Most teachers and leaders say their school has introduced policy changes in five key areas to tackle workload in the past year, a new report finds.
More than half of teachers and leaders say their school has revised policies around marking and feedback, lesson planning, data tracking, school behaviour and assessment arrangements to reduce teacher workload.
Despite this, more than three-quarters of teachers and leaders report that insufficient funding or staff capacity is a barrier to cutting teacher workload (76 per cent).
In the research, conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) and published by the Education Endowment Foundation, almost two-thirds of teachers and school leaders (63 per cent) said that more support from outside agencies for specific pupil needs, such as special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), mental health and safeguarding, would help to reduce teacher workload.
The NFER report says that a “whole-school approach” to cutting workload is important, with more than a quarter (28 per cent) of teachers identifying a lack of support from the senior leadership team (SLT) as a barrier to workload reduction in their school.
Teacher workload: schools changing policies
The NFER survey of 1,326 practising classroom teachers and school leaders, from 1,137 schools, reveals how schools have revised their policies and approaches to reduce teacher workload in the past year.
Nearly seven in 10 senior leaders (69 per cent) said that changes had been made to their school’s marking and feedback policy, and a similar proportion (68 per cent) said that they had made changes to their approach to lesson planning and resources.
Two-thirds of senior leaders (66 per cent) said that changes had been made to data tracking and monitoring of pupils’ progress, while 62 per cent had seen changes to their school behaviour policy.
And 59 per cent said their school had revised its approach to assessment arrangements.
Far fewer senior leaders said that they had made changes to policies to support flexible-working practices, such as special leave/absence policies (34 per cent), while just 17 per cent of teachers reported changes to these policies.
Lack of funding is a barrier
The report notes that “despite schools’ attempts to reduce teacher workload, other pressures on schools are increasing”.
More than three-quarters of respondents said that insufficient funding or staff capacity was a barrier to reducing teacher workload (76 per cent), and 85 per cent felt that increasing staffing or funding for workload reduction would help.
Some 58 per cent of respondents cited external accountability as a barrier to cutting workload, and more than half (54 per cent) said that a barrier was a lack of specialist support for specific pupil needs, such as SEND, mental health and safeguarding.
And almost one in five (19 per cent) of all survey respondents identified concerns about a potential negative impact on pupils’ quality of education as a barrier to reducing workload.
Flexible working not a ‘silver bullet’
A second review published by the NFER today also suggests that flexible working could help to keep teachers in the profession, but school leaders worry it could result in increased costs and a lack of consistency for pupils.
The mixed methods review of current evidence also identifies many challenges to implementing flexible working, including leadership attitudes and school culture, timetabling, financial costs, staff availability, and workload.
The NFER has called for training for senior leaders and HR teams to support them in implementing flexible working effectively and fairly, and there are indications from the reviewed literature that increased availability of this training and support would be appreciated.
And the report warns that “flexible working opportunities need to be available to teachers at all levels so that teachers who wish to work flexibly are not denied the opportunity to progress in their careers”.
Writing for Tes today, Jennie Harland, research manager at NFER, says that the new review suggests that offering flexible working for teachers is an important piece of the jigsaw in improving teacher recruitment and retention.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that the evidence is “clear that the answer to addressing very high levels of teacher workload...lies to a large extent with the government” and ”attention should now turn to examining the external reasons for teacher workload”.
And Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “Flexible working has the potential to support staff retention, but alone it is not a silver bullet for addressing the growing recruitment and retention crisis.”
