Workload

Teaching is a demanding career, but it should not dominate your life to the extent that all else is eclipsed by marking, preparation and the sheer exhaustion of it all!

Helping teachers to maintain a work-life balance has been a major focus for ATL in recent years, and much progress has been made through the national workload agreement  in removing unnecessary tasks from teachers’ workloads. 

The law of diminishing returns applies as much to your preparation as it does to anything else in life. Put too much time into it, and you’ll risk getting a disproportionately small amount of benefit from your efforts. 

Limit the amount of time you spend working at home during the evening. Never work late into the night – you need to unwind fully before going to sleep. 

Don’t let your relationships outside work slip. Friends, partners and family will understand your need to work long hours, but they shouldn’t be forgotten altogether! Plan time to be with these people and keep that time sacrosanct.

All teachers do some work in the school holidays, but don’t blur the boundaries between term time and holiday time so much that they are no longer distinct. Try to make sure that a fixed number of evenings in the week are completely work-free - don’t lose sight of your hobbies and interests.  

Pacing yourself

Teaching can be quite exhausting, especially when it’s new to you. So while you’re bound to feel tired from time to time, especially towards the end of a long week or term, try to pace yourself so that you are not so exhausted by Friday - or by the end of term - that you spend your entire weekend or holiday recovering. Aim to gain a sense of how and when you work most effectively. Don’t force yourself to do tasks at times when you experience natural slumps in energy, such as at 4pm when you’re hungry and tired.  

During the week, try and have at least one week night and one weekend day when you do no teaching work at all (ideally you’d take more time off than this). Work out what your natural working rhythms are – do you work best in the early morning or early evening? Do you prefer to get through your ‘to do’ list slowly and methodically, or do you work better under pressure, sprinting through your list in short, energetic bursts? Also, try to identify when you’re likely to feel tired - towards the end of the week or the end of term, for example - and try to avoid over-burdening yourself during these times, for example by setting less homework (thereby reducing your marking) or opting for less preparation-heavy lessons.

Talk to your mentor or induction tutor and more experienced teachers as well. Ask them if they have any ideas or suggestions for ways to pace yourself and avoid burning out.

Some ideas on time management

Your ability to manage your time effectively will be the difference between thriving and surviving in your first job. Here are a few tips for you to consider.

• Be realistic about what you can achieve within a given timeframe. You’ll have to say no sometimes! Be selective about how you spend your time and ask your mentor or induction tutor for additional help or resources if necessary.
• Get used to prioritising tasks – be ruthless! Do the essential stuff first but be discerning about what you attach that label to. Not everything is essential!
• Write ‘to do’ lists and allocate a certain amount of time to each task. Be ruthless and stop when you’ve used up your allocation.
• Collaborate as much as possible. It can cut down your workload drastically, and can be a useful way of learning useful techniques from others as well. There really is no need to reinvent the wheel. 
• Find out if there are any labour-saving resources such as electronic planners or schedules available from your school, and use them.
• Choose a place to work which is free from distractions, where you won’t be interrupted. If you have to keep breaking off to answer questions or queries, each task will take twice as long.
• If you are planning for one lesson, aim to plan for a series of lessons. 
• If you are falling behind, alert your headteacher, mentor or induction tutor as early as possible. That way, they’ll be able to offer help and assistance – or even take the pressure off by relieving you of some of your workload.           

The national agreement

The national agreement is an historic settlement between the government, employers and education unions to improve working standards for teachers and tackle issues concerning workload. 

It was signed in 2003 in recognition of the fact that the major reason that teachers were leaving the profession was heavy workload, and that a significant proportion of their time was being spent on non-teaching activities.

Following the national agreement, teachers are now protected by a limit on the amount of cover they can be required to undertake; there is a list of administrative and clerical tasks they cannot be routinely asked to do (see below), and they are entitled to 10% planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time in their timetable each week (NQTs are also entitled to an additional half day per week for professional development to achieve the induction duties).

The School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document states that a school that is committed to work-life balance:

• develops, monitors and evaluates appropriate policies
• communicates its commitment to work-life balance to its staff.           

For more details of the national agreement and what it means for you, see the ATL website or the TDA  website for info on the national agreement.

The tasks teachers should no longer be required to fulfill

Since 1 September 2003, teachers have no longer been routinely required to undertake tasks of an administrative or clerical nature. Such tasks should now be undertaken by support staff or transferred to ICT, so teachers can focus on teaching. Any transfer of tasks should not result in a reduction in the support that teachers are provided with in the classroom.

A list of 21 tasks which do not call for the exercise of the teacher’s professional skills and judgement appears below, with ATL’s advice shown in brackets.

1. Collecting money from pupils and parents (a designated member of the office staff should be responsible for receiving and recording money).
2. Investigating a pupil’s absence (teachers will need to inform the relevant member of staff when a pupil is absent from a class, but they should not have to telephone pupils’ homes, for example).
3. Bulk photocopying (eg for whole class use).
4. Typing or making word-processed versions of manuscript material and producing revisions of such versions.
5. Word-processing, copying and distributing bulk communications, including standard letters, to parents and pupils.
6. Producing class lists on the basis of information provided by teachers (teachers may need to be involved in allocating pupils to particular classes).
7. Keeping and filing records including records based on data supplied by teachers (teachers may be required to contribute towards the content of records).
8. Preparing, setting up and taking down classroom displays (teachers will still make decisions about what material should be displayed in their classrooms).
9. Producing analyses of attendance figures.
10. Producing analyses of examination results.
11. Collating pupil reports.
12. Administration of work experience (teachers may still need to select placements and support pupils by advice or visits).
13. Administration of public and internal examinations.
14. Administration of cover for absent teachers.
15. Ordering, setting up and maintaining ICT equipment and software.
16. Ordering supplies and equipment.
17. Cataloguing, preparing, issuing and maintaining materials and equipment and stocktaking the same.
18. Taking verbatim notes or producing formal minutes of meetings (teachers may be required to coordinate action points if necessary).
19. Coordinating and submitting bids (for funding, school status, etc). (Teachers may be required to give input into the content of the bids.)
20. Transferring manual data about pupils into computerised school management systems. (Teachers should not be expected to input initial data electronically.)
21. Managing the data in school management systems. 

Teachers may be asked to carry out a clerical or administrative task on a non-routine basis, but this should be exceptional - the headteacher must act reasonably in making requests of this kind.

Taking time off

If it’s all getting too much for you, take time off. It’s far better to be alert to the warning signs of burn-out and take action early, rather than waiting until things get really bad, necessitating a far longer spell of rest and recuperation.

Help and support

For further advice on this issue, ATL members can speak to their school rep, their branch secretary or their regional official. They can also call the London (020 7930 6441), Cardiff (029 2046 5000), Belfast (028 9078 2020) or Edinburgh (0131 272 2748) offices or email info@atl.org.uk

For out of hours enquiries, call the out of office hours helpline on 020 7782 1612 (Monday-Friday, 5-8pm during term time).

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