The thin red line (or, as William Russell originally reported, the “Thin red streak tipped with a line of steel”) which held off a charge of Russian cavalry at the Battle of Balaclava has become a metaphor for stretched forces holding firm against defeat. Thin red lines might stave off teachers’ defeat over workload and wellbeing.
Many teachers feel unhappy, overworked and inclined to quit. 404,600 trained teachers under 60 are no longer teaching (almost as many as are (451,000)). In an NUT survey “90% of respondents had considered leaving teaching in the last two years, 96.5% said workload has negative consequences for family or personal life.” Students and schools need teachers who stay in their job and keep improving: how can this be achieved?
One answer is promoting teacher wellbeing. This summer I was asked by someone establishing a new school how I thought leaders might do this. I don’t know: in setting up our school, we explicitly committed to promote teacher wellbeing. We failed: as one priority among many, its importance was easy to overlook under pressure. My suggestions derive from my resulting conviction that stating a commitment to staff wellbeing alone is meaningless.
The basics matter: here are three of them, from Disidealist’s superb post on leadership:
- I need as much non-contact time as possible, so that I’m as fresh and energetic as possible…
- I need autonomy in my classroom in proportion to results…
- I need to feel like a valued member of a professional team, not a fearful underling.
I concur, but I fear these commitments are open to interpretation and pressure: ‘I’m doing everything I can to make staff feel valued, but Ofsted are just around the corner,’ for example. Any solution must make them more concrete.
Perks may help. I know of schools which serve free tea, coffee and biscuits at break; bring in masseurs; even allow teachers five days holiday in a year (in lieu of time over the summer). I’d love to pool the ‘performance-related bonus’ pot at our school** and hire a full-time ‘desnagger’ who would ask everyone each day ‘what has frustrated you most today?’ and fix it. But this still represents a painkiller, not a treatment. Free tea or massages are useless if teachers feel too busy to take them up.
Thin red lines
I suggest what might work is a few thin red lines – clear, concrete, cost-free commitments, publicly stated by leaders. In their detail, they fall short of what I hope heads aspire to; in their clarity, they should be impossible to breach unintentionally. I’ve listed six examples: illustrative rather than definitive, they represent proxies for desired outcomes, not ends in themselves. Most are not original; many mirror existing good practice.
1) Everyone out by six. On joining an academy, a friend asked what time the building closed; he was (supposed to be) reassured that his swipe card allowed entry 24/7. Leaders should be ensuring teachers leave by a reasonable time rather than valorising the last man standing.
A proxy for… a workload that fits into a fifty-hour week (preferably less!).
2) No emails after six. Continuing conversations into the evening drags work out and creates a perceived pressure to remain online (or, worse, forward work emails to phones). Leaders can set an example by avoiding emailing after six (if they wish to spend time with children in the early evening and work later they could delay delivering emails).
A proxy for… ensuring teachers can switch off.
3) One in, one out. Every new task (planned or not) should be accompanied by removing an equivalent burden to create the time needed. (This is analogous to union guidelines specifying only one after-school meeting a week: open evening this week, so no department meeting).
A proxy for… ensuring leaders prioritise and limit their requests.
4) Early warning. Teachers on full timetables often seem to be expected to respond to requests immediately, (often these could have been sent or warned about far in advance). Specifying a minimum early warning to be given for requests: (say 48 hours for routine requests, a week for tasks taking an hour or more) would allow teachers to plan around them.
A proxy for… acknowledging teachers’ workloads and allowing them to plan their time.
5) No duplication. There are few more obvious wastes of time! Just one example, entering data, passing it on to managers and receiving follow-up requests for comments ten days later. (Data is a topic for another day; instead, I suggest Mike Cameron’s post on the technological implications of this principle).
A proxy for… ensuring systems are efficient.
6) One direction. More nebulous, but what, really, are the school’s priorities? This doesn’t just mean sharing the development plan, it means identifying the relative importance of all a teacher’s possible tasks. A friend works in a government department with a ‘Car Park’ board, where possible tasks they have agreed not to work on are parked. Being clear what is parked and what really matters might well help.
A proxy for… coherent, constrained priorities.
‘A line of steel?’
Once set, it is up to everyone to ensure these commitments are followed; conversely, “we all are responsible for the current febrile climate that is making many of us ill.” Teachers can and should hold leaders to their word.
But these are simply suggestions. I’d be curious to learn how other schools go about this, what red lines teachers deem important, and how else they might be enforced.
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* I’ve not gone in to the evidence for these propositions as I would hope they are logical and self-evident. I’m aware of some heads who state their lack of interest in staff wellbeing; I suspect they require stronger responses than this post proposes.
** Don’t.
Further reading
Much of the philosophy behind choosing what to work on is underpinned by my thoughts on how to manage time effectively as a teacher.
A highly entertaining TED talk on the power of happiness at work.
DisIdealist’s excellent post on leadership.
No staff access in the holidays…
Well, no more than a single day in half-terms, two days in the Xmas/Summer holidays and two at the start & two at the end of the summer holidays.
I know colleagues who have worked, in school, throughout half-terms & I dare say if somebody who was in school requested something from somebody out of school the response ‘I wasn’t in so I couldn’t have done that’ would be rather frosty.
It’d never work but it’d be nice if during a routine week we could take nothing home alongside your ‘out by six’ rule!
An important one (I actually assumed this wouldn’t need to be specified – perhaps foolishly).
When I met the outgoing head at my first school, who speculated that perhaps the reason so many staff cycled was because they couldn’t carry sets of books home. That was the first thing that encouraged me to start cycling!
Interesting to read, Harry.
I did some reading around teacher well-being when I was a head, and remember reading that the two things that tended to cause the greatest stress were: 1. feeling your workload is unmanageable, and 2. feeling you’re powerless to do anything about this – or any other element of your professional life.
I think giving teachers choices wherever that’s feasible is important, and respecting their need to work flexibly and to choose what works for them. The only problem with specifying timeframes (for arriving/leaving/sending emails/holiday time in school etc etc) is that it can erode this flexibility. Staff have to decide what works best for them/what fits in with their lifestyle. But we do need to look out for those whose response to difficulties is the ‘I will work harder’ philosophy of Boxer from ‘Animal Farm’….
Interesting – thank you for the comment. I came at this from what I’ve learned about stress, so looking to increase teachers’ control over events and their predictability, both of which seem to have powerful effects.
It sometimes seems we’ve failed to find a middle-ground between militant refusal to be flexible about anything and the absence of any protection whatsoever. .. As you say, supporting teachers to make wise choices is perhaps the most important response.
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Great reading, I think schools must grasp the nettle & introduce mindfullness courses & the long term mental supports so that teachers are ready & able to make those wise choices.
I enjoyed this post, thank you. It raises some excellent points and got me thinking. You might be interested in my post http://wp.me/p5484w-3n which I wrote in response to yours.
Thank you – I just read and replied to yours and our comments have crossed. I appreciate the different perspective and agree with your conclusion.
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Mindfulness materials are widely available and should be a personal choice. I find it helpful but did it for myself not because my workplace told me to. By all means put plenty of materials in the library. I am working 65-70 hours a week. What helps, yes closing the building at six. What doesn’t restricting emails, deal with my workload and I will happily stop sending emails after 6, all this has done is put me under more pressure. I work in a small school, any one of the SLT or admin team can add to my workload and I have to do it so I have about 40 managers giving me work. I am expected to teach several subjects. Don’t make me accountable for the quality of lesson materials in anything but my own subject. We take on students with acute special needs and I am expected to put courses together from stratch, in this situation first realise that this is what you are asking staff to do, don’t deny it or suggest staff can make the best of it and then turn around and hold them accountable. These students are important people and deserve the best. Make sure you make good strategic management decisions decisions so you are not making last minute changes. Research and reflect so you are encouraging good practice and CPD aimed at helping staff be the best teachers they can, because you want the best for all your students not because you want a good ofsted report. This will come out of the former not the latter. Don’t expect astudents with severe dyslexia or learning gaps to catch up in class, there is something to be said for a bottom up school even though the fashion is teach to the top (if your lowest current attained are supported so much for everyone will get easier) give them additional support. Acknowledge that behaviour can sometimes stem from these difficulties and deal with it with a comprehensive package of responses. Above all anonymously ask your staff if the behaviour management policy works and if it doesn’t set up one that does, SLT must take some extensive responsibility for students who are behaving badly in several subjects it is illogical and time wasting to leave this to individual staff. Any behaviour management system must enable quick and efficient application of certainty of consequence (if this takes up too much teacher time it is not an effective system). Behaviour must be looked at holistically if it is to have any effect. Behaviour management can eat into staff time like nothing else. Think through every bit of workload. I am being asked to set and mark 300 pieces of homework every 2 weeks, individually chasing up every piece not handed by phone email or letter in after a reminder and logging it on the system – as you can see a huge number of policies and expectations simply are not even achievable. This can and should change it is about basic management skill and also using technology to your advantage. Sorry long post. Like many teachers I love my job and I like working hard. I wish I was more resilient and able to work these hours but we are all flesh and bone.
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Really liked this. The tea/coffee thing seems a bit unimportant in the face of workload issues but it says a lot about the priority well being has. When I did supply, years ago, lots of schools had someone making tea at break time, and free. Now, often teachers have to buy a cup at inflated prices as they dash past the coffee pod in the corridor, at worse having to line up with the students to get one. If you haven’t got a cashless catering card, you can’t get one at all. Your point about it being everyone’s responsibility is really important – teachers would feel less powerless, and would be treated better if we stuck up for ourselves more effectively.