PADSIS Research into Reward Models for School Sport

School sport requires a significant workforce to ensure a vibrant co-curricular provision. The historic assumption of staff contribution based upon goodwill and generous discretionary effort is in terminal decline. There are pockets of good health, but the general trend is a downwards one. This results partly from changing attitudes to what constitutes reasonable overall demands of the job and partly from perception of fairness. Activities with a high expectation of time commitment, especially those that take place at weekends and in holidays, are under greatest pressure. The business case of independent education depends heavily on the richness of its opportunities beyond the classroom: it cannot therefore ignore this issue or allow the programme to contract to fit the available staff (as has happened in the maintained sector).

Inevitably, there is pressure to address the two issues which co-curricular staffing presents. The first is recognition of additional tasks beyond teaching timetabled lessons; the other is the perceived fairness of the relative demands upon different teachers.

Schools have experimented with a variety of ways of doing this, none of which has been entirely satisfactory. Some, however, are less successful than others.

PADSIS has researched how schools attempt to reward and encourage staff participation in extra-curricular sport. The following is a summary of findings:

Recognition models include the following:

1. “His captain’s hand on his shoulder smote”

Much co-curricular activity, especially sport and outdoor pursuits, takes place beyond the school day, week or term. The staff involved are often conscious that some of their colleagues are at home at those times. The need to feel that their contribution is valued and recognised is universal. The school leadership has a vital role to play in this process, and in ensuring that those staff feel sufficiently valued to continue. This requires visibility, and overt recognition, usually in the form of thanks. Where the senior staff are never present at these activities, and do not readily acknowledge what the staff have done at weekends and in holidays, there is always resentment. A system of attendances, interest and acknowledgement is surprisingly effective in reducing resentment.

2. Universal Expectation.

Many schools have an explicit expectation that all staff will be required to contribute to co-curricular activity. This is sometimes linked to an additional payment or ‘allowance’ paid to all, typically to elevate rates of pay above the maintained sector. The “X School Allowance” is tied to an expectation of contribution beyond the classroom. Some schools allow staff to decline this payment and its attendant obligations.

This recognises the issue of curriculum extension. As part of the general co-curricular expectation, teachers are expected to provide additional opportunities within their subject area. This can include plays, orchestras and academic clinics. Sports teams are the legitimate expectation of PE teachers. Whether or not this extends to three terms, or weekends, is not always clear.

This model acknowledges increased workload, though not the fairness gap between the demands of different activities. Comparing the demands of running a Cricket team, or Duke of Edinburgh expedition with a lunchtime chess club inevitably stimulates perceived unfairness. For that reason, this model is often combined with the following:

3. Tariff System

This seeks to address the issue of perceived fairness by attempting to recognise the varying demands of different types of activity. The currency of contribution is measured in tariff points, with staff required to achieve a target number. The programme architect allocates a score to each activity, based on its perceived demand. Whilst there is a degree of subjectivity, and therefore potential for resentment, it is an attempt to equalise contribution and establish fairness. A classroom teacher running a Saturday sports team might accrue a year’s worth of tariff points in a single term. This may equate to a full year of chess club.

Sometimes this can be tied up with the wider question of school duties. Staff heavily committed to co-curricular activity may be required to undertake a smaller share of school duties. This can be particularly significant in a boarding environment, where such duties may be more extensive.

This model can, however, confuse the issue of curriculum extension activities. Whether or not points are allocated to PE teachers taking charge of a sport, or management of a sports team, is potentially controversial.

An unintended consequence can also be to limit the contribution of the keenest staff. Once the required contribution has been reached, there is no incentive to go beyond. In establishing what is the ‘normal’ contribution, it may unwittingly discourage the abnormally large commitment typical of a minority of staff in most schools.

4. Time allowance

The currency of employment is predominantly time. It is therefore logical to attempt to trade time commitments within any role. Where schools are able to made timetable recognition for time committed to sport, resentment is reduced. Some schools, typically in the girls’ and prep sector, offer time off in the week in acknowledgement of commitment to weekend sport. This might take the form of a morning, or even a day, off in the week, or simply a late start to one morning. This has a clear, and significant, cost, but has been shown to be effective in reducing resentment.

Similarly costly, but also successful, is timetabling the games commitments of classroom teachers who coach teams. Typically, this means that part of their timetable allocation is of scheduled games periods. Commitment to weekend sport, for one or more terms, is then an expectation. It does however, create timetabling difficulties and takes specialist teachers away from their principal subject.

5. Reimbursing Expenses

Where some staff attend school for a sixth day, it is relatively uncontroversial to reimburse the cost of additional travel required. This can be significant where staff are commuting longer distances, and are attending matches and competitions at weekends.

It can, however, introduce sensitivity if some attendances are reimbursed and others not. It requires schools to accurately define all the occasions on which attendance is expected of staff, and for which additional travel costs are not met.

Any policy of this type must be careful to meet HMRC regulations

6. Direct Payment

This is the most controversial approach. One the one hand, it seems logical that staff who undertake additional duties with significant time commitment should be paid for them. At first sight, this might be expected to reduce perceived unfairness, increase sense of recognition and also change behaviour to improve the number contributing. In practice, this is almost never the case. Making direct payments, in almost all circumstances, is counter-productive, and can often increase dissatisfaction and resentment. It is also a one way strategy: it is extremely difficult to remove once in place, and should therefore be very carefully considered prior to any implementation.

The most common way of doing this is to make an additional payment to staff involved in sports, and some other, activity beyond the timetable. Often, this is specifically tied to weekend attendance. Sometimes this is a single payment for a term’s contribution, though some schools link it directly to attendance, such as a payment for every Saturday contribution.

Rates vary considerably, starting at about £ 25 per Saturday and ranging to over £1000 per term. Once a school departs from a general expectation, or an indirect payment model, into what is effectively an ‘overtime’ payment, a number of issues inevitably emerge. Once the norms are economic, rather than social, everything changes.

It is almost impossible to design a payment model that addresses all the vagaries of co-curricular activity, especially in sport. It is also inevitable that, whatever the payment level, teachers involved will calculate it down to an hourly rate – and then resent that rate. What begins as a discretionary payment to recognise goodwill soon stimulates exactly the sense of unfairness that it was designed to prevent.

There are many questions which need to be addressed in designing a payment system. The complexity of this makes it almost impossible to do so to everyone’s satisfaction, and thereby satisfy the perceived unfairness issue. These include:

· What, exactly, does a teacher have to do to attract payment?

· Is the payment tied to a minimum number of attendances?

· Are payments only available for activities which take place at the weekend?

· Are lower commitment activities (eg B teams) remunerated at lower rates?

· Are higher commitment activities (eg Cricket, Rowing) remunerated at a higher rate?

· What happens if games are cancelled, owing to bad weather or the opposition withdrawing?

· Are classroom teachers the only people eligible for these payments?

· Are the only eligible sports activities the running of school teams?

· Should PE teachers be paid, or is this part of an expected commitment to curriculum extension? If so, what is that expectation, and who defines it?

· How should off-site activities, including distant away games, residential and tours be remunerated?

When the payment model is examined forensically, it appears preferable to link payment specifically to the extent of the commitment. Counterintuitively, this is almost always less successful, leading to a more precise calculation of hourly rate and consequent feeling of being undervalued. The more transactional the arrangement, the less likely it is to be satisfactory. It also requires close tracking and monitoring, which adds to both resentment at administrative burden.

In order to operate a direct payment model, it is necessary to clarify the contractual (or cultural) expectation of specialist teachers and coaches, and link the payment of classroom teachers involved to the level of commitment at the weekend. The boundaries between standard contractual expectation, discretionary effort and additional payment need to be clear defined and accepted as logical and at least a reasonable attempt to address the fairness issue. This is very rarely achieved.

At its worst, direct payment is costly, irreversible and ineffective. It is rarely sufficient to change behaviour, or to stimulate satisfaction.

PADSIS is producing an report on the issues involved in staffing school sport, which will be available to members early in the New Year