DfE’s workload reduction taskforce: the ‘early’ recommendations in full

Workforce advisers call for wellbeing champions, stopping teachers decorating classrooms and another INSET day

The government’s teacher workload taskforce has published early recommendations from its work to help minsters meet their pledge to cut five hours from the working week of school staff.

Headline proposals include ditching performance-related pay and introducing a workload-focused INSET day, although the government has snubbed the latter. You can read more about these in our news story here.

Here is the full list of all the proposals made today. All but one of the recommendations have been accepted by government.

The workload taskforce’s ‘early’ recommendations: in full

• Scrap performance-related pay (PRP) as it “works poorly in practice”, with a consultation on axing it “in time for the 2024-25 academic year”. Government has committed to a “rapid” review to replace PRP from September 1 with a “less bureaucratic way to manage performance fairly and transparently”. Changes to be communicated in Spring.

• Schools and trusts should consider assigning a senior leader “with dedicated responsibility for improving wellbeing and reducing workload”. DfE should “consider the merits of promoting a named leader responsible for wellbeing and workload”.

• DfE may “want to consider having a designated governor as a wellbeing champion”.

• Schools “may want to consider using INSET time to look at addressing workload issues”. DfE should also “consider remitting the STRB to include an additional INSET day, at the earliest opportunity”. Government said another INSET day is “not the right course of action”. Instead, they will work with schools to “make use” of the current five INSET days for workload reduction.

• The taskforce said a revised list of administrative tasks that teachers should not be required to do (*see the full list at the end of this article) should be reinserted in the school teachers’ pay and conditions document (STPCD). Examples include that teachers should not collect money from pupils and parents, have to mange getting cover for absent teachers, do bulk photocopying or investigate a pupil’s absence. They also should not have duties over “organisation, decoration and assembly” of classrooms.

To read more, follow the link here.