Classroom release time
Classroom release time “CRT” is when primary teachers are given time out from the classroom to do other work such as planning, evaluation, reporting, personal professional development, research, syndicate meetings and assessment, and the class is covered by another staff member.
The school is provided with funding for additional staffing to cover the time that most teachers are released from the classroom. Boards need to plan for the cost of CRT from board funds when employing teachers as the Ministry of Education will only provide CRT staffing for teachers paid from teacher salaries.
Full time permanent teachers and reliever teachers employed for at least a term are entitled to ten hours release time per term.
Part time teachers employed for at least a term at 0.8 full time teaching equivalent will be entitled to a prorated amount of the ten hours release time per term, so a teacher working 0.8 will be entitled to eight hours release time and a teacher working 0.9, to nine hours release time.
Your responsibilities as the employer
- Your board is responsible for the policy on what the classroom release time is to be used for.
- You can delegate the development of the policy to your principal to develop in consultation with teachers. The final policy should then be approved by the board.
- The policy should meet the provisions set out in the Primary Teachers’ Collective Agreement clause 3.30
Your school's classroom release time policy
- A booklet, Guidelines for classroom release time has been prepared by NZEI, NZSTA and the Ministry of Education to assist schools in designing their policy for classroom release time entitlement and use.
- A template has been created to help schools develop a school policy on classroom release time
Both documents are available to download from the CRT page on the NZSTA website