Ministers may claim that school funding has been protected “in cash terms”, but the Treasury’s ring-fenced pot has been raided to pay for increases in National Insurance and pension contributions. Every school and college is worse off in real terms and the consequence is increased workload.
Evidence is emerging that a growing number of schools are responding to this funding crisis by increasing class sizes and redesigning the timetable to save costs. One such school is the one where I am head: Southend High School for Boys.
Adapting to survive
Nationally recognised for outstanding academic, cultural and sporting achievements, the school has been commended for financial efficiency by the Department for Education. However, we have found ourselves unable to operate in the current funding climate without significant timetable modifications.
Year 7 entry was increased by 30 pupils without any new classes, and the additional pupils are now rolling through into Years 8 and 9. Sixth-form contact time was reduced and class sizes have been rising steadily.
It has all been very well planned and staff have accepted the changes as a necessary condition for survival. But it is clear that a government claiming to care about workload is presiding over an exponential increase in workload by stealth. And I can prove it.
A government claiming to care about workload is presiding over an exponential increase
In 2011, I was approached by a colleague who thought that his timetable was unfair in comparison with others. It was the kind of challenge that is usually greeted with words of appreciation and a recognition that, over time, the more demanding years balance with the easier ones. On this occasion, however, I decided to look at the issue more closely.
We produced a diagram to show two different components of timetable workload. First, we calculated the total number of different pupils each teacher encountered across a fortnight, consisting of 50 periods.
Colleagues who score highly on this figure have more grades to produce, more reports to write, more names to learn and more parents’ evenings to attend. However, they also tend to have repeat lessons with a number of classes in the same year group, meaning they have less planning to do.
Second, we generated a measure of total classroom throughput for each teacher. For example, a teacher scheduled for five periods with the same class of 30 would score 150. Teachers with a high throughput measure tend to have more marking to do, and a more physically tiring workload.
Calculating these values made comparisons between colleagues much simpler. But we couldn’t have predicted how valuable it would prove to be in highlighting the relationship between funding and workload.
We plotted the values on a graph, with a curve representing the proposed limit of what was reasonable for any one teacher. In 2011-12, just a couple of teachers were above this threshold. By 2014-15, the figure had risen to 14. The monitoring graphs for the two following years tell a shocking story.
In just five years the school has moved to a position in which 36 teachers - almost half the teaching workforce - have timetables that are more demanding than the level we originally determined to be acceptable.
Symptoms of a disease
Our workload analysis is direct. Few people do the sums and recognise that, in other professions, this would be unacceptable: for example, 55 hours per week across 39 teaching weeks is equivalent to working more than a 40-hour week for 52 weeks with no holiday.
We are doing our best to ameliorate the impact of this huge shift in timetable load. We’re implementing all the recommendations from the DfE workload review groups and many other suggestions, too.
Marking, planning and data are not, however, the cause of excessive workload. They are the symptoms of a disease. Excessive workload arises from beneath the umbrella of a distorted accountability regime, but workload is escalating because of the funding crisis. It’s no wonder that teachers across the country are packing their bags.
Marking, planning and data are not the cause of excessive workload
When the latest education White Paper was published, education professionals from all sectors looked to see how the proposals would address the challenges of the school system.
Research consistently demonstrates that additional resources are vital to attracting new trainees, improving retention rates, reducing workload and enhancing teaching quality. This case study from my school demonstrates that the relationship between underfunding and unsustainable workload requires much closer attention. Every head should do as we have to prove quite how urgently that attention is needed.
Robin Bevan is headteacher at Southend High School for Boys
