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Can we finally bring an end to crushing levels of workload?

Workload Trade unions Ofsted Staff wellbeing Senior leadership Government policy
Let’s restore school leadership as a labour of love rather than a role which crushes dedicated professionals through relentless levels of workload, says Paul Whiteman
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Leading a school and laying the foundations for children to flourish is bound to take hard work, not to mention considerable talent. But the immense job satisfaction means this is a labour of love – or so the story goes.

Increasingly, however, the line between the hard work anyone would expect and truly crushing levels of workload is being crossed.

Last year’s Working lives of teachers and leaders report commissioned by the Department for Education (Adams et al, 2023) found that school leaders’ average working week was almost 57 hours, with 42% working more than 60 hours. Almost three quarters (72%) of leaders and teachers said their workload was unacceptable.

Meanwhile, our own recent survey of nearly 1,900 NAHT members found workload was a significant factor in harming leaders’ mental health, contributing to a severe recruitment and retention crisis (NAHT, 2023).

More than half (51%) said they were considering leaving the profession within the next three years for reasons other than retirement, with 83% citing workload pressures as a factor. Workload was identified by 85% of school leaders as a deterrent to them aspiring to headship.

One school leader told us: “I often finish work at home at 11:30pm having stayed in school until 5:30-6pm. I’ve had two serious instances of work-related stress where I’ve had to take time off work.”

 

Workload taskforce

Campaigning to reduce workload has been a priority for NAHT. The deal agreed to settle last year’s industrial dispute with the government included the creation of a Workload Reduction Taskforce tasked with reducing leaders’ and teachers’ working week by five hours within three years.

The taskforce – which includes representatives of NAHT, other unions and education bodies alongside civil servants – has already secured agreement from the government to scrap performance-related pay (PRP) for teachers and leaders in time for September.

The DfE has finally recognised the “significant administrative/workload burden” (DfE, 2024) of PRP, while acknowledging that it does not work in practice.

Furthermore, a previously agreed list of 21 tasks that should not require the skills of a school leader or teacher which had been removed from the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document will be updated and reinserted. These include filing pupil records and absence data, collecting money, photocopying, and producing letters for parents.

The taskforce is recommending that the secretary of state and unions should work with schools, councils, trusts, and governors to reiterate the important and helpful recommendations that came out of the 2016 workload reports on marking, planning and data management.

Schools which have adopted the recommendations have reported reductions in workload, but evidence suggests that a significant proportion have not yet had the opportunity to implement them in full.

The taskforce will now move on to look at a much broader range of factors driving unnecessary workload in schools. These include the unintended consequences of accountability, including school inspection, the impact of pressures upon wider public services on schools, parental expectations, and curriculum planning, marking and assessment. “Technological solutions” to reducing workload, including emerging AI technologies, will also be considered.

 

Three main factors driving workload

The recommendations emerging from this work have the potential to be a force for good. However, we know that they won’t be a silver bullet in easing workload. More fundamental changes in government policy will be needed, particularly when it comes to the growing demands being placed on schools.

In our survey, three factors were cited by school leaders as having the biggest impact on their workload over the last year:

  1. Meeting the needs of pupils with SEN and disabilities.
  2. Ofsted pressures.
  3. School funding.

There simply isn’t enough funding in the SEND system for schools and local authorities to consistently access timely support for pupils in the setting best suited to them. Provision is often dictated by funding available, not children’s needs.

Wider funding concerns fuel pressure and workload. Figures last week revealed that the proportion of local authority schools in deficit increased by nearly 50% in 2022/23, accounting for 13% of maintained schools in England.

Some school leaders are facing impossible decisions. One secondary head told us: “I think I need to make savings of £300,000 to £400,000 and that will mean difficult conversations with staff. How can I do that without narrowing the curriculum and impacting children? Because you’re cutting and trying to protect staff, heads and deputies end up taking on more.”

After more than a decade of cuts, school spending this year inched above 2010 levels in real-terms. But significant, sustained investment is needed to help schools recover.

It is right that teachers and leaders shouldn’t be expected to do administrative tasks – but if schools are forced to reduce administrative and support staff, that is inevitably what happens.

Much more government support is also needed for services including social care and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), which have also been underfunded over the last decade. School leaders and their staff are increasingly having to act as counsellors and social workers in trying to help pupils and their families with problems in their lives – adding to workload pressures.

Finally, far-reaching reform of school inspection is needed from Ofsted and the DfE – something that the workload taskforce will consider but cannot instigate alone.

The pressure the current regime places upon school leaders and staff is unacceptable, and the impact on their wellbeing and mental health was brought into sharp focus by the suicide of headteacher Ruth Perry last year.

Workload is just one aspect of this, but an important one. As one secondary leader told us: “There is too much pressure upon schools to perform to Ofsted’s set of standards. School staff have to spend so much time preparing for inspections rather than caring for pupils.”

The new Ofsted chief inspector has accepted that change is needed. He has already paused inspections to allow mental health training to happen and has agreed to establish a hotline to allow requests for inspections to be paused.

But as well as treating the symptoms we need more far-reaching reform – as set out by the recent NAHT blueprint (NAHT 2024) – to cure the underlying causes, including an end to high-stakes single-word judgements.

 

A perfect storm

It is clear that issues like funding, SEND provision, cuts to public services, and inspection all contribute to a heavy workload for school leaders and their staff, fuelling the worrying recruitment and retention crisis (which itself then adds to workload for the staff who remain in post).

Proposals from the taskforce must be supported by proper government investment to address these issues if we are to ease workload in the long-run and help ensure children get the education they deserve.

 

Further information