually, I think it boils down to individual. To be honest, you can balance your workload if you work smart. If you have to sacrifice your health like sleeping only 5 hours a day and work over the weekend, then I think you have not learnt how to work smart. You can be an effective and efficient worker. Don’t always equate hard work = good work.

As an experienced teacher, I think this reply does represent the amount of work we have to do.. Even now, on our protected break, I feel compelled to 'work' a little even of just to lighten my workload a little for next year.

that is why we are called GENERAL education occifer.

GENERAL coz all the jepalang you gotta do.

anything that is sorta related to "educating" and promoting development.
CCA, meetings all under job scope.
projects and initiatives
educating the parents....


unfortunately our job description isnt "academic classroom teacher, with specific duty to teach"

life is bad. but i need the money so gotta get back to planning

Any idea when the responsibility allowance comes in? Will it be with PB or end year bonus? Considering if I should take up appointment.

In December. Used to be $1300 for SH at GEO5; not sure if it's gone up.

Think you can just treat it as a small additional bonus at the end of the year, but can pretty much ignore it otherwise. If this allowance is actually a big reason why you're taking up the appointment, think you should consider again. It's a lot easier to get that additional sum via other means like tuition.