What would it take to fix the problem of teacher workload?

[TheMotherSide]

What would it take to fix teacher workload and thus stem the haemorrhaging of colleagues from schools?

Please share your out-of-the-box, blue sky thinking solutions to this perennial problem, that would put an end to the 55+ hour week (I know many do more) of endless evening and weekend working.

I appreciate that workload looks different in EYFS, primary, secondary and FE, and whether you are a one or 2-3-4 form entry school, and where on the index of deprivation your setting sits, so if your ideas pertain to a specific area of workload, please specify.

Let's assume full-time equivalent ‐so many colleagues are having to go part-time to reduce active workload in school, and are spending their days off catching up, essentially volunteering their time.

I'll start:

I would like to see the exploitative clause in teachers' contracts which compels teachers to work however many hours it takes to complete their tasks, without specifying a limit on said tasks, radically revised. It is this clause which allows government and callous management to pile on expectations of the workforce which cannot be reasonably met, leaving teachers open to coercion, bullying and surrendering any semblance of work life balance.

I would like to see a reform of Ofsted; encouraging the inspectorate to fulfil a much more supportive function instead of being a bogeyman many colleagues live in perpetual dread of and won't even mention by name. This would put a stop to so much fear-driven data collection and box-ticking.

I'd like to knock primary subject leadership on the head and revert to the subject coordinatorships of yesteryear, where a single colleague would not be held accountable for their peers' delivery and progress in their subject area. Colleagues were relied upon and trusted to teach subjects and fulfil the statutory objectives of the National Curriculum and tended to manage just fine.

Platelets, I agree. In my relatively 'small' class in Upper Key Stage 2, I differentiate for a range between Y1 and KS3 as well as for specific processing differences, despite all the pupils being the same age. I suppose it's a bit less marking with a small class, which is always something.

Yes, as formulaic -although pedagogically rigorous‐ as White Rose is, I feel I owe its developers a debt of gratitude for giving me back hours and days of my life!

Just wanted to add my teacher friends and family who have a manageable workload are "teaching" teachers, only one has a subject head role.

I don’t know any primary teachers (aside ECT) who aren’t subject leads-many have more than one subject. This is hugely stressful when it comes to poxy Ofsted Deep Dives. In primary, you might be history one year, maths the next and DT and phonics the next-the expectations on you (on top of your normal class responsibilities) is immense, with no additional time or pay.

This. I don't think my family or friends would know I lead 4 subjects, nor all the work I do in the evenings and weekends around them. It is subject leadership and Ofsted deep dives that have really increased my workload in the past couple of years.

Edit: typo

Less scrutiny. Having recently moved back into the state sector from the independent sector the weight of learning walks and deep dives has been the biggest challenge. Teachers are mostly conscientious, graduates and well motivated to do the job (especially nowadays, you don't go into teaching for an easy ride). SLT and Ofsted need to trust in a teacher's professional judgement, knowledge of their class and the subject they are teaching. If I get on more EBI style lesson feedback I might scream. The last one my HOD said 'well it's just nitpicking really' ... but I still have to evidence I've tackled the action points. Sometimes it would be nice to get a 'that was good - carry on 👍' without any extra workload.

Also - again coming from the independent sector- smaller class sizes, more PPA and a proper lunchbreak.

Smaller class sizes and a reduced contact time timetable. I work in an independent school and basically have this set up. It has transformed my life. I work very hard but at the end of the day I get to.go home and enjoy my family life.

Stop expecting teachers to do extra jobs on top. Our SENDCO is a teacher - so she's doing EHCPs/ASD/ADHD referrals etc in her own time. Our DMHL is a teacher, so I'm doing MH referrals for him...and yet our attendance officer only does that...(because that was our main issue at Ofsted last year)

Absolutely this. I spend so much time on SEND and mental health admin trails and managing symptoms that I’m unqualified to teach. This would make a huge difference.

Logging concerns/incidents for safeguarding is taking me about 1.5 hrs a week at the moment, so a well-invested social services too.

Subject headship too… awful.

Make PGCE mentoring a paid role with time allocated to do it. It's absolutely mad that we are desperately short of teachers and need to give trainees the best and most supportive experience and the training of them is simply added to the list of an already busy teacher to do. And the government is now saying that those mentors will have to do 20 hours of training in their own time. No one will want to do it.

I don't do ECT mentoring but I understand that is also a huge workload.

Yes to a PPA per day. Yes to getting rid of the 'as many hours required' clause in our contracts.

Marking has also crept up massively. Back in the day we had one set of mocks in Y11. Then we added another set. Then we added a set in Y10. At the same time the number of GCSE papers went from 2 to 3. We seem to be constantly weighing the pig.

In primary:

scrap ofsted deep dives. The pressure and expectation placed on people getting paid no more to lead a subject and probably being given very little extra time is unrealistic. I can understand why it works in a secondary setting with heads of subject / department. It doesn’t work in a 1 form entry primary where everyone is leading (ha) 2+ subjects.

smaller class sizes. 15-20. Covid times showed us that everyone was happier & had their needs met better in smaller classes.

Yes to better send support / resources / funding. Though smaller classes would help a lot with this as well.

the entire curriculum needs reform really. We are trying to fit too much in, too early. No wonder we have the anxiety and behaviour issues we’re seeing nowadays when we’re constantly asking children to do things they’re not quite ready for and accelerating them through stuff at such a pace. There’s no time to breathe.

Two teachers per class

One to plans/teach/mark core lessons for the mornings and one to plan/teach/mark non core subjects in the afternoon.

Each core subject teacher would have the afternoon for quality planning and marking and it would truly reflect the children's learning each day. The non core teacher would be able to to do the same for the afternoons and everyone could go to the loo when they needed and get away at a reasonable time and not take work home with them.

the entire curriculum needs reform really. We are trying to fit too much in, too early. No wonder we have the anxiety and behaviour issues we’re seeing nowadays when we’re constantly asking children to do things they’re not quite ready for and accelerating them through stuff at such a pace. There’s no time to breathe.

And this.

One thing I noticed from playing catch up after lockdown was that children in Spring 1 in year 3 were meeting Year 2 Spring 1 objectives in a lesson or two whereas in Year 2, it would have been a two week block of lessons. I'm thinking in numeracy specifically.

scrap ofsted deep dives. The pressure and expectation placed on people getting paid no more to lead a subject and probably being given very little extra time is unrealistic

This is a huge level of stress and the rewriting of individual ‘intent and impact’ and curriculum maps and whole school vocabulary overviews by thousands of different schools across the country has been a monumental waste of time.

If you are a maths graduate, teach only maths in a secondary school, have designed the maths curriculum and lead a team of maths teachers, perhaps a maths deep dive is appropriate. If you are a year 2 teacher, Senco, maths lead, phonics lead, history lead and geography lead, then having a Deep Dive in 3 of your subjects, plus the SEN interview, plus lesson obsessed learning walks on your class is likely to cause massive levels of stress. Especially if you haven’t studied geography or history since year 9 and didn’t have most of those subjects to lead the year before (plus no time or money to do so now).

100% pay but only 4 days a week in school. One day a week to mark, plan etc. uninterrupted. As an English teacher, one PPA lesson wouldn’t allow me to mark a set of books - end the stoppy starty approach

Have experts to deliver (in primary) PE, dance, drama, crafts, art. Those could be done when the teacher is on their prep day. In secondary, that’s PHSE, careers teachers rather than expecting the Maths bod to do it. It can all be done - just needs creative timetabling. It’s done on the continent - teachers are subject experts not social workers.

And controversially - accept not all subjects are the same. Stakes are high around core subjects, pressure can be greater but this is not reflected in PPA or pay. As an English teacher my marking was monumental compared to PE or drama or maths or science. At GCSE art was an option - it was taken for granted that only students who were good at it or liked it would take it. That’s a very different cohort from English who (of course) had everyone to get through the exams.

There’s a terrible shortage of some subjects and a glut in others. Market forces - there should be a premium. The same stands for regional pay - teachers can live a good life in certain parts of the country, not so in others. In leafy home counties we cannot recruit as house prices are insane and we have no London weighting. But in Cornwall it’s almost impossible to get a job.

I know this will be divisive but you asked for solutions and more of the same isn’t working.

There’s a terrible shortage of some subjects and a glut in others

The only subjects for which we have overrecruited trainees are PE, history and classics. There’s a shortage in every other subject. And we need the extra PE teachers to teach maths and science but they then quit because that’s not what they trained for…

One hour play times, 20 minutes breaks twice a day. No homework, no exams at all, it should be teacher marking progress.
More focus on the arts and movement.
More vocational teaching of life skills and not "prep for university"
16-18 should be prep for uni or for life skills type jobs.

Classes of 15-20 kids.

Looking at these responses, it strikes me that a big part of workload in primary education is the burden of subject leadership.

When I first became the leader of my actual specialist subject many years ago (have since acquired two more), my duties linked to that role were pretty much limited to:
-ordering resources and equipment a couple of times a year
-running staff training on some aspects of delivery a couple of times a year
-having an overview of the skills progression across the school
-planning and leading a themed week once a year (think History Week)
‐being available to discuss points of delivery with non-specialist colleagues, as this was the subject in which I did my degree

I've no specialist training in my more recently acquired subject leader roles, but am a mere administrator of curriculum delivery, an aspect of the role which requires me to spend an inordinate amount of time micromanaging the teaching of the subject across the school, monitoring colleagues planning, moderating children's work and observing teaching and suggesting improvements.
It takes ages!
Lord knows how we ever managed to teach these subjects 10 years ago before this ridiculous process was implemented.

Scrap silly "feedback" in books

Scrap Ofsted

Scrap league tables

Trust teachers

Minimise teacher feedback to parents.

Scrap unnecessary testing of children

Scrap homework. Make it optional

Give more free periods to plan lessons and protect so not used for unnecessary cover

Most meetings are unnecessary and could be an email

I would be very interested to know more about what happens in other schools across the globe-especially ones that are deemed to be ‘successful’ (I know, this is very subjective!)

What hours are the teachers working? What % are they off timetable?
What is their pay like?
What are class sizes like?
How are pupils with SEN supported?
What planning is expected and what is provided locally/nationally?
What additional work is required?
How are they ‘managed’ (micromanaged?) ie observations, learning works, book scrutinies, PMR.
What external measures are there-inspections, league tables? What’s the gradings? Consequences for doing badly?
What are the mental health issues for pupils and staff like?

I feel like the pressures and stress caused by our current system are not proportional to the outcomes reached and there are some easy changes that could be made.

Unfortunately the current government don’t appear to want to do anything that doesn’t bring in fuck loads of money for them or people they know. The ‘failure’ of Letters and Sounds being a prime example.

@noblegiraffe
So true. DH is one of only two teachers in a whole maths department in an outstanding secondary school who is maths trained, the rest are pe/science who do bits of maths teaching. And probably don't want to. It's a great school, but even they cannot get maths teachers.
I'm an ex primary teacher, would not go back for anything!

Appropriate SEN system

The only solution is for all teachers to be trained on their contract T&C's and all teachers totally abstain working any time at all over what they are paid for. If it can't be done, comfortably in the contracted hours then IT CAN'T BE DONE!!!!!

The last one is easily solved by focusing on teaching , a child not wearing a tie is not going to affect their exam performance.

Class teachers don't get to decide not to focus on uniform.