Workload - Allowing teachers to teach

In the 12 years since I started my Initial Teacher Training, the issue of workload has constantly been in focus. Many believe – and I used to – that the problem is with the DfE, Ofsted and the profession itself. However, since becoming a Deputy Headteacher a few years ago, I’ve realised that in my opinion, most of the ‘crisis’ is at school level, driven by school policies and SLTs.

Yes, there is pressure from Ofsted and the DfE but often their messages are twisted and misinterpreted. Sometimes this might be an unscrupulous consultant willingly doing this to sell a product or service, but often it’s driven by fear. Fear of being ‘caught out’ not doing something. And then what results is a culture of excessive workload deigned to prove what you’re doing, when a well-trained pair of eyes could see this from a quick dive into your everyday practice.

When our new SLT formed in 2016, we as team set out to improve a school that was ‘Requires Improvement’, but to do so in a way that didn’t create excessive workload. In the end, we reduced workload, getting rid of anything that didn’t impact upon pupils’ learning. This meant that teachers have time to focus on their core business: teaching! Unsurprisingly, teaching dramatically improved across the school. This blog will show just some of the things we put in place to allow teachers to have the time they need to plan, prepare and deliver excellent lessons.

PPA:

Firstly, our 2.5 hours PPA is given out from 11:30-12:00 and 13:00-15:00. Lunch is 12:00-13:00. This means if you bring in some sandwiches you can have a working lunch and essentially have 3.5 hours PPA. Or (as I often do!) you can have a stroll out to the nearby shops and have a leisurely, uninterrupted lunch break once a week knowing you don’t have to teach afterwards. You can also stay back as long as you like, meaning you get a really good, dedicated block of time to do what you need to do. PPA happens in teams, so your year group partner and another year group are there with you as a source of advice. You will also ALWAYS get your PPA. If you’ve been sent on a course on your PPA day, we’ll re-arrange it. We always make sure everyone is treated fairly.

Feedback & marking:

We encourage feedback to be given in lesson as much as possible. This includes any marking, which is simply done in a red pen, with ticks indicating areas of success and circles / wiggly lines (or whatever shape is appropriate!) to denote errors or misconceptions. TAs also mark as they go around or work with their group. This means that there really isn’t a lot to do with the books after the lesson. If in the middle of a sequence of lessons, I tend to quickly sort them into three piles – those who need support, those who are progressing fine and those who need a challenge. Rather than writing this in the books, I will just adapt my next lesson to meet their needs.

Schemes of Learning:

For English, we use the Power of Reading and for maths we use the White Rose scheme of learning. These don’t plan whole lessons for you and you must adapt it to your class and your needs but a lot of the decision making is done for you. Instead of ‘what book shall we do?’ or ‘how do we introduce multiplication to Y2’, teachers can spend their time refining the scheme into lessons that are right for their class and their children. The maths and English leads have also got rid of any superfluous requirements for their subject that weren’t having any impact on learning but were taking up teachers’ time (e.g. stuck in WILFs, or target sheets in maths).

Other initiatives:

·         No graded lesson observations – In fact, there aren’t really any formal lesson observations at all. Leaders frequently pop into lessons, look at books, look at data and form a judgment (not Ofsted meaning of the word) through considering a wide range of evidence over time.

·         No planning requirements – Plan how you like! We’d only look at people’s planning if there was an issue with the teaching. We have possible formats for weekly planning available (I use one for maths) but everyone is encouraged to just do what works for them.

·         No fads – no WALTS, no WILFS and absolutely no VAK! In fact, I spent a large proportion of a PD day debunking Edu-myths that still lurked in some corners.

·         No pointless paperwork – only the most necessary of paperwork is produced. For example, our assessment system analyses the data at a push of a button. There only three data drops a year. After each one, teachers discuss pupil progress with the Head or Deputy. The meeting record is filled in as we discuss, meaning after the 30 minute meeting there is no admin or paperwork needing doing.

·         ICT does our admin for us – organising clubs, running parents evening, etc. This means teachers (or any adult!) don’t waste their time on admin tasks.

·         Staff Meetings – Only ever one a week for one hour. No staff meetings when there’s been a Parents’ Evening, and if there is a lot of work on that week or there isn’t a pressing issue, then there might not be a staff meeting that week.

·         Time – Subject leaders get time out of class to monitor their subject.

·         Supervision – Teachers do not do break or lunch duty, except in exceptional circumstances.

·         We never operate a ‘minimum entitlement’ model. We respect our teachers and give them more than the contractually obliged minimum, and as result we get so much back from our dedicated and happy team.

The result of all of this is that teachers’ time is spent teaching, discussing teaching and preparing teaching. Teaching is now rapidly improving, due to teachers have time and headspace to think about it. New initiatives get started and become embedded quicker, because we are judicious about what we start and when we start it. And, in June of last year, we finally got our ‘Good’ judgement, proving that backside-covering paperwork is completely unnecessary. The team saw our school as it was, every day, and judged it to be the Good school we know it is.

So, my message would be, focus on what YOUR school needs to ensure YOUR teachers can teach.