You may have heard this term but are not too sure what it means. Well, it is one of the most important points in your Contract of Employment if you are on a standard teaching/research contract, which most people are. It means that you should only be engaging with teaching or "teaching related" activities for no more 38 weeks a year. 

The "teaching" part of this is fairly self explanatory, this means that any week you are engaged in teaching activities (lectures, seminars, practical, tutorials online modules etc) counts as ONE TTR week. "Teaching Related" means any other work you are asked/required to do e.g. marking, exam boards, enterprise activities, research (for which you receive an allocation), recruitment activities such as Open Days, project supervision, placement visits etc. again, any TTR activity in any week means that this is a TTR week.

Anytime outside these 38 weeks is either your annual leave (35 days + statutory Bank Holidays) or Research and Scholarly Activity (RSA). Enforcing your 38 weeks TTR is a vital part towards helping you achieve a reasonable work/life balance.

In order to make sure you get all your leave and RSA entitlement it is very important that you plan and book your 38 weeks, leave and RSA and get this agreed by your HoD as soon as you can at the start of each Academic year.

We have produced some templates that you might helpful in doing this:

Academic Year Planner (Excel spreadsheet, includes worked example from previous year) - 

An example Academic Year Planner (2023/24 Word version) currently indicating a fairly typical Academic year and the 2024/25 version which you can adjust to your own circumstances

If you find that you are being asked to work outside these 38 weeks then you should approach your HoD to discuss this (please look at our template emails for a starting point for your discussions). Your HoD must address this as other wise they are in breach of your contract of employment. If you feel you are getting nowhere in your discussion then please copy the Union into your emails or contact us directly about this at: UCU.tees.ac.uk