A new category of “advanced teaching assistant” will be given powers to lead classes and stand in for absent teachers, under confidential proposals seen by The Times.

Up to 50,000 could be recruited by 2006, mainly in primary schools, as the Government seeks to give teachers one day off a fortnight for marking and lesson preparation.

The assistants could take drama, art, sport, music, and even foreign language classes to create time for teachers to be away from the classroom.

Head teachers could also ask them to take lessons such as English and maths if staff are sick or away training, rather than pay for supply teachers.

The proposal will be set out on Tuesday by David Miliband, the Minister for School Standards, as part of the biggest reform of teachers’ contracts for 30 years.

It has alarmed some classroom unions, who argue that it undermines the status of teaching as an all-graduate profession. They fear that the Government is trying to create a new breed of “pseudo-teachers” that schools can hire more cheaply than qualified staff.

Mr Miliband is also expected effectively to cap working hours at 1,265 a year for the first time. A clause in teachers’ contracts requiring them to work additional hours at request will be removed. Primary

teachers will be guaranteed time off for “planning, preparation and assessment” during the week to bring them into line with secondary schools. This is expected to be 10 per cent of the timetable, or half a day a week.

A list of 25 administrative tasks that teachers will no longer perform, such as photocopying record-keeping and stock-taking will be drawn up. These duties will pass to clerical staff and classroom assistants.

In return for the concessions, however, teachers will have to agree to a “remodelling” of the profession. As well as accepting a greater role for classroom assistants, they will have to accept changes to the school day and the working week if heads want to “innovate” in response to local needs. Teachers will also have to sign up to possible increases in the length of individual lessons and larger class sizes.

The DfES said that its proposals were intended to secure “a better deal for children and their parents”. A spokeswoman said: “The more trained and effective adults we have helping pupils in classrooms, giving one-to-one support, the better off those pupils will be.”

Teacher unions, however, argue that teachers’ workloads can be reduced sufficiently by transferring responsibility for bureaucracy to administrative staff.

The boost in numbers of teaching assistants is expected to bring the total of support staff in schools to 260,000 by 2006, compared to 450,000 qualified teachers.

Ministers are understood to have won support from unions representing non-teaching staff because the reforms will establish a career structure for assistants for the first time.

They have promised safeguards to ensure teaching assistants who take classes are under the “supervision” of a qualified teacher and acquire some form of qualification.

Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, has pledged to recruit 10,000 more teachers into schools by 2006. But cutting teachers’ workload and creating time off in primary schools would require thousands more unless schools can make use of unqualified staff.

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