Following on from the Ofsted Chief Inspector’s comments about teachers being ‘reduced to data managers’, the Education Secretary has written to all schools this week, reiterating his commitment to “clamp down on teachers’ workload.” Here’s the DfE’s press release.
DfE: More support for school leaders to tackle workload
Secretary of State for Education Damian Hinds said: “Many teachers are having to work way too many hours each week on unnecessary tasks, including excessive time spent on marking and data analysis. I want to make sure teachers are teaching, not putting data into spreadsheets. That’s why I am stopping my department asking for data other than in the school’s existing format.
“I am united with the unions and Ofsted in wanting teachers to do less admin. I have a straightforward message to head teachers who want their staff to cut right down on collecting data to be able to devote energies to teaching: I will support you. Frequent data drops and excessive monitoring of a child’s progress are not required either by Ofsted or by the DfE.”
Here’s a link to the Teacher Workload Advisory Group report and government response.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out and what, if anything, changes. Perhaps less data collection, rather than less data analysis: I can see schools making judgements about students’ progress two or three times a year, instead of three or four, but will they really stop analysing progress by pupil premium, SEN, ethnicity, gender and so on and so on? Perhaps this is aimed at classroom teachers, rather than subject leaders, data managers and SLT data leads.
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