Our research showed that there are ways of reducing teacher workload. One way is for leaders to work with teachers to ask which tasks they think could be cut or changed without having a negative impact.
Some of the practical ideas that teachers and leaders in our research came up with are for leaders to:
- Match up new government ideas and initiatives with work that is already happening.
- Set realistic expectations in terms of what is achievable in order to have a sustainable workload.
- Ensure that any non-teaching time is in long enough blocks to be useful.
- Allow teachers to create easier marking strategies, such as peer marking in class, face to face feedback or student self-marking against a template.
- Let teachers decide whether they do their preparation and marking at home or at school
- Reduce how frequently teachers have to input data such as target grades
- Only organise meetings that are essential
- Implement “no emails in evenings or on weekends” policy where leaders set the example
- Role model leaving work on time, having breaks and setting and keeping clear boundaries.
But what really matters is what works for teachers and students at your school – what can you reduce from workload together?
