State of education 2022
This year's results from the State of Education survey
Government White Paper - what you need to know
Does the White Paper have the answers on education and skills after Covid-19?
Rolleston Primary School workload win
City of Leicester reps win improvements on PPA time
Workload dispute at Gordano School
Workplace reps reveal how they worked with members to win improvements to workload at Gordano school
Breakthrough at Bobby Moore Academy
New conditions guarantee PPA time with directed time agreements in place.
The Teaching Profession Project: Teacher Wellbeing
St. Mary’s University College hosted it’s first in a series of free online seminars from its newly launched Teaching Profession Project (TPP).
Important update for teacher members: exam results, appeals, and impact on days worked
Management and Teachers’ Sides of the Teachers’ Salaries and Conditions of Service Committee (“TNC”) recognise that responses to the Covid-19 situation have the potential to impact on the conditions of service for teachers and school leaders.
Directed Time FAQs
Answered below are the most frequently asked questions on directed time.
Measuring What Matters
The NEU paper, “Measuring What Matters” is not simply focussed on the symptom of workload, but on its causes.
The State of Education: Staff Workload, Wellbeing and Retention
Survey of NEU members on their working lives over the past year, and how they view it in the months and years to come.
Planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time: tips for reps
Six important tips for workplace reps on negotiating planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time
Coronavirus: workload and working entitlements
Advice on workload when working in school or at home during the coronavirus crisis
Directed Time
How many hours you should be at work and available for work. Calculate directed time for your workplace.
Workload reduction toolkit
One of the ways reps have managed to win on workload has been through the use of the DfE toolkit, an online resource developed in consultation with the education unions and Ofsted.
Value educators
Teachers' workload in the UK is more intensive and longer hours than any other profession. It is time to reclaim your professional lives.
Advice
Feedback and marking
Model policy to assist reps and officers in negotiations with the employer on feedback and marking.
Directed time advice for governors
The National Education Union is campaigning to ensure that all teachers have a negotiated directed time calendar and that workload conversations happen with all staff this summer term.
Time budgets Spring /Summer 2021 Term
This advice note is an update for teacher members in Northern Ireland as we move towards the end of the 2020/2021 academic year.
Remote learning: tips for reps
Ten tips for workplace reps on establishing a school policy on remote learning.
Understanding your teacher’s time budget
Following our webinar, we have produced an advice note which contains FAQs, NEU checklist, and sources of additional information.
Coronavirus: Ofsted autumn interim visits
Guidance on workload and the Ofsted autumn interim visits
Teachers’ time budget arrangements
As negotiated by NEU along with colleague in the NITC, until individual time budgets are in place, no teacher should be directed to work more than 32.4 hours in a single week.
Workload - a health and safety issue
NEU Guidance for Members, Reps and Local Officers on how health and safety reps can use their powers can work with members to address excessive workload.
Life Balance for Teachers Model Policy- Checklist
The most common queries NEU members have on balance their working lives with their other commitments.
Life Balance for Teachers - Model Policy
All teachers, including head teachers are entitled to enjoy a reasonable work/life balance. This policy is designed to ensure that all teachers are able to balance their working lives with their other commitments.
Contract of employment - guidance for teachers in England
This guidance sets out the items that must be covered in your employment contract (or statement of particulars).
Support staff workload in the state sector
NEU believes that the increase in the quantity and complexity of work for school support staff has now reached crisis point. This advice is designed to help those working in state and academy schools to deal with this unmanageable workload.
Support staff workload in the independent sector
NEU believes that the increase in the quantity and complexity of work for school support staff has now reached crisis point. This advice is designed to help those working in independent schools to deal with this unmanageable workload.
HLTAs and cover supervisors
NEU advice giving a brief synopsis of the advent of the Workload Agreement, and the ‘dos and don’ts’ for HLTAs and cover supervisors.
Workload and working time
The purpose of this advice is to summarise teachers’ conditions of service, as set out in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD).
Tackling workload together
Our workload guidance will help you identify tasks or activities which are unnecessary, have no education benefit and cause the most stress.
Workload : marking
What a marking policy should look like in your school and how to use our model checklist in your workplace.
How to develop a workload campaign in your school
Any actions to tackle excessive workload and working hours will be more effective if taken together, with staff and leaders working collaboratively to make a positive change across the whole workplace.
Blog
Elizabeth's story on directed time
Elizabeth Savage, Designated Safeguarding Lead at Jennett's Park CE Primary, Bracknell Forrest
Stuart's story on directed time
Stuart Jones, NEU leadership member, Lydgate Junior School (Sheffield)
Coronavirus: getting the basics in first
What did we learn from the first lockdown that can help us better manage this and future disruptions?
Teachers' workload
Teachers' workload problems are rooted in the education system. We need bigger ambition for change from the Government, with actions to match.
DfE Workload Survey 2019
The DfE is making much of their efforts to reduce the workload of teachers; their 2019 Workload Survey (TWS) report shows a drop in reported working hours of teachers compared to the TWS 2016.
Press release
Schools Bill
To be relevant to real world problems, the Schools Bill needs comprehensive amendment.
Value Education, Value Educators
Comment on the passing of Motion 47 at the Annual Conference of the National Education Union
A national contract for education
Comment on the passing of Motion 33 at the Annual Conference of the National Education Union
Workload and a national contract for the future
Comment on the passing of Motion 9 at the Annual Conference of the National Education Union
State of Education: The Profession
The latest annual survey of 1,788 National Education Union members, conducted ahead of Annual Conference in Bournemouth, shows a rise in the number of teachers intending to leave the profession.
Work Your Proper Hours Day
Yet again teachers rank very highly in the list of professions working the most unpaid overtime.
Teacher Training Census
Successive Conservative governments have fallen short of their own teacher training targets year on year. 2021 is no different.
NEU: Value Education, Value Educators campaign
The pandemic has proved just how valuable schools are to children, young people and society. It's time to Value Education, Value Educators.
Workload
Analysis after analysis and survey upon survey continue to demonstrate that teacher workload remains unsustainable and is the main driver for leaving the profession.
Covid-19 and Workload
The problem of high workload predates the pandemic and will, unfortunately, survive it.
UCL on School Accountability and Stress
The UCL analysis also highlights cases of schools where stress caused by accountability is higher than in others.
UCL research on Teacher Workload
Evidence from report shows teachers are still working amongst the longest hours in Europe.
Covid-19 impact on primary schools
UCL research into impact of COVID-19 on primary schools
NEU issues guidance on distance learning
The NEU guidance on distance learning out today makes very clear what should be acceptable levels of workload. Normal education is currently suspended, and teachers should not be teaching a full timetable, or routinely marking work.
OECD Talis survey 2018
TALIS shows us that under normal circumstances, teachers are overworked, stressed and looking to leave the profession.
NEU welcomes improvements to teacher workload and pay
The National Education Union (NEU) has welcomed action by the Northern Education Trust (NET) academy chain to improve teacher workload and pay.
NFER on Teacher Autonomy
Teachers and school leaders need to have the ability to judge what is best for the children and young people they teach.
Ofsted Annual Report
Ofsted has neither the personnel, the expertise nor the experience, to operate its new curriculum-focused inspection framework fairly, so that reliable results are made on schools and colleges.
General Election Result
The NEU reacts to the result of the 2019 General Election.
DfE Teacher Workload
It is good that teachers are spending less time on marking and planning, but the numbers for time spent on data collection are still stubbornly high.
Workload
The Government is doing a far better job of driving people out of teaching than they are in retaining them.
Tackling Workload
Commenting on the Department for Education’s latest vow to tackle teacher workload, Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said:
Teacher workforce and class sizes
The latest data on the school workforce in England will give teachers and parents further cause for concern.
Talis shows government failing England’s teachers and head teachers
England’s teachers are highly motivated by the opportunity to influence children’s development or contribute to society – 93% of teachers cited these factors as major motivations for joining the profession, according to the findings of the OECD’s first volume of its Teaching and Learning International Survey (Talis) 2018.
Workload and Pedagogy
Commenting on the passing of Motion 19 at the Annual Conference of the National Education Union, Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, said: “Workload in schools remains a significant problem, posing a major threat to schools’ effectiveness and pupils’ learning and is driving the teacher recruitment and retention crisis.
Support staff struggling with increasing workloads, says NEU survey
Teaching assistants, school administrators and other support staff are having to work overtime to cope with the increasing workload as schools cut staffing to cope with budget cuts, according to a National Education Union survey released today by the ATL section of the union at its annual conference in Liverpool.
Teachers’ Working Hours
NEU comment on the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) study showing that teachers work the longest hours.
NEU Survey finds workload increases for support staff in schools as staff are cut
Teaching assistants, school librarians and lab technicians are facing a soaring workload as staff are cut and they are increasingly being expected to teach, according to a National Education Union (NEU) survey of over 1,700 support staff members.
Workload announcement is a beginning, but more than ambition needed
The Government is finally beginning to recognise the teacher shortage crisis, but it remains to be seen if today’s announcement makes any practical difference.
NEU workload survey: DfE and Ofsted need to do much more to reduce teacher workload
The National Education Union has long been concerned that unnecessary practices surrounding marking, planning, and data collection in schools, is having a significant impact on teacher workload.
NEU survey shows workload causing 80% of teachers to consider leaving the profession
Initial findings from the latest NEU workload survey, of 8,173 members show the continuing scale of the workload problem facing teachers and the impact this is having on their willingness to stay in the profession.
Teacher Recruitment and Retention
Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the NEU has commented on the release of the Department for Education’s recruitment and retention strategy.
NEU comment on teacher workload
Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, has commented on the publication of the Department for Education’s response to the Teacher Workload Advisory Group report on data.
Undervalued and underpaid, NEU survey of independent school staff finds
The National Education Union’s 2018 independent sector pay & conditions survey reveals that pay in private schools is failing to keep pace with inflation, and that staff continue to experience high levels of workload, much of it unpaid.
Comment on DfE's Early Learning Goals pilot
Department for Education announces pilot intended to “boost early language skills” from September - comment by Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union.
NEU comment on school workforce stats
The School Workforce Census statistics show the number of teachers has now fallen to the lowest level since 2013 - with more qualified teachers leaving the profession than the number entering.
Article
Winning on workload in academy chains
Members at an Oasis academy school in London have made real progress in tackling workload.