How do you know if your school is genuinely reducing teacher workload?
This document is for every headteacher working in a school or college; a self-evaluation without the hassle of reams and reams of paperwork. Either complete this yourself as a headteacher, or if you are brave enough, simply hand out the 2-page document to every member of your leadership team to self-reflect on what decisions you make as a school and its impact on teacher workload.
Student Led or Visitor Led?
In my research, it is clear that many of these questions are driven by school leaders' perceptions
This is a great review tool and thank you for putting it out there. It would be helpful if you gave a review of the score/outcome that you perceive as the ideal.
Hi Paul – thanks… will give that a thought. What would you say is the bench mark? I wonder if all questions should be geared to a yes/no to make it worthy, as I think they way I’ve set it up requires both responses?
Interesting request. Slightly ironic considering the subject matter. Do teachers love a quantifiable value to measure against and be measured by? I would say be careful to create your own areas of priority and ethos for your school rather than having Ross or anyone else tell you what an ’ideal score’ on a checklist is for your context.
Completely agree. Hope the document generates people to think about their issues more than anything else …
I think this is useful but could do with some additions particularly in respect of proactive strategies for improving T & L through professional dialogue and the same for well being. Might be worth putting it out there (Twitter?) for ideas? Certainly a document which could be developed into a really useful reflection tool.
Nice one.
Already posted on Twitter – no feedback other than RTs. It’s a good start …
It would be useful if you could let us know what the answer should be to some of the questions as, from what I’ve been told, the ideal situation would be ‘yes’ to some and ‘no’ to others… but I’m not sure if my perception is correct!
Thanks for this – our SMT had a great discussion based around this last night. It would help, as others have posted, if there were some clarifications on what the intended ‘right’ solutions are. As it is, we think we’ve agreed on the right approach in each case, and we’ve got some areas we’ve made good progress towards and areas we need to work further on! A very useful exercise.
Hi David – good to know this has provoked a discussion. I wouldn’t want to say what the right answers are, as one solution doesn’t fit all schools. However, if you’re a regular reader here, you’ll soon understand my preferences are designed to flip the system and put teachers back at the heart of teaching and learning. Thanks, Ross.
Hi Ross, this is really useful thanks. I am taking to our Wellbeing Group meeting tonight so will let you know how I get on.
all the best, Russell (@plestered)
Let me know how you get on!
Very helpful checklist. Provides an excellent template for schools to adapt to their own context. I would like to offer this as a resource to signpost how schools might consider workload, as one component of well-being when implementing my Teach Well Toolkit. I will attribute the resource to you, Ross. Is this OK with you?
Absolutely – as long as it is shared for free.