New research from the National Union of Teachers (NUT) has presented further evidence of the impact that workload is having on teachers in the classroom.
This is despite the government’s Workload Challenge last year, which sought to identify and tackle the key drivers of workload.
The YouGov survey, commissioned by the NUT, involved more than 1,000 teachers and revealed that 53 per cent are thinking about quitting.
The top two reasons given for this were “volume of workload” – cited by 61 per cent of those thinking about leaving – and “seeking a better work/life balance” (cited by 57 per cent).
The survey also found that teachers have seen a reduction in the number of support staff
(46 per cent reported a decrease) and teaching staff (32 per cent) in their schools. Morale has also declined, according to the study, with 67 per cent saying it had fallen in the past five years.
A similar proportion also said they disagreed with the introduction of performance-related pay.
The findings come after the annual Work Your Proper Hours Day figures earlier this year found that the average unpaid overtime put in by school staff had reached 9.7 hours a week – the most of any profession.
And government figures last year revealed that teachers’ working time had topped 55 hours a week – with a fifth of the working week being spent working at weekends or before 8am and after 6pm on weekdays.
The figures, which come from the Department for Education’s Workload Study, also found that maintained school teachers spent 8.5 hours a week on lesson planning and preparing for tests and 9.4 hours on assessing and marking pupils’ work and writing reports. This compares with 8.2 and 8.7 hours respectively for academy teachers.
Non-teaching contact with pupils and parents, covering for absent colleagues, registration time and detentions, meanwhile, took up 7.8 hours for maintained teachers and 6.1 hours for academy teachers.
NUT general secretary Christine Blower said: “The (YouGov) survey demonstrates the combined, negative impact of the accountability agenda on teacher workload and morale. Teachers feel that the Department for Education’s work thus far to tackle workload has been totally inadequate.
“The long-term erosion of teacher pay is further contributing to low teacher morale. With schools facing a 12 per cent real-terms cut over the next few years, teachers face the prospect of stalled pay progression. Many are also missing out on the one per cent pay increase from government.
“The DfE remains wilfully and recklessly unable to see that they are the cause of teacher misery across England. The NUT challenges the government to look hard at the findings of this survey and to start addressing the concerns of the profession as a matter of urgency."