QTAD Q&A

How much playground duty can I be asked to undertake each week?

There is no agreed maximum amount of time for playground duty (PGD) set out in the Teaching in State Education Award – State 2016 or State School Teachers’ Certified Agreement 2016, however award and certified agreement prescriptions on meal breaks mean that teachers cannot be unreasonably deployed to undertake it.

A teacher’s daily entitlement to meal breaks includes a 10 minute rest pause and an uninterrupted meal break of 45 minutes per day. This can be reduced to 30 minutes subject to LCC discussions, however at the end of each week a full-time teacher should receive 225 minutes of meal breaks and 50 minutes of rest pause.

Below is an example of a school that has used the facilitative provisions of the certified agreement (through the LCC process) to have its 45 minute uninterrupted meal break reduced to no less than a 30 minute uninterrupted meal break each day. For the purpose of this example, the school’s current break times are 11–11.30am and 1–1.40pm, which equates to 70 minutes per day.

Teachers award entitlements for meal breaks 5 days x 45 mins 225 minutes per week
Teachers award entitlements for rest pause 5 days x 10 mins 50 minutes per week
Time remaining for PGD 75 minutes per week

The maximum playground duty a teacher in this example can be asked to undertake is 75 minutes per week. Teachers at this school must receive a minimum of a 10 minute rest pause and 30 minute uninterrupted break daily. The rest pause should be in a separate break from that designated as the meal break. Section 16.3 of the award states the following.

“16.3 Bus and playground supervision
(a) Subject to clauses 16.3(b) and (c), teachers will be relieved of bus supervision duties and supervision of students in the playground as far as possible and where appropriate.
(b) Teachers are still required to undertake some part of those duties. The appropriate mix of teachers and teacher aides will be determined by the principal of the school, having regard to local circumstances in accordance with the applicable local consultative arrangements.
(c) Teachers shall not be required to undertake bus supervision duties for more than 30 minutes after the completion of the daily program of instruction.”

I am a specialist teacher – do I have to do playground duty?

A specialist teacher in a primary and/or special school setting is defined as a PE, LOTE or music teacher. Playground and bus duty is not to be allocated if the specialist teacher services more than two schools, as outlined in section 15.3 of the Teaching in State Education Award – State 2016.

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 122 No 1, 10 February 2017, p26