set out how provision can be made for the absence of teachers without increasing the workload for teachers.What should be covered in the school cover policy? In many areas of England and Wales it will be foreseeable that there may be adverse weather or traffic conditions which will affect teachers’ attendance, although it may be that any particular occurrence is itself unforeseen. For example, it is certainly foreseeable that there will be a need for cover to be arranged when teachers are absent from school due to other work commitments such as school trips, external meetings or for training. Most events which prompt a need for cover are foreseeable. The NEU opposes schools operating a fixed-hours limit to cover duties as this would be incompatible in practice with cover being undertaken only rarely or exceptionally it would become an expectation that teachers would provide cover to that limit.
A teacher who is asked once in a year to take pupils from a split class for a whole day while their teacher is absent would be covering for at least five hours, which would not fall within the definition of ‘rarely’. In addition, our view is that ‘only rarely’ applies not just to the number of individual occasions, but to the total number of hours that a teacher is asked to provide cover on a particular occasion. The NEU interpretation is that teachers should be asked to undertake cover only in exceptional circumstances, such as emergency situations.