As part of the three-year pay deal the teacher unions together with the Government and COSLA (employers) made a commitment to reducing teacher workload. Two additional in-service days were allocated within the 2019-2020 school session to help schools to identify and reduce teacher workload.

The SSTA conducted a survey of school representatives in December 2019 to gauge the impact of the additional in-service days in reducing teacher workload. Despite the commitment from the Government and COSLA, SSTA representatives reported that teacher workload was not reducing and in many cases teacher workload was still increasing.

Seamus Searson, SSTA General Secretary, said

“It appears that only the teacher unions are actively encouraging schools to identify causes of teacher workload and take steps to reduce bureaucracy, whilst other partners to the agreement (COSLA and the Government) have been not looking at themselves as to causes of teacher workload or supporting schools to cut teacher workload”.

“Schools in many areas lacked guidance or instruction on how to tackle teacher workload from their local authority. Schools in many areas had been left to their own devices with headteachers reluctant to make changes to working practices due to fear of inspection and fault finding by the local authority”.

The SSTA survey of school reps found that only 41% of school reps were involved in the planning of the days with only 27% of school looking at the causes of teacher workload.

The survey found that 84% of schools had used one of the days in the first term with only 20% of schools used them to tackle workload. A further 48% of schools only used part of the in-service days as intended.

Of the 27% of school that looked at causes of work load but only 19% identified measures to reduce workload with only just over half of these agreed to implement measures to reduce teacher workload.

Seamus Searson added

“Teachers need to focus on teaching and learning and not collecting data and evidence to satisfy Inspectors, local authorities and government officials. The fear of inspection and scrutiny from outside is widespread in schools. This just takes the power away from teachers to put their pupils first and undermines the government’s intention to put power in to the hands of teachers”.

John Guidi, SSTA President, said

“Many teachers are calling for time for curriculum development. The SSTA view is that three of the in-service days, one per term should be given over to teaching and learning (curriculum development). Teachers need time to plan”.

“Many of these days at are predominantly filled with new initiatives or information giving sessions that take time away from the real business of teaching and learning”.

SSTA members identified a number of areas that are causing concern.

New initiatives or procedures that are introduced to meet external policy demands, a target or a tick box in the event of an inspection or a local authority review. Many of these new initiatives are not piloted or evaluated before implementation but take a good deal of teacher time.

New and increased pupil ‘tracking and monitoring’ systems that do not give any new information about pupils. The teachers already know how there pupils are doing. Tracking and monitoring is unnecessary for most pupils as teacher have already intervened when there is a concern about a pupil and give support and guidance and how pupils can improve in every lesson they teach.

Need for a national system on tracking and monitoring and an agreed limit on the usefulness of these systems that prevent schools developing new and more complex processes that only add to teacher workload.

The survey identified some of the measures schools took to reduce teacher workload

• 19% reduced tracking and monitoring
• 36% removal of written comments within tracking and monitoring
• 29% reduction of written reports
• 14% allocated time for moderation/standardisation
• 10% gave time to make SQA course changes
• 14% simplified pupil referral systems
• 10% halt on new initiatives and demands placed on staff
• 17% increase of allocated curriculum development time
• 19% reduced staff meetings

Comments from members:

“The empowerment agenda set out by SLT ironically made staff feel less empowered”

“Staff were angered that other schools gave staff time to get on with their work whilst ours made them talk about their work issues for a day”.

“There's a lot of ill feeling about workload that hasn't been resolved by these additional in-service days there has been no real move to reduce workload in the school”.

“If anything workload has increased with new T+M systems that duplicate existing systems”.

“No points of action came out of the first day”.

“There has been no discussion with staff in regard to reducing teacher workload”.

“Workload pressures are increasing and a distinct lack of support from management is causing staff to feel overwhelmed and undervalued”.

“Not fully realised and the authority left this to individual schools”.

“The comments I hear again and again from my members is that to really reduce workload the SQA needs to stop constantly moving the goal posts so we can consolidate our assessment, courses and marking and also that the local authority need to step up more to support schools”.

“Workload has continued to increase. Continual changes from the SQA, multiple new initiatives & preparing for an inspection, reporting - although all electronic is now more onerous; all have added to workload”.

“We are struggling to identify effective measures to reduce workload, as it would mean stripping away broad 'systems of management' which SLT are reluctant to do”.

“Onslaught of new initiatives introduced throughout the year, not in the WTA, which adds to teacher stress and workload”.

“Very disappointed that an SNCT national agreement and LNCT agreement to look at reducing workload can be ignored at school level. If this is a taste of HT empowerment then I fear for the future”.

“Burnout. Colleagues who love the job are ready to ‘walk away’. SLTs need to stand up for their staff and call out the LAs for not being proactive in tackling workload”.

“If the idea was to reduce workload then let teachers decide how best to use two days to get things done.  We have to develop courses, write reports etc.  Our council decided when our days were and so we used them for development work”.

“The Headteacher dictated what was to happen. No collegiate working”.

(ENDS)

Please note:

Survey took place in December 2019 with 72 SSTA School Representatives responding.

Further information from

Seamus Searson
General Secretary

0131 313 7300

3 March 2020

The SSTA conducted a survey of members in June following the end of the National Qualification cycle on the extent of ‘Multi-Course’ teaching in S4 classes. The SSTA received 1,247 responses that showed a wide disparity of practice in each local authority across Scotland.

The SSTA has continuously campaigned for the unfairness, to both pupils and teachers, of multi-course teaching to be addressed. The response to the survey brings strong evidence for action to be taken to give all pupils an opportunity to reach their full potential.

Teachers have highlighted the difficulties in trying to teach more than one course in a class when the content is completely different. This has resulted in an impossible workload for teachers and a frustration that they are unable to concentrate on all the pupils all of the time.

‘Multi-course’ teaching is an attempt to teach more than one National qualification specialist subject course concurrently within the same class. For example: Teaching Mathematics National 4, National 5 and Higher courses at the same time.

The pupils in this instance don’t get a full lesson of teaching and they only get a third of the teachers’ time. Yet this is quite common within subjects despite Nat 4, Nat 5 and Higher being different courses. Pupils are being ‘short-changed’. We believe most parents are unaware of the situation their children are facing in school.

There appears to be a complete lack of understanding on those who put teachers in this position and for the sake of pupils and teachers this needs to change. Teachers are under-pressure to raise standards and improve the schools’ place on the league table rankings without the time and a class all following the same course.

The SSTA expected the survey to find evidence that smaller rural schools had a larger proportion of multi-course classes but was surprised by a high number of multi-course teaching in large urban schools where the numbers alone should ensure more single course classes. The survey identified a large number of pupils that were being placed in classes where more than one course was being taught at the same time.

Seamus Searson, SSTA General Secretary said “this survey has highlighted the wide variance of practice that teachers are expected to work within despite concerns raised by teachers over a number of years. The practice of multi-course teaching has wrongly become the norm in most schools in Scotland”.

“It is concerning that in a time when the focus is meeting the needs for all pupils that only a minority of pupils are finding themselves in a class with all their peers following the same course”.  

“The high number of classes with two or three courses being accommodated in a class in S4 should be a major concern for all. Just focussing at the median figures in the different categories should be a wake-up call. Only 23% of classes are single qualification, 51% of classes have two qualifications, and 21% of classes having three qualifications. The survey does show that the vast majority of pupils are not in single qualification classes”.

“There are many factors as to why this is happening in schools and further investigation needs to be undertaken in curriculum design, timetabling, national qualifications, school league tables, class sizes, staffing difficulties and the notion of pupil choice”

The main findings:

Single Qualification Course in S4 Class

The range of classes from 63% in East Renfrewshire in single course classes down to 7% in South Ayrshire. The median average within the survey was 23% of single course classes for Glasgow, East Lothian and Highland. The survey also included members in Independent schools where 69% of classes were found to have single qualification classes.

Two Qualification Courses in S4 Class

The range of classes from 64% of classes in South Ayrshire containing pupils on two qualification courses down to 29% in East Renfrewshire. The median average within the survey was 51% of two course classes in Aberdeenshire and Falkirk. In Independent schools the figure was 22%.

Three Qualification Courses in S4 Class

The range of classes from 36% of classes in East Ayrshire containing pupils on three qualification courses down to 3% in East Dunbartonshire. The median average within the survey was 21% of three course classes in Aberdeenshire and Falkirk. In Independent schools the figure was 9%.

Four Qualification Courses in S4 Class

The range of classes from 10% of classes in Aberdeen City containing pupils on four qualification courses down to 1% in Fife. The median average within the survey was 3% of four course classes in East Dunbartonshire, East Lothian and Scottish Borders. The authorities with no classes with four qualification courses were East Renfrewshire, Dundee, East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and Stirling. In Independent schools the figure was 0%.

Two and Three Qualification Courses in S4 Class

The range of classes from 89% of classes in Aberdeen City containing pupils on two or three qualification courses down to 37% in East Renfrewshire. The median average within the survey was 72% of two or three course classes in Aberdeen City, Fife, Aberdeenshire and South Lanarkshire. In Independent schools the figure was 31%.

Two, Three or Four Qualification Courses in S4 Class

The range of classes from 93% of classes in South Ayrshire containing pupils on two, three or four qualification courses down to 37% in East Renfrewshire. The median average within the survey was 77% of two, three or four course classes in Glasgow, East Lothian and Highland. In Independent schools the figure was 31%.

(Ends)

Note to Editors.

The SSTA represents nearly 7,000 members in secondary schools in Scotland.

Attached

1. Full list of survey results
2. Comments made by SSTA members

Please note: the survey took place in June 2019 with 1,247 responses. Not all local authorities have been included due to insufficient responses to give a reasonable picture of the practice within the authority.