The recent Schools White Paper and SEND Green Paper have been criticised because they are financially under-resourced.

And what about the human resourcing needed to meet these new ambitions? This was seemingly missing from the proposals, too, despite the continuing recruitment and retention downslide, which could be exacerbated by additional pressure from the latest initiatives. 

Teachers, exhausted and demoralised, especially by the experience of the pandemic, don’t really have any spare capacity yet now they have new targets to hit, mandated school week lengths, and literacy and numeracy tests for Year 9 pupils on the horizon.

But it was not long ago that a reduction in workload was a priority for the Department for Education (DfE) in recognition of its effect on retention in the sector.

Indeed, if we look back through recent history, we can see there was a lot of attention paid to this area.

Phase 1, 2014-2016: Research, consultation and definition

The Workload Challenge 2014 set an important precedent by asking teachers open-ended questions about time-consuming, inefficient working practices, and inviting them to suggest solutions. Each of the 43,832 responses was read and analysed to pinpoint the causes of teacher disaffection.

From this, three priorities were identified: data management, planning and marking - and a policy review group for each was set up. 

After studying a range of evidence - national and international - the groups produced reports making far-reaching recommendations, to which Ofsted and the government signed up.

For example, all parties were expected to “take measures to understand the cumulative impact on workload of new initiatives and guidance before rolling them out, and make proportionate and pragmatic demands”.

Perhaps this overarching recommendation should be immediately revisited.

Phase 2, 2016-2018: Involving the profession in finding solutions

Then, in 2017, individual schools were invited to bid for funding from the National College for Teaching and Leadership to research classroom practices, which would cut “gold-plating” - ie, spending more time on something than is strictly necessary  

Some, alongside members of the workload review groups, participated in presentations across the country - aimed at headteachers and governors - to disseminate good practice. 

Phase 3 2018- 2019: Ofsted intervention - the Teacher Wellbeing Report

The following year, Ofsted’s Teacher Wellbeing Report (2018) showed that communication and behaviour management were eating into teachers’ evenings and weekends. 

Consequently, new policies were included in the DfE’s Workload Toolkit in an attempt to prevent this. It was reiterated that schools should not provide extra data for inspections and - in an attempt to incentivise improved practice - staff wellbeing was assimilated into the leadership and management judgement in the education inspection framework.

What progress was made prior to 2020?

Even though the 2019 Workload Survey showed that more needed to be done, it did demonstrate progress, such as staff being able to claw back more time and more creative thinking around how this could be achieved. 

For example, reducing unnecessary workload was shown to return up to 10 hours a week to teachers, as well as improving pedagogy and results. Activities such as joint planning became more prevalent, and this was found to be most beneficial when planning, preparation and assessment time was timetabled for departments. 

Less frequent data drops were shown to be more effective in the DfE’s 2018 report, Making data work, which noted that a longer interval provides more time to identify and implement strategies, and then evaluate the outcomes.  

The Education Trust reported that schools trialling the DfE Toolkit, funded by The Teaching Schools Council, had found “reducing teacher workload was associated with a period of maintained or improved pupil outcomes”, too.

Things were progressing.

The initiative the pandemic forgot

Then the pandemic came along.

Teaching online during lockdowns, and the new working methods it required, led to a burgeoning workload. As a result, activity to reduce workload was suspended. 

Perhaps it was felt that a crisis response justified the excess - at a time when there was a bulge in recruitment and retention was healthier - but it is clear that this was not sustainable. Sadly, we have emerged from the pandemic with seemingly no appreciation for teachers’ Herculean efforts, nor is there a sense that efforts to reduce workload are being renewed.

The impact of this is clear, with new data showing teacher vacancies at their highest point in five years. 

What can schools do?

Teachers’ mental health is under further stress as there has still been no recovery period from the pandemic. 

Absence rates remain very high and cover is much more onerous.  A more demanding Ofsted and catch-up agenda will surely increase monitoring activity, too. 

However, there are things schools can do to tackle workload. The DfE School Workload Reduction Toolkit offers various ideas.

• Staff wellbeing committees and wellbeing focus groups can demonstrate a culture that is focused on wellbeing and give people a chance to discuss concerns.
• Specific mechanisms exist within most school policies to ensure a fair and reasonable workload for all. For example, leaders are required to conduct a workload impact assessment before introducing new policies, so that staff will not be unduly burdened. This is a pragmatic approach to deliver the employer’s duty of care.
• Another policy that schools could enact includes measures to reduce data drops, ditch differentiation by task and cut lesson plans.  
• Phone calls home, displays and extracurricular activities can also be reduced.
• The senior leadership team could be highly visible at breaks and run detentions to support behaviour management, thereby spreading the load among staff and reducing the stress caused by excessive work demands. 
• Providing supervision for those dealing with difficult safeguarding issues can reduce any associated distress. 
• Training managers in time management and innovative ways of facilitating meetings can give staff more time back in the day.
• Perks for staff, such as free cereal and drinks at breakfast, or being able to book a half day for family events - cover permitting - can also have a beneficial effect on wellbeing.

What now?

It’s tough to do all this in a system that is pushing for yet more accountability and metrics, but schools owe it to themselves to once again make the reduction of unnecessary workload a priority.

After all, we have come a long way since that first phase, in 2014-16, when the focus was merely on identifying the causes and seeking solutions to excessive workload. Until March 2020, the sector was seriously discussing more holistic ways of creating effective wellbeing policies, but it lost momentum during the pandemic.

Hope is not lost, though.

In 2022, we can see a resurgence of this activity, mostly rooted in the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter. But schools are going to have to be the ones to put workload issues back on the agenda - and be the ones to support their staff at this time by doing what they can to reduce the excess.

It won’t be easy. Workload is like the Hydra: you may cut off individual heads but new ones spring up in their place.

Given everything that schools have been through - and are still going through - in a climate of unrelenting policy change, it seems more imperative than ever that we unite to tackle this many-headed monster.

Yvonne Williams is chair of the post-16 working group for the National Association for the Teaching of English and was previously a teacher for 34 years, 22 of which were as a head of English