There is no doubt that school staff are buckling under workload pressure with primary school leaders working an average of 57.9 hours a week and teachers 53.9 (DfE, 2024a).
So it is to be welcomed that the Workload Reduction Taskforce, established as part of the settlement that ended 2023’s teacher strikes, is leading to real change.
The taskforce has the stated aim of reducing workload by five hours a week within three years (DfE, 2023). It includes representatives from education unions as well as teachers, school leaders and other experts. The first recommendations were accepted by the Department for Education in January (DfE, 2024b) and included:
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