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