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Teachers are often asked to do too much of things that matter too little. But if less contact time isn’t the answer, what is, asks Michael Tidd...

Students preparing for teacher-training interviews often ask ‘What are the current big issues in education?’ Right now, there’s no shortage: new curriculum, new assessment, changes at Ofsted… the list goes on. But there’s also a giant elephant in the (class)room that people are finally starting to acknowledge: workload.

In the three-month consultation about the National Curriculum in 2013, about 4,500 individual responses were received. Compare, then, the 40,000-plus responses that sent to the Department for Education in just four weeks regarding the Workload Challenge. Teachers nationwide have spoken – this issue needs addressing.

The DfE asked both what the drivers of unnecessary workload are, and what steps it could take to alleviate them. One can only imagine how many times the dreaded ‘O-word’ appeared in the responses. And doubtless there will be many calls for increased funding for more PPA time for teachers.

On the surface, it’s an obvious solution: teachers have more work than ever, so they need more time in which to do it. But we’ve been down that treacherous road before, and teachers’ working hours seem only to have increased. Back in those halcyon days of the Workload Agreement, we saw the removal of administrative tasks from teachers’ roles, the introduction of PPA time, the removal of cover from teachers’ timetables – and where did it get us?

In the last decade we have seen a rapidly increasing volume of planning requirements, marking, meetings and other commitments for teachers that have more than absorbed the additional time provided by PPA. Freeing up time from teaching is unlikely to be an option, especially with one of the department’s concerns is the percentage of time teachers are already spending on work outside the classroom.

So, if less contact time isn’t the solution, what is? The early results from the survey showed some common trends in the suggestions for improvement: reduced data collection, realistic marking expectations, reduced number and length of meetings. Teachers recognise that they’re often being asked to do too much of things that matter too little.

I’ve written before about the envy that sometimes sets in between individual teachers admiring displays in the room next door, or laminating more things to keep up with Mrs Jones. The pattern is replicated on a grand scale in our schools: Any old Primary School got Outstanding in its inspection? Quick – copy their marking policy and buy in a thousand highlighters. Fancy Junior School got out of Requires Improvement by using three-page lesson plans? Someone get the template! Extreme examples, maybe, but all of them seen in plenty of schools on some scale.

The problem, of course, is that nobody ever comments on the school doing too much, or the teachers working too hard. Nobody’s Ofsted report ever said “marking is excellent, but teachers’ time could be better spent on seeing their families.” Nobody gets a best practice logo for their letterhead for reducing the number of data collection points.

Of course, you could argue that if we scrapped Ofsted then half of those issues would disappear overnight. And it’s tempting. But we should remind ourselves that this is the Department for Education running the challenge. They might not always be best of friends with the inspectorate, but I don’t think they’re quite ready to kill it off yet! The best we can hope for there is reform. We’ve seen the start of it, and the clarification document issued in the autumn helps, but we certainly can’t expect them suddenly to become the champions of the lazy approach to teaching.

If the department could do one thing to support schools, perhaps we need a new portfolio of best practice documentation: celebrations of schools that are really helping to reduce teacher workload and manage teachers’ time, while maintaining a positive impact for their pupils. Examples of policies and practice that achieve good things, without causing teacher burnout. Those schools must exist, mustn’t they?

About the Author

Michael Tidd is deputy headteacher at Edgewood Primary School in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.