The Department for Education has named the members of its workload reduction “task force” who will look at how to reduce teachers’ working hours by five hours per week.
The task force is set to make its initial recommendations for workload reduction next month, Tes understands.
The DfE has also today confirmed reports in Tes last week that it is looking to refresh its 2019 recruitment and retention strategy, and to support more flexible working in schools.
The department has said that it will publish a strategy update this winter, providing an update on delivery of previous commitments and setting out its priorities for the coming years.
The move comes after urgent calls from experts for the government to review its strategy to take into account drastically worsening levels of teacher recruitment and retention and address the problems facing the sector in a post-Covid world.
The original recruitment and retention strategy, published before the pandemic in 2019 under former education secretary Damian Hinds, set out plans to provide more support for early career teachers and to make it easier to apply to become a teacher.
However, there are now serious concerns about worsening recruitment, with analysis last week revealing the government is set to have recruited just 52 per cent of the secondary postgraduate trainees needed to hit its 2023-24 target.
Three-year ambition for workload reduction
In July, when announcing the teacher pay award, education secretary Gillian Keegan said the department would create a new workload reduction task force “to explore how we can go further to support trust and school leaders to minimise workload for teachers and leaders”.
The DfE said at the time that it aimed to reduce working hours by five hours per week. Today, the government has committed to doing this over the next three years, supported by the new workload task force.
It follows findings in a Tes survey earlier this year that revealed that more than two-thirds of school staff (68 per cent) thought that their workload was unmanageable.
The DfE has also today revealed the membership of the workload task force, which includes unions, teachers and sector leaders, with the first meeting to take place later this week.
Schools minister Nick Gibb said that the DfE had continued to hear concerns from the school sector about workload ”which is why we want to build on the past successes in reducing workloads and continue to remove additional burdens”.
Flexible working push
The DfE said today that it will also launch a new “toolkit” later this month with resources aimed at helping schools to implement practices including job shares, part-time working and ad-hoc flexibility such as the occasional personal day.
Experts told Tes last week that flexible working in teaching had not ”taken off as fast as it needs to”.
The DfE has also today announced five new flexible-working ambassador multi-academy trusts and schools (FWAMS):
- Lapal Primary School of Hales Valley Trust
- Newport Girls’ High School Academy Trust
- Aspire Alternative Provision
- The Halifax Academy of Impact Education Multi Academy Trust
- The Reach Academy Feltham of the Reach Academy Trust.
These will join the seven FWAMS appointed in June.
Reaction
Reacting to today’s announcement, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said it was “absolutely vital” that the workload taskforce results in “tangible change which makes a real difference to our members’ working day”.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the union was happy to be represented on the task force, but it was “sceptical about whether there is the will in government to take some of the steps that are required to produce systemic change”.
“The whole education system is creaking under the strain of this unsustainable churn of teachers and leaders with a clear and present danger to education standards and provision”, Mr Barton added.
The DfE has asked school senior leadership teams to feed into and inform recommendations from the taskforce.
