We have, at long last, seen some tangible action from the Department for Education (DfE) in response to its Workload Challenge, which was first launched almost 18 months ago.
The publication of the final reports of the working groups set up to tackle the key causes of workload as identified by the 44,000 teachers who responded to the DfE’s survey is welcome.
However, the DfE cannot now sit back and say its work is done. It must lead from the front in ensuring that the principles and recommendations outlined in each of the reports are now placed at the heart of our school system.
It must also recognise and accept its own culpability (alongside others such as Ofsted and some school leaders themselves) in creating a culture that has allowed workload, data and bureaucracy to get so out of hand. A constant conveyor belt of policy and reform has not helped either.
Teachers will be glad to finally see something concrete, as it is a generally accepted view that, up until now, the DfE’s response to its Workload Challenge has been paltry. Early last year, when the findings were first published, education secretary Nicky Morgan pledged a minimum year’s lead-in time for “significant accountability, curriculum and qualification changes”. She also asked Ofsted to clarify “what is and what is not required by inspectors”. And that was about it.
Back then, teachers – already suspicious that the pre-General Election Workload Challenge was just a gimmick – began to see nothing more than a fudge.
And this was certainly the view when the DfE seemed to break its own year’s lead-in time pledge soon after it was made – the compulsory EBacc plan was announced in June 2015 to apply to students who started secondary school in September.
However, accusations of a fudge are now challenged by the publication of these three reports. Focused on teachers’ three most commonly cited causes of workload problems – marking, planning and data-management – they offer concrete advice and recommendations for school leaders, teachers, government and other bodies including Ofsted.
Yet, any praise should be placed on hold as we now need to see what happens next. The consensus within the profession is that the government must accept responsibility for the major role it has to play in keeping teacher workloads under control. This is yet to happen. I remain cynical whether it will.
The DfE must accept that its policy overdrive over the past few years, its focus on forced academy conversion, thus creating a climate where school leadership has become as precarious as football management, and its obsession with high-stakes accountability based on performance tables and data have all, directly or indirectly, helped to drive workload sky-high. Indeed, the nature and pressure of accountability, including Ofsted inspection, is perhaps the one area where definitive government action could make all the difference.
The link between new policy and in-school workload must be recognised too. Unions want to see a workload assessment for all new DfE policy. I am not sure ministers would ever agree to this, but they cannot continue to pretend that workload is not affected by new policies, especially those implemented at break-neck speed, such as the curriculum and exam reforms, the EBacc and academisation.
However, the proper introduction of the year’s lead-in pledge for new policies and an end to ministerial interference in teaching methods and pedagogy would be a good start.
There are countless surveys and pieces of research from across the past few years showing the extent of high working hours and work overload facing teachers, and the impact this is having on mental health, wellbeing, retention and recruitment.
For example, in November 2015, a year on from the launch of the Workload Challenge, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers found that not a lot had changed – 81 per cent of teachers considered their workload to be “unmanageable” while a similar proportion of school staff were considering quitting because of workload.
So now that we have some tangible action from the DfE, we need local authorities, multi-academy trusts, school leaders and teachers themselves to embrace and implement the many recommendations. However, leading from the front must be the DfE (and where relevant Ofsted). It is their practices, that must change to show they embrace this agenda. It is their rhetoric that must communicate the expectation that these reports be enacted. It is their influence that can kick-start the workload culture change that is so sorely needed in our schools.
- Pete Henshaw is the editor of SecEd and has been writing about education for more than 10 years. Email editor@sec-ed.co.uk and follow @pwhenshaw