On 24 February the Department for Education (DfE) published the report of the first of its biennial surveys on teacher workload.

While the majority of respondents said that workload remains a serious problem in their school, I still believe there are reasons to feel a little more optimistic.

It was good to read, for example, that 75 per cent of respondents in the survey agreed that their school supports CPD for teachers - an essential activity to renew and strengthen our profession.

As someone who chaired one of the independent review groups into teacher workload last year, I feel passionately about teachers’ working lives and the incredible difference teachers can make for children and young people.

I know how hard we work, and how much we care - I have never met a teacher who didn’t want the best for their pupils.

That’s why I agreed to chair the data management group, and believe that the report that was written - alongside those looking into eliminating unnecessary workload around marking feedback, planning and resources -  can and will help.

All of these reports point to what some have called obvious solutions - such as “stop doing things that take up your time but don’t really have a big impact on your pupils” - but if the advice and suggestions that are given in the three reports are discussed by teachers and implemented in full or in part, they really will work.

The reports, published by the DfE, contain principles for teaching, including, in my own group’s report, an “aide-mémoire” checklist to help schools consider how much they are asking staff to collect, input, analyse and monitor data.

The planning and resources group, chaired by Kathryn Greenhalgh, director of maths at Outwood Grange Academies Trust, wrote in its report about the need for flexibility in formal written lesson planning, to get away from the over-emphasis on generic lesson plans and concentrate on longer term planning to let “the subject do the talking”. 

Dawn Copping, the chair of the marking group, knows the power of making marking meaningful, manageable and motivating. She has worked with many school teams who have seen their workload fall away - with no negative impact on standards. In her school, teachers don’t take marking home (and guess what - lots of NQTs want to work there!).

What we do know, and are still being told by system leaders and headteachers, is that these reports, when implemented, give teachers and leaders the “permission” to do what they think is right, in their professional opinion, and allow them to take some courage from the fact other schools across the country are doing the same.

A lot time can be ‘clawed back’

So, there’s plenty for us to do, and I do believe that a lot of time can be clawed back in schools by reviewing our working practices and asking ourselves, as professionals: “Is the time I’m putting in really making the difference I want it to?”

The principles and recommendations of our reports have been summarised into a downloadable poster and pamphlet available in today’s TES magazine, endorsed by the DfE, Ofsted and the teaching unions, working together as they did in the review groups to tackle workload. These should be read by everyone involved in teaching - governors, leaders, teachers and parents.

But, of course, it’s not just up to us. We know the impact that nervousness around inspection can have on how we do things in school, and that in spite of some of the great messages from Sean Harford, national director of education at Ofsted, the inspection process can still be a real driver of increased and unnecessary workload. 

Ofsted has taken many opportunities over the past two years to reiterate what its expectations are when it inspects and what it doesn’t want to see - to minimise the workload burden.

As an executive principal, I have recently had the opportunity to hold inspectors to their public statements when they inspected our schools.

In presenting robust qualitative information about the whole child as well as numbers, our professional arguments were heard in the inspection process, which was a genuine dialogue about school improvement and how we are improving outcomes for children.

The DfE, responding to the workload survey findings (by the way, I feel duty-bound to point out that the survey was held in schools before the reports came out), has published an action plan. This  includes an offer of targeted support to help schools reduce workload where the survey showed it was most needed - especially with teachers in the early years of their careers.

It has also reissued the DfE protocol, which says we will have enough lead-in time for major changes that might impact on workload. It has more to do - as do we as school leaders.

Workload is one of the main reasons good teachers leave, and I want to keep my good teachers in school.

I welcome the secretary of state’s plans to work with the profession, including the new Chartered College of Teaching, and to raise the status of teaching.

And I hope her department honours its commitment to help tackle unnecessary workload, so that we can get on with the business of leading great schools and teaching children.

Lauren Costello is the director of education at The White Horse Federation, based in Swindon, and is writing here in an individual capacity

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