PPA Time Entitlement: Know Your Rights (England + UK Notes) and Make It Actually Work for You
Last updated: December 2025
PPA stands for Planning, Preparation and Assessment time. It’s the non-contact time you’re meant to use to plan lessons, prepare resources, assess work, and stay on top of the job without it swallowing your evenings.
And yet, in a lot of schools, PPA gets treated like a “spare”, a flexible gap, or the first thing to borrow when cover is tight.
So let’s get really clear: PPA isn’t a bonus and it isn’t a favour. It’s protected time. If yours keeps “mysteriously disappearing”, it’s not you being awkward. It’s the system doing what the system does.
This guide explains your PPA time entitlement so you can assert yourself with confidence and without being confrontational.
PPA time entitlement in England: the 10% rule and the 30-minute rule
If you teach pupils in a maintained school in England, you should receive:
- At least 10% of your timetabled teaching time as PPA.
- PPA in blocks of 30 minutes or more (not tiny chopped-up fragments).
- PPA within the timetabled teaching week and within your directed time.
- PPA that is teacher-controlled: you should not be directed to do meetings, cover, duties, or other tasks during it.
By agreement with the headteacher, PPA can also be taken off-site and/or as one weekly block (where the timetable can accommodate it).
Important: Teaching terms and entitlements vary across the UK. Scroll to the UK-wide section if you’re in Wales, Northern Ireland, or Scotland.
What counts as PPA (and what doesn’t)
PPA is for: planning, preparing, assessing, and the professional thinking that makes teaching possible. That might look like:
- planning sequences and lessons
- adapting resources for your classes
- marking/feedback that genuinely changes what pupils do next
- reviewing pupil data to plan next steps
- collaborative planning (if you choose to use it that way)
PPA is not for: plugging staffing gaps or adding more directed tasks because “it’s the only time we can get everyone together”.
How much PPA should you get? (The 10% rule + the 30-minute rule)
The cleanest way to think about it is this:
Your minimum PPA = 10% of your timetabled teaching time.
Example (simple):
- If you teach 20 hours per week, your minimum PPA is 2 hours.
And it must be scheduled in blocks of at least 30 minutes. So if your timetable shows lots of tiny slivers that never let you get started properly, that’s a problem worth raising.
Part-time teachers: your PPA should still be pro-rata based on the timetabled teaching week. You shouldn’t have to “earn” it through goodwill.
Can your school use your PPA for cover, meetings or duties?
In England, teachers cannot be directed to undertake specific activities (including meetings or cover) during PPA time.
So if your PPA time entitlement is being used for:
- covering a colleague
- supervising pupils
- being pulled into ad-hoc meetings
- admin that isn’t part of planning, preparation or assessment
…then it’s reasonable to challenge it. Calmly. With the policy language on your side.
Can you take PPA off-site or as one weekly block?
In England, PPA can be taken off-site and/or in one weekly block if you and the headteacher agree.
That word “agreement” matters. It’s not an automatic right in every setting. But it is a completely legitimate conversation to have, especially if your in-school PPA is constantly interrupted.
If you’re a permission seeker (and most of us have been trained into that role), here’s the reframe: you’re not asking for special treatment. You’re asking for protected time to do your job properly.
ECTs: your timetable reduction is separate from PPA
This catches so many people out.
If you’re an Early Career Teacher (ECT) in England, you’re entitled to a timetable reduction for your induction programme:
- 10% off timetable in year 1
- 5% off timetable in year 2
This is in addition to the PPA entitlement that all teachers get. If your school is quietly merging the two, it’s worth querying.
Leadership / management time (TLRs, subject leaders, leadership scale)
If you have leadership or management responsibilities, you should have a reasonable amount of time during school sessions to discharge those responsibilities, and it should be clearly identified on your timetable.
There’s no neat national minimum (unlike PPA), which is exactly why it often gets squeezed. If you’re doing a subject leader role on “invisible time”, you’re effectively working for free.
A practical benchmark many schools use is allocating anything from a protected period a fortnight up to around half a day a week for certain roles, but treat that as a starting point for discussion, not a statutory promise.
What to do if your PPA keeps disappearing (without turning it into a drama)
This is the part most teachers avoid because it feels confrontational. So here’s a low-drama approach.
1) Keep a simple record
Note the scheduled PPA slots and any time they’re shortened, moved, interrupted, or replaced with cover/meetings. Dates and times only. No essay required.
2) Start with a calm clarification message
You can copy/adapt this:
Hi [Name], quick check-in about my PPA allocation. I’ve noticed my PPA has been [moved/shortened/used for cover] on [dates]. My understanding is PPA should be protected time within the timetabled teaching week and not used for cover/meetings. Can we look at how we can protect it going forward?
3) If it continues, ask for a timetable fix (not a one-off apology)
Thanks for looking into it. I’d really like us to put a workable fix in place, because losing PPA is pushing planning/assessment into evenings. What options do we have to protect the 10% allocation in 30+ minute blocks for the rest of this term?
4) If needed, escalate with support
If you’re in a maintained school and it’s still not being resolved, it’s reasonable to involve your union rep or ask for the school’s directed time / timetabling approach in writing.
Note: This isn’t about “being difficult”. It’s about ensuring your workload is actually deliverable inside the hours you’re employed for.
How to use your PPA well (so it genuinely reduces workload)
This is where most advice gets a bit smug. So here’s the reality: you can’t “hack” your way out of an impossible timetable.
But you can make PPA more effective by protecting it from task-sprawl:
- Pick one outcome per PPA block (plan a sequence, mark one class set, prep one assessment) instead of switching constantly.
- Batch similar work (all feedback, then all planning) so you don’t lose time reloading your brain.
- Get out of the staffroom if it turns into interruptions-on-tap. A quiet classroom or library space can be the difference between “started” and “finished”.
- Use decision-support tools (including AI) to speed up the parts that don’t need your full creativity, so your judgement is saved for the bits that do.
PPA time entitlement UK-wide: Wales, NI and Scotland notes
Wales: PPA entitlement is still commonly framed as a minimum 10% of timetabled teaching time in 30+ minute blocks and should be clearly identified on your timetable, within directed time.
Northern Ireland: Guidance references a minimum 10% of directed time for PPA, described as ring-fenced and not for cover/other duties.
Scotland: You may see different terminology and a different framework (for example, working time agreements, class contact limits, and protected preparation/correction time rather than “PPA” in the same format). If you’re in Scotland, it’s worth checking the national/local agreements for how non-class contact time is structured.
If you’re unsure which document applies to you, your union is usually the fastest route to clarity.
Sources:
- School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) 2025 (England)
- DfE: School teachers’ pay and conditions (England)
- NEU: Directed time FAQ (includes PPA rules)
- NEU: Teachers’ working time (PPA overview)
- NASUWT: Directed time (England)
- NASUWT: Directed time (Wales)
- NASUWT: Directed time (Northern Ireland)
- NASUWT: Working Time Agreement (Scotland)
- DfE: Early career teachers – training and support entitlement (England)
Final thoughts (and your next step)
PPA isn’t a luxury. It’s the minimum protected time that makes teaching sustainable.
If your PPA is being chipped away, you don’t need to “cope better”. You need a system that protects your time and gives you a calm, policy-friendly way to raise it.
Next step: If you want help doing this without overthinking it, grab the Time Audit to protect your PPA time entitlement and the message templates I use with teachers to protect PPA and stop workload leaking into home life. you’ll find them in the PPA Buddy Skool community.