Results of Derby Branch Workload Survey – January 2007

The survey was sent to all members attached to schools via school reps. A total of 74 or 6.2% of members responded, from 10 schools (there was an eleventh category of “no school reported”), ie from approximately 10% of Derby schools. This is a relatively poor return, but many thanks to those school reps who held meetings and disseminated the survey in their schools. 57% of members responding were in the secondary phase and the rest were in the primary phase.

Workload

From these members, 49% report their workload increasing significantly and 26% report a slight increase. Only 6% of teachers report their workload decreasing slightly and only one member reported a significant decrease (and gave the reason as going part-time to reduce workload). In fact, a large number of those teachers who reported a workload decrease said that they had to go part-time to achieve it.

Over 80% of teachers said that their school did not attempt to survey teachers’ workload or have a strategy for reducing it (despite this being in the National Agreement) and 59% of teachers felt that they did not have a reasonable work-life balance. 80% of teachers reported that they were working more than 40 hours per week, despite the NASUWT policy of 35 hours per week. The only teachers working less than 35 hours were part-time teachers. Both classroom teachers and managers reported big increases in their workload. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of both primary and secondary teachers reported these large workload increases.

Industrial Action

13% were willing to take action nationally, 6% were willing to take action in their school and 35% (who did not tick any other box in this question) were willing to take action both in their school and nationally. Therefore, over half of teachers surveyed were willing to take industrial action to reduce their workload, a higher number than in 1998 when NASUWT campaigned and balloted for national industrial action (Let Teachers Teach). Generally speaking, national industrial action tends to be more popular than action at school level, as members feel less vulnerable, and this was borne out in the survey.

Primary and Secondary Phase Differences

There were some differences between the primary and secondary phases, many of which we would expect.

In the primary phase, 73% of teachers were main scale, with 10% holding a TLR and being in the leadership group respectively (some teachers did not report). In the secondary phase, only 35% were main scale, with 45% holding a TLR and 5% in the leadership group. A far larger number of secondary teachers reported that workload had increased significantly (57.5%) compared with primary (33.3%). However, in both cases, over 60% of teachers reported that workload had increased (80% in secondary and 63% in primary). In the primary phase, 20% felt that workload had reduced, whereas in secondary no teachers at all reported that workload had reduced. In the primary phase, more teachers than in the secondary phase reduced their workload by reducing their working hours. In secondary, 62% of teachers consider that they have no work-life balance, whereas in primary the figure is 40%. In primary, 30% of respondents are working more than 50 hours per week, but no respondent reports working more than 60 hours. In secondary, 12% are working more than 60 hours per week.

In secondary, 61% of teachers reported a willingness to take industrial action, but in primary, the figure was lower (40%). Significantly, no primary teachers at all indicated a willingness to take industrial action only in their own school.

Specific Reasons Given for Increases in Workload

The final section of the report asked for specific reasons for additional workload. These are listed as:

Appraisal in school, OFSTED Inspections
inadequate management time
Meetings (*2)
Cover (*2)
teacher monitoring
directed time (*2)
2 meetings per week
performance management
Only manageable because went part-time, literacy and numeracy frameworks and extended schools adding to workload
extension to length of school day by 25 minutes per day
class sizes, extension to length of the school day
children's centres
SEN and IEP's, imposed curriculum management responsibilities (*3)
form tutor role and bureaucratic paperwork
OFSTED and internal pupil monitoring
“voluntary” meetings
workload that has nothing to do with the classroom
pupil behaviour (*2), lack of support for teachers
form tutor duties
too much admin (*2), poor computer systems
increasing coursework marking load, increasing preparation for new courses, increasing demand for "exciting" lessons leading to increases in preparation time
work passed on by other teachers
pupil indiscipline, OFSTED style observations, having to perform for SLT/HOA during appraisal
Paperwork, extra initiatives
The extended role of TA's - not enough ECO jobs, disturbed children in mainstream schools, cover
more and more initiatives, lack of decent admin help, requirement for more detailed lessons.

Furthermore, NASUWT has taken industrial action in Derby on three areas of workload increase in the last six months in three separate schools: increased teaching load, cover and increases in the number of meetings. Two of these schools did not return survey forms and are therefore not included in these statistics, but the increase in workload is supported by casework and affects nearly one hundred members.

Conclusion

The National Agreement, Raising Standards and Tackling Workload, stipulated in January 2003, when it was signed by the various parties to the agreement, that there would be, “Progressive reductions in teachers’ overall hours over the next four years. The objective will be promoted by all partners and progress will be monitored and audited, including at school level;” Paragraph i, The Way Ahead, Page 2.

Despite the relatively low number of returns to this survey, it is statistically significant that the overwhelming majority of respondents (three quarters) report a workload increase and no secondary teachers at all report a reduction in their workload. Not only has the National Agreement failed to reduce working hours since 2003, it has also failed to prevent an increase in working hours (a trend which originated with the Baker Education Reform Act in 1988, developed through the 1990’s and resulted in the implementation of national industrial action by NASUWT between 1998 and 2003). In many cases, the traditional culprits of OFSTED, appraisal and pupil indiscipline are responsible for workload increases, and these are not addressed by the National Agreement in any case.

It is also significant that over 50% of all respondents feel strongly enough over deterioration in their working conditions to take industrial action (including 40% of primary teachers, not noted for a high level of industrial action).

Recommendation

The report is considered further by Derby Branch Officers and Executive Committees with a view to refining an internal union strategy around its findings.

The results of the survey are utilised by Derby Branch NASUWT for collective bargaining purposes.