PPA is an acronym for Planning, Preparation and Assessment.
Since 2005, in all council-run schools in the UK, teachers have been entitled to PPA time to help them manage their workload. Teachers can choose to plan and prepare lessons, mark work, or catch up on other tasks.
A PPA teacher can be anyone who is qualified to cover the duties of the class teacher when they are taking their PPA time.
Ideally, schools should employ qualified teachers to cover PPA time. This could mean that the school employs one or more teachers, either on a full- or part-time basis, specifically to cover different classes whilst their teachers are having PPA time.
However, budgets don't always allow for this expense. In many schools, PPA time is covered by an HLTA (Higher Level Teaching Assistant), who is qualified to both cover lessons, and plan and teach their own lessons.
In an emergency or other unforeseen circumstances, Level 3 Teaching Assistants are able to cover PPA time, however they are not qualified to teach lessons requiring specialist training, such as PE or DT.
Some schools may choose to cover their PPA time by scheduling it for the same time as a class is being taught a subject by an external agency, e.g. music, sport or languages.
Teachers are entitled to a minimum of 10% of timetabled teaching time for PPA as part of their hours of directed time. For most full-time teachers, this works out at about 2.5 hours per week.
PPA time is usually taken in one continuous block, but it can be broken down into smaller blocks of at least 30 minutes each.
PlanBee resources are perfect for PPA teachers - each lesson pack contains everything that is needed to deliver a successful lesson:
