Victorian Government Schools Agreement

Families may be aware that recently, the Fair Work Commission approved the 2022 Victorian Government Schools Agreement on Monday 18 July 2022, which commenced operation from Monday 25 July 2022. 

This new agreement requires school leaders to ensure a range of updates to current practices occur to reduce staff workload and ensure any staff work undertaken in schools is recognised and rewarded. One of the new practices include ensuring Time-In-Lieu for teaching and ES staff, where work is undertaken outside the 38 hour working week. The Time-In-Lieu (TIL) arrangements allow staff who undertake work that is outside these working hours to access TIL, provided it is work that is required and agreed upon as part of the schedule of meetings and events for the year. This additional time can be ‘paid back’ to staff through time away from work equal to the extra time taken, preferably in the fortnight in which the additional work was undertaken.

An example of this Time-In-Lieu (TIL) arrangement is staff attending school Camps. Staff are to be provided with time away from work (TIL), equal to the additional hours they have spent working directly with students, or in part for times staff are on duty but not working directly with students. For teaching staff, this TIL arrangement for camps comes into play from January 2023. Other current TIL arrangements might be for Parent teacher interviews, afterschool events (eg. Fun Fiesta), Victorian State School Spectacular, etc.

Another of the updates to employment conditions for school staff includes a reduction in face-to-face teaching time. This will allow staff more time to plan, assess students 1-1, collaborate with colleagues, complete mandatory training and professional learning, review data, develop individual learning plans, contact parents, and more of the tasks that are part of the teaching day but do not occur with students in the classroom.

With the changes to working conditions for school staff now being enacted, and other aspects due to be in place by 2023, our ARPS Consultative Committee is meeting regularly to determine what this may mean for whole school practices. This week, the Consultative Committee is reviewing our current timetable, and considering changes that may need to occur to accommodate the parameters of the new agreement. We will keep our ARPS community informed as any plans for timetable changes in 2023 are developed, including the likelihood of an additional Specialist subject to be provided F-6 in 2023.