Workload: get to the heart of what's overloading your staff with 'keep, tweak or ditch'
Keen to address workload but don't know where to start? See the wood from the trees with Kensington Primary School's democratic, no-nonsense way to spot and solve the biggest burdens for everyone on your staff team.
Contents
What's different about this?
- It's a quick way to separate tasks that are "unnecessary" from those that have an actual impact on pupil outcomes
- Staff drive it: all staff are involved and have their views heard on the real, sometimes hidden, impact of tasks on their own workload
- It brings about real change: if enough staff vote to 'ditch' or 'tweak' something, that's what the school does
It’ll work for you if you're ...
- Open to making big changes to reduce staff workload
- Willing to put everything your school does on the table – nothing is sacred
- Willing to have honest and sometimes challenging conversations with your staff
Secondary schools could adapt the steps below to run this exercise within departments, or at a whole-school and department level, depending on your structure and context. Kensington Primary
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Also in 'Workload and wellbeing'
- 10 ways to support staff wellbeing and work-life balance
- Alcohol at staff parties
- Developing peer-to-peer mentoring
- How one 'outstanding' secondary school cut its marking workload by 75%: case study
- How to create a staff mental health and wellbeing action plan
- How to escalate staff wellbeing concerns