Too much work, or hurt at work? What the agreements and the law say.

"The Employer recognises that excessive workloads are a psychosocial hazard and that teacher workloads are risk factors that the Employer has a duty to address under the Work Health and Safety Act 2020" (cl 16.1).

1. Ordinary hours are 38 a week averaged over term weeks, "Notwithstanding the NES" (cl 16.2).
2. Hours in term weeks are variable. In return, a teacher "is not generally required to attend for Non-Term Weeks when the students are not present", subject to professional development, student free days and other activities requiring attendance (cl 16.3).
3. By the end of each year the Principal distributes the timetable and calendar for the next year, with each teacher's projected teaching timetable and an indicative schedule of their teaching load (cl 16.4).
4. A teacher will be required to attend on at most 198 days in a school year (cl 16.5).
   1. Not counted are weekend co-curricular activities, trips and conferences undertaken by mutual consent in non-term weeks, leadership duties in non-term weeks, boarding house duties, and recall in exceptional circumstances such as a tragedy in the school community (cl 16.6).
   2. Under the Educational Services (Teachers) Award 2020 the maximum is 205 days (cl 15.5).
5. Teachers may be required to attend up to 15 minutes before and after classes each day (cl 16.7).
6. Half of one start-of-year development day, and one later pupil-free day, are reserved for work at the teacher's professional discretion, at times set by the Principal (cl 16.8–16.9).

1. The maximum scheduled classroom teaching load for a full-time teacher is 1,280 minutes a week, for primary (including kindergarten and pre-primary) and for secondary, where it includes pastoral care group or homeroom (cl 17.1). It may be averaged over term weeks (cl 17.2).
2. The minimum duties other than teaching (DOTT) time for a full-time teacher, not counting recess and lunch, is (cl 18.1):
   1. 270 minutes a week for primary teachers;
   2. 330 minutes a week for graduate primary teachers in their first two years;
   3. 320 minutes a week for secondary teachers;
   4. 320 minutes a week plus one additional period for graduate secondary teachers in their first two years.
3. Banked DOTT must be returned within two terms, with a discussion within two weeks of banking about when it will be returned, and the employer must consider the relative usefulness of the returned time (cl 18.2–18.3).
4. DOTT should not regularly be timetabled against scheduled activities such as assemblies (cl 18.4).
5. A teacher who must develop or adjust an Individual Education Plan across all learning areas for a funded student with disability gets an extra 15 minutes of DOTT per student per week, which may be banked (cl 18.5).

1. For a planned absence, the order is: teachers who have lost their scheduled class, then full-time teachers below the maximum load, then additional hours for part-time teachers, then external relief teachers (cl 18.6(a)). Teachers on the maximum load "cannot be required to undertake relief supervisions", and reasonable notice must be given (cl 18.6(b)).
2. For an unplanned absence where no relief teacher can be engaged, teachers who have lost their scheduled class are used first, then full-time teachers below the maximum load; only then may other teachers be required to supervise, with time off in lieu or banked DOTT for agreed work, and schools are to determine relief supervisions "on an equitable basis" (cl 18.6(c)).

1. Co-curricular activity: up to 40 hours a year, outside the 38-hour week, with paid time or time off in lieu for agreed activity above that (cl 19.1–19.2).
2. Up to two formal parent-teacher meetings a year outside the normal school day, scheduled at the start of the year after consultation (cl 20.2–20.3).
3. A teacher who works five consecutive hours or more is entitled to a 20-minute paid meal break free of all duties, at a mutually convenient time. Any alternative must be agreed in writing and lasts only for that school year (cl 21).
4. Playground supervision is to be scheduled "fairly and equitably", and pro rata for part-time teachers (cl 22).
5. Staff meetings outside student instruction time may total up to 15 hours a term, with no meeting over an hour unless agreed in consultation. A part-time teacher cannot be required to attend on a day they would not ordinarily work, and is paid if they agree to (cl 23).

Teachers "are not required to initiate, read or respond to electronic or other communication from school staff, parents or community members outside of working hours or when not on site", including during leave, public holidays and student vacation time, except in an emergency or where staffing or health issues mean that not communicating could disadvantage the teacher (cl 24). The statutory right to disconnect in FW Act s 333M also applies: an employee may refuse to monitor, read or respond to out-of-hours contact unless the refusal is unreasonable.

"Where a Teacher believes their workload has become unfair or unreasonable", the steps are (cl 26):

1. approach the direct line manager for discussion, support or intervention;
2. if that does not resolve it, formally approach the Principal;
3. if the matter is not resolved within a reasonable time, raise it under the dispute procedure in cl 14, which ends in the Fair Work Commission.

The Joint Consultative Committee, with up to four employer and four union representatives, meets once a term and consults on "Workload balance" among other ongoing issues (cl 15.2, 15.4, 15.6(c), PDF p 23).

The agreement's consultation clause says the yearly timetable is not a major change or a change to hours, and the "reasonable development" of calendars and timetables is not a change to rosters or hours (cl 12.2, 12.10, PDF pp 20–21). When the Commission approved the agreement, it did so "on the basis that" where a new calendar or timetable changes a teacher's regular roster or ordinary hours, the consultation steps in cl 12.9(a), 12.11 and 12.12 must be followed (Application by Catholic Education Western Australia Limited [2024] FWCA 622 at [11]–[12]).

The agreement has no class size clause: no maximum, target or review appears in it. Class size can be raised through the workload clauses (cl 16.1, cl 26) or through the safety duties below.

In an early childhood service operating 48 or more weeks a year, cl 16 to 23 do not apply, and hours are averaged over four weeks instead (cl 25.1, 25.3, PDF pp 27–28).

Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA) (WHS Act), the school employer is a person conducting a business or undertaking.

1. It must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of its workers while they are at work, and that other people's health and safety is not put at risk from its work (s 19(1)–(2)).
2. It must, so far as is reasonably practicable, consult workers who are, or are likely to be, directly affected by a work health or safety matter (s 47(1)).

The Work Health and Safety (General) Regulations 2022 (WA) (WHS Regulations) deal expressly with psychological harm.

1. A psychosocial hazard is a hazard that arises from, or relates to, "the design or management of work", a work environment, plant at a workplace, or "workplace interactions or behaviours", and may cause psychological harm (r 55A).
2. The school must manage psychosocial risks (r 55C), and implement control measures to eliminate them so far as reasonably practicable, or if that is not reasonably practicable, minimise them (r 55D(1)).
3. In choosing control measures it must have regard to all relevant matters, including (r 55D(2)):
   1. the duration, frequency and severity of exposure;
   2. how hazards may interact or combine;
   3. the design of work, "including job demands and tasks";
   4. the systems of work, "including how work is managed, organised and supported";
   5. "workplace interactions or behaviours";
   6. the information, training, instruction and supervision given to workers.

1. Workload. The Catholic teachers' agreement itself records that excessive workloads are a psychosocial hazard the employer must address under the WHS Act (AE523557 cl 16.1). Job demands and the way work is managed are matters the school must consider under r 55D(2).
2. Occupational violence and aggression. The regulations do not name student or parent aggression. They speak of hazards arising from "workplace interactions or behaviours" (r 55A(a)(iv), r 55D(2)(h)), and the primary duty extends to risks from the conduct of the work (s 19). A school's response to aggression by students, parents or visitors is therefore part of managing those risks.
3. Long investigations. How an investigation is run is part of how work is "managed, organised and supported" (r 55D(2)(d)). A misconduct investigation will usually be "administrative action" for workers' compensation, as something done in connection with disciplinary or suspension action (see below).

A worker may cease, or refuse to carry out, work if the worker has a reasonable concern that carrying it out would expose the worker or any other person to a serious risk to health or safety from an immediate or imminent exposure to a hazard (WHS Act s 84(1)). The Catholic teachers' agreement says work continues while a dispute is resolved (cl 14.9), but that does not displace the statutory right.