This article was originally published on 29 August 2023

When the School Teachers’ Review Body produced its latest report with recommendations to increase teacher pay by 6.5 per cent, those with eagle eyes might have spotted an interesting reference to workload in the accompanying blog put out by the Department for Education.

It said: “We will convene a workload reduction taskforce to explore how we can go further to support school and trust leaders to minimise workload. We are also setting an ambition to reduce teacher and leader workload by five hours per week.”

This is a welcome step, with workload often cited by many teachers as one of the biggest stresses in the job. But what can be done to actually reduce it in a meaningful way?

As someone who has been tasked with that very job, of reducing workload for teaching staff, when I was leading teaching and learning across multiple schools in a large trust, there are plenty of things that can be done.

Here are some key ideas that can have a big impact:

1. Planning

Instead of stipulating staff must plan using specific proformas, permit and encourage your staff to plan simply.

Teachers spend far too much time making multiple mediums for a single lesson. It is far better to use a well-crafted textbook or teacher booklet.

This point that simplifying planning requirements can reduce workload was also noted in July when the DfE published its workload reduction report, which looked at 76 schools that had implemented initiatives to reduce workload.

On page 28, it says that “[t]he schools that moved away from standard lesson plan templates or specific expectations overall reported improved wellbeing and reduced workload amongst teachers”.

Making this move allows teachers to spend their time supporting their pupils in their learning, and planning moves from pages of detailed notes or PowerPoint presentations to simply annotating a pre-existing textbook or booklet.

Simpler, quicker and more impactful - and most importantly, hours less time-consuming than a hand-crafted lesson with every aspect determined from scratch.

2. Automate behaviour warnings

Instead of asking teachers to call families when pupils get it wrong, move to an automated email service that alerts parents when their child has been sanctioned at school.

If you set up the expectation that the teacher always calls when a pupil misbehaves, the extra workload created can vary from a few minutes to hours wasted.

One single teacher may be one of many calling home that day, and the conversation may well be one that would be better coming from a senior member of staff.

Another advantage of using automated behaviour warnings is that it also allows for easier monitoring by pastoral staff. Keeping track of phone calls can require teachers to duplicate their phone call records - noting for their own records and then sharing them with pastoral leads. All extra workload that is better cut than kept.

3. Feedback

Update your marking policy to allow flexibility for staff to mark books as they see fit.

This approach received particular praise in the workload reduction report, which noted on page 25 that “[o]f all the schools that reported switching to verbal feedback only, or dramatically reducing approaches to marking, only one school reported a negative impact on student learning. All other schools reported improvements in learning, particularly when switching to in-class verbal feedback”.

So far, so promising. What did the teachers think? Well, it’s good news there, too. Staff in the 44 schools in the study who replaced marking with verbal feedback reported that, as a result, they had “a better understanding of their students”.

And what makes verbal feedback so much better than traditional marking? The report summarises it well, pointing out that teachers are “able to correct students quickly before they go on to make further mistakes” and points out that staff can build “better direct relationships with their students”.

What’s more, as leaders, you’re reducing your workload, too. Less marking in books means less time spent on “book looks”. This reduction of scrutiny can also improve staff wellbeing.

If the worry of accountability is niggling with you, be reassured there is nothing to suggest if you loosen the reins on marking, everything else is going to go out the window. In my experience, and as found in the report, student outcomes improve by making this switch.

4. Reduce data drops

The data cycle is a key part of the school calendar and the reporting back to parents and scrutiny that data receives is likely to occupy a significant amount of workload, for both classroom teachers and middle or senior leaders.

But is it working as hard for you, as you are for it?

In my experience, the time cost is not worth the benefits. If the government wants to cut workload, then instructing schools to reduce the number of data drops to once per academic year would be a good starting point.

The fear of losing accountability or tracking progress often puts schools off reducing the number of reporting points - however, as noted in the workload reduction report, of the 20 schools that reduced their reporting cycle, not a single one “report[ed] any negative impact on learners or performance in Ofsted through making reductions in data drops or lowering the frequency or volume or written reports”.

The most compelling argument is the amount of time saved. On page 23 of the report, it noted that “one school suggesting teachers work on average 10 hours less per week due to reduced administrative work”. That alone would hit the government’s target.

What’s more, it’s good for the students, too. The report says that ”‘fewer data drops’ was also associated with improved wellbeing of students, as it removed the need for frequent assessments”.

5. The need to change mindsets

Perhaps the most important aspect, though, is changing our mindsets in education that doing more inherently means better outcomes.

In the past, when I was a deputy head, I worked with schools to reduce workload, and suggestions to cut time-consuming tasks have been met with protests: “We can’t stop that! That’s important!”

In education, it is hard to escape the perception that more is better: if we could just work those extra hours, mark those books and make those phone calls, then we could provide our pupils with the outstanding education we all agree they deserve.

However, the reality is, though, no one - not teachers, not children - is served by excessive workload. The recruitment crisis numbers tell us loud and clear: we need to change teaching to make sure the job is sustainable.

Jo Facer is a former headteacher and the head of the National Professional Qualifications faculty at the National Institute of Teaching