Work intensification

NASUWT reports that work intensification is a key concern for teachers, alongside declining real terms pay and a lack of support in managing poor pupil behaviour. Independent research also demonstrates that work intensification is a primary issue of concern for teachers. Work intensification has a detrimental impact on teachers’ well-being, with this being one of the key drivers for teachers leaving the profession.

Increasing workloads

The UK Office of Manpower Economics (OME), an independent organisation that provides impartial secretariat support to the independent Pay Review Bodies, carried out research to measure the impact of pay, rewards and other employment characteristics on the retention of teachers. At the core of the study was a quantitative survey conducted with teachers in England. The research followed a House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts (2018) report that stated that the number of secondary school teachers has been falling since 2010 and the number of teachers leaving for reasons other than retirement has been increasing since 2012. Coupled with the fact that the number of pupils is increasing, and is expected to keep increasing in the future, this has placed increased pressure on the supply of teachers (House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, 2018).

The key findings showed that:

• workloads are significantly increasing for teachers and that this is having a serious impact on teacher retention
• pay and rewards are important retention factors, but they are not the only factors that shape teachers’ retention choices
• workplace characteristics (workload, school culture and teaching environment) are highly valued by teachers. Teachers would be willing to trade-off higher pay/rewards to work in supportive environments with fewer challenges from pupil behaviour
• Respondents reported heavy workload. Nearly half of the sample stated they work 21 per cent to 50 per cent more than their contract hours and almost a third report working 51 per cent to 100 per cent more.

This finding is in line with previous evidence 9 , for instance by the Department for Education, that the workload associated with teaching is the biggest cause of retention issues.

Work intensification

NASUWT is keen to flag up the distinction between work intensification and increasing workloads.

Whilst there is undoubtedly an overlap, with increasing workloads contributing towards work intensification, teachers’ work has intensified in other ways which has led to negative impacts on their health and wellbeing. Teachers are under increasing levels of scrutiny and this new work dynamic leads to teachers working in a more intense environment.

NASUWT reports that teachers have lost a large degree of autonomy and professional agency. They are now subjected to a level of scrutiny and oversight that is debilitating. Examples include:

• Excessive lesson observation, with teachers increasingly find their lessons observed. These are viewed as management checks on teacher performance and create a stressful environment for teachers to work in. Conducted appropriately, lesson observations have always had an important role to play in supporting professional classroom practice. However, they have increasingly been used solely to monitor and scrutinise the compliance of teachers with the expectations of employers. While lesson observations can provide information to support fair performance management processes, there is a need for practice to place much greater emphasis on their role in supporting professional development. 
• ‘Book looks’ – employers pick out a sample of pupils’ exercise books and use these to make an assessment about the quality of the teacher’s work.
• Planning of lessons are subject to checks from independent/internal auditors.
• Pupil attainment figures are used to assess a teacher’s performance.

In 2006, the Government and trade unions through the former Workforce Agreement Monitoring Group (WAMG) agreed a more proportionate and development-focused approach to performance management. This approach, underpinned by regulations, ensured that the use of lesson observations and other such evidence was proportionate to need and was used as a means of informing professional reflection on professional practice. Critically, it involved teachers and leaders as active partners in their performance management and allowed them to identify their professional development needs and ensure that they were given support in working towards their career progression aspirations.

In 2012, the former Coalition Government removed most of the underpinnings of this supportive and developmental system. Instead, it encouraged an approach which shifted

the focus of performance management towards one focused narrowly on punitive scrutiny of teachers' and leaders' work. Instead of fostering professional dialogue about performance, it rendered formal appraisal in too many cases into an exercise in which teachers and leaders were required to provide evidence annually of their competence against crude checklists of performance. The hard links established between successful completion of this progress and access to pay progression served only to undermine further the positive potential of performance management to assist  teachers and leaders in developing their skills, enhancing their practice, and advancing their careers. 

A combination of these monitoring measures creates a stressful environment for teachers to work in.

Lack of peer support has contributed to work intensity

Teaching has become more isolated. Teachers used to be able to access peer support in communal areas such as staff rooms, to discuss work issues, de-stress and seek support from colleagues. Time constraints and lack of physical space to meet up has removed this vital support for teachers.

NASUWT raise an interesting point that the architecture of new schools often does not include space for a staff room. These are vital spaces where teachers can gather and de-stress, tackling the effects of work intensification.

There is OECD evidence that demonstrates the importance of collaboration and having an environment that fosters collegiality. The Teaching and Learning International Survey from 2018 10 says that “teachers who report engaging in professional collaboration with their peers on a regular basis also tend to report higher levels of self-efficacy (in all countries with available data), as well as higher levels of job satisfaction”.

Impact on teachers

The impact of work intensification and increasing workload on the teaching profession has been profound. The extent of these workload pressures is confirmed in the results of the most recent OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). 11  The survey found that teachers’ average working time remains at unsustainable levels. Primary teachers' average working hours were reported at 52.1 hours per week, with over a quarter of full-time secondary teachers subject to a working week of 60 hours or more. Recent DfE research 12  emphasises the importance of excessive workload as a factor in teachers' decisions to exit teaching. 

In the NASUWT’s annual survey of the state of the teacher and school leader workforce, The Big Question, many of the impacts of the decline in the quality of work were set out in stark terms. The survey showed that:

• only 14 per cent of respondents said they would recommend teaching as a career
• 73 per cent have seriously considered leaving their current job and 66 per cent have considered leaving the teaching profession altogether because of the unremitting pressures they are facing
• 86 per cent agreed that they work too hard for too little reward
• 63 per cent stated that they feel constantly evaluated and judged
• 57 per cent agreed that they are held responsible for problems over which they have no control
• only 28 per cent think that their professional judgement is respected in their school
• 82 per cent have experienced more workplace stress while 81 per cent believe that the job has adversely affected their mental health
• 83 per cent of teachers and leaders have experienced anxiety and 79 per cent said they lost sleep and
• 52 per cent reported adverse mental health outcomes were the result of workload.

The role of OFSTED in tackling work intensification

In 2019 OFSTED launched an inspection framework that would pick up issues of workloads and well being. Because of the pandemic the new framework was not embedded into the system until September 2021.

OFSTED has identified 13  through its regular inspections, that workload and the impact on teacher is wellbeing is a serious problem. It has also identified that this is affecting the educational attainment of pupils.

NASUWT welcomed the framework but would like to see OFSTED doing more to ensure the validity and reliability of assessment around work intensification. NASUWT has disputed some of the findings.

NASUWT interventions

The NASUWT remains deeply concerned by the Government's failure to take sufficient action to address the causes and consequences of excessive workload. Nevertheless, it has been possible to make progress in some areas. For example, following representations made by trade unions, the Department for Education established the Teacher Workforce Advisory Group.

These groups, which drew together representatives from trade unions alongside educational specialists and practitioners, sought to identify and address practices in three of the principal drives of excessive and unnecessary teacher and leader workload: marking, lesson planning and the use of pupil performance data in assessment.

The outcomes of these reports, published in 2016, set out helpful guides to practice in these critical contributors to workload burdens. Copies of these reports can be accessed in the Reports from independent groups, a section of the Reducing school workload government webpage. 14  Their outcomes were endorsed by the DfE, Ofsted and the main teacher and leader unions. They were launched by the former Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, at the NASUWT's 2016 Annual Conference.

Where the recommendations set out in the reports have been adopted, they have assisted in addressing workload caused by poor approaches to marking, planning and assessment. However, the Government has failed to take more effective action to ensure their wider use. As a result, their impact on work intensification and excessive and unnecessary workload will remain marginal until this action is taken.