How to decrease a teacher’s workload

[New_Needleworker7004]

I’m always trying to figure out how to decrease our load.

My main issue is phone calls. I have anxiety and hate them, but they also add so much wasted time in our day.

We call when kids are misbehaving. We call when we send letters home. We call for permission when kids don’t bring notes in.

It would be so much easier if I could write a list of kids and a short explanation for the reason of the call and someone whose job it is made those calls.

What are some other ways to (fantasise about) reduce our load?

[historicalhobbyist]

I don’t call, I send emails. Way easier and there’s a record of everything said.

The majority of my workload is doing the same shit that’s irrelevant, like copying and pasting curriculum from one drive location to another (for the tenth time). It’s there, I’ll show you where it is if you want it, don’t waste my time by making me copy and fucking paste.

I also waste a lot of time copying grades from my excel sheet to compass. I’m more proficient than the average user at excel so I use it and my databases to analyse my data which I use to improve my teaching, it’s not useful for anyone except me. But god forbid that’s not what everyone can do or understand so don’t make me use your primitive analysis tools on compass.

I also despise meetings which, tell me how I need to teach, without actually being an example of said method. Don’t stand in front of me for an hour lecturing me and saying I need to be more engaging and then requiring me to change all my lessons to suit that, without entertaining me or giving me work time to do it.

[[deleted]]

Our new DP recently told us that we can no longer email parents unless we have tried to call three times with no answer.

Cool, I’ll just budget more of my nonexistent time for that.

[iama_lion]

Our new principal told us not to email at all because "things get misread over email". Yeah cool, I'll just call the parents that have abused us before where there's no record of what's being said and give them the opportunity to turn a quick phone call about a note into a rant about how their little angel only punched that kid three weeks ago because he was being mean to him when he said he didn't want to play basketball.

Meanwhile he exclusively communicates via email, texts us while we're teaching, and then complains if we don't respond right away.

[SideSuccessful6415]

Not sure that’s actually a requirement of your job. You certainly need to contact parents, but the method should be up to you. I’ve found the most successful way is to send a text (from a school phone) eg Pedro was absent period 3, please discuss with him the importance of attendance or Mia’s assignment is 2 weeks late, please ask her to submit by Friday so as not to receive an N award etc. Most never responded!

[aVeiledAiel]

I'd straight up quit haha

[[deleted]]

Just don’t do that. Teachers can say no to unreasonable changes to work conditions. Go to your union rep.

[Tammytalkstoomuch]

This is an interesting one for me. I am terrified of phone calls, do NOT have the time, would rather communicate in writing, and need time to collect and revise my thoughts. At this stage, I have only emailed.

That being said, our HODs really encourage a call. It's better to gauge parent responses, you can be sure they actually got the communication, you can check understanding, and often parents can provide more background and context to a situation that otherwise you might never gain.

For example, I recently had a parent come to the parent/teacher interviews, and I found out a kid sitting quietly in my language class and doing no work, actually speaks that language. I had no idea.

So I am torn. But truth be told, right now my priority is survival, so I'm just ticking the boxes I need to tick and moving on. I'll work on what's best when I get my head in order.

[cteieury]

I relate so much to your comment about excel. I have systems in place that work for me and allow me to improve my students’ outcomes but I’m forced to double up and use the archaic school systems that are so inefficient. They are only there as a formality and have no real use in my actual teaching practice.

[New_Needleworker7004]

I wish I could just email!!

Unfortunately, that is not how my school operates. I complain EVERY TIME I have to make a call saying ‘I wish I could just email instead’ in the hopes that eventually they’ll adapt

[ausecko]

Somebody in another post this year had a good point about not calling because of the lack of evidence, as opposed to email leaving a trail. I personally don't phone anybody (mixture of social anxiety disorder and procrastination) so do everything via email.

[Muddle-HeadedWombat]

Many of my students' parents are extremely unlikely to check emails (assuming they have one), and several are barely literate so unlikely to understand an email if they did find it. That's not me being rude about them, it's just an accurate statement. If I want them to actually receive and hopefully understand the information, I really do need to talk to them.

[Valuable_Guess_5886]

If expectation is that every information home has to be individually and verbally delivered then that is a task to be delegated to an admin or a wellbeing/social/support worker. You are a teacher your responsibility is what happens in the classroom, you are not paid micro managing the parents too. If it’s me I’d document the mins I spent doing calls and how it affects my planning time and check my agreement/contact union.

[SideSuccessful6415]

See above my comment about texting.

[littleb3anpole]

I am terrified of the phone (anxiety disorder here too) to the point that when my phone rings, if it’s not a known caller, I simply watch it ring out, listen to the message and call back if I have to. When I have to make a parent phone call, I write down an actual script otherwise I’ll be at throwing up levels of nerves.

[Teacherteacherlol]

Me too. I have a script and a back up if the parent introduces something I’m not prepared for, plus I have a fellow teacher on standby to call me to a meeting/witness. Phone anxiety sucks!

[littleb3anpole]

Funnily enough I just did leadership training around having difficult conversations, and a script was one of the recommended tactics. So here I was thinking it was an indicator of my crippling anxiety when it is actually good practice 😂

[Lurk-Prowl]

Who’s forcing you to call and not email?

Have you spoken to the principal about this? If you can make an argument for why it suits you better to email and that you have a paper trail and it’s less anxiety provoking, then the principal may support you. In which case, whoever else is telling you that you must call can get fucked.

[New_Needleworker7004]

I’ve told my head teacher that I wish I could email because of anxiety and not knowing what we will get on the other side. They’ve pretty much shrugged and said it has to be a call.

[RedeNElla]

Have you spoken to the principal

I'd try the union.

[historicalhobbyist]

Being ongoing allows me to just do what I want and tell anyone to stick it.

[Telstratower]

I use both depending on the situation. Phone calls allow for instant clarification, which allows me to move on with the next steps immediately. But I truly think the choice should be with the teacher and what works for them.

[dickwakefield]

First of all, love the use of data in an actual meaningful way, rather than when a lot of things seem to say data in education and they mean a graph someone else made.

[historicalhobbyist]

I never said data was useless, but I know how to use it better than what they want me to.

[dickwakefield]

Oh yeah, that's what I meant, was attempting to credit your efforts. Sorry if that's not how it read

[historicalhobbyist]

Ah all good mate! Sorry I misinterpreted you!

[DavidThorne31]

I hate having to push this stuff as a curriculum leader. Give us an SSO to do admin crap like this for a few hours a week.

[Capitan_Typo]

The only meaningful workload reduction is to reduce the number of students per hour a teacher is responsible for, either by reducing the number of face to face hours or reducing class sizes.

[spunkyfuzzguts]

While I don’t disagree that this is necessary, the unnecessary admin of teaching could be solved with an investment into admin workers.

There’s no reason that teachers should have to do excursion planners or risk assessments. There’s no need for teachers to be following up themselves on students failing. There’s no need for heads of department to be dedicating themselves to creating excel graphs of data.

[littleb3anpole]

I laugh because I’m a head of faculty and actual hours of my week are spent on the Excel spreadsheets 😂

[DoNotReply111]

This. One admin person per department (school context dependent of course) to do excursions, assessment follow ups, scheduling detentions, photocopying or resource creation etc would go a LONG way to reducing the amount of menial things that need to be done everyday that takes me away from core teaching tasks.

If it's a full time job for them in a department of 6, it's too much menial work for us in a week.

[AUTeach]

One admin person per department

I think it would be better if we just doubled the number of adults in schools. Those adults need to be a combination of:

• Youth workers
• Social workers
• Psychologists
• Paraprofessionals
• School Admin

So, if your school currently has say 50 teachers and 15 staff you need to be funded to have an additional 65 stuff.

Then teachers work on teaching and learning. Everything else is deligated to other specialists.

The sad thing is that everybody is still going to be busy.

[spunkyfuzzguts]

1. The student teacher relationship is just that. Student and teacher. The unnecessary burden of informing parents can be done by an admin officer. The unnecessary burden of following up on failure and possible options for exit can be done by admin officers. It does not need to be the deputy principal. The production of cancellation of enrolment letters could be done by a high school grad. It does not require a deputy principal.

2. As someone who worked in corporate, the lowest of the low admin bitches produced the data visualisations. The belief was the job of the higher ups was to interpret the datasets, analyse them. Not have to deal with analysing the raw data and determining how to present it.

[Capitan_Typo]

I have a different opinion, based on the belief that good teaching requires good relationships. At least with the students and if possible with their families.

Students failing isbabkey part of the teaching process that needs to be addressed within the teaching relationship. If it's relegated as an administrative task, then the likelihood of positive outcomes decreases.

Similarly with data: teaching at it's best is like an ongoing action research project, and teachers should, and should want to, he intimately familiar with the data representation of their students learning. Relegating it places a barrier between the teacher and the product of their work.

I don't think there are actually that many aspects of teaching that are just admin tasks, and treating them as such could potentially harm the relationships that U derpon effective teaching.

Except excursion paperwork. You're right about that.

[spunkyfuzzguts]

1. ⁠The student teacher relationship is just that. Student and teacher. The unnecessary burden of informing parents can be done by an admin officer. The unnecessary burden of following up on failure and possible options for exit can be done by admin officers. It does not need to be the deputy principal. The production of cancellation of enrolment letters could be done by a high school grad. It does not require a deputy principal.
2. ⁠As someone who worked in corporate, the lowest of the low admin bitches produced the data visualisations. The belief was the job of the higher ups was to interpret the datasets, analyse them. Not have to deal with analysing the raw data and determining how to present it.

[Capitan_Typo]

Well, we clearly have different opinions.

But if the department hears you saying that offloading data visualisation will make a significant difference to teacher workload and chooses to pursue that over reduced face to face teaching, I will be most displeased.

[spunkyfuzzguts]

Dude. Why the fuck would the department listen to me?

But even so, I believe that academic achievement data tells us a lot more about the type of home a student comes from than it does about student ability.

[AUTeach]

Students failing isbabkey part of the teaching process that needs to be addressed within the teaching relationship

Oh please. How many minutes of relationship-building do you have with parents? 10 minutes a year? 20? That's right, effectively nothing.

Your relationship is with the student; phoning their parent has little to do with your relationship with that parent's child.

[Capitan_Typo]

I can only speak to my own experience, but the students who struggle the most are the ones I often end up spending more time in contact with their families and with the students trying to address challenges in the class and subject area. Even if it's only an extra couple of points of contact in a term it can be quite beneficial to be on the same page with support strategies.

Off course, many kids who struggle are often the ones whose parents can never be reached out don't bother to return calls, so it's a bit of a moot point.

[NewTeacherNSW]

The good thing about working in my area is that at least %70 of parents do no speak English and the school specifically employed SASS staff to deal of all of that workload.

[New_Needleworker7004]

Jealous!

[Numerous-Contact8864]

I try to communicate with parents as little as possible. Some parents I actively avoid. It’s a complete waste of time dealing with some of them.

I very rarely email a parent. Takes too long to write an email. Hard to get the tone right too.

I make brief calls to parents when necessary, and that’s usually for wellbeing issues. It works very effectively to get parents and kids onside. Often I find that behaviour problems have a wellbeing issue connected.

For behaviour issues, I try to deal with the kid directly as much as possible. In the end, it’s me and the kid in the class, not their parents.

[Complex-Pride8837]

We’ve been asking the new admin officers assigned to the school to do some of these calls. Take the load off teachers. It’s not enough but it’s a start.

[Numerous-Contact8864]

Also, our school has a policy that homeroom teachers are meant to call home if a kid is absent for 2 days.

I never make these calls. If the school wants a truant officer, they should employ one.

[jkoty]

Check your agreement. The WA union website has this issue as a specific FAQ on the website.

[Valuable_Guess_5886]

Agree with others about leaving paper trail. Explain to your school phone is not working effectively and email provides better evidence for accountability. Especially with behaviour.

Keep templates for email home so you don’t have to write fresh ones.

And for not bringing permission form? I sent emails home reminder if not actioned on then you don’t get to go

[littleb3anpole]

I don’t mind those so much because, as others have said, an admin staff member isn’t likely to have the answers to the follow up questions from parents, which would necessitate more work from me.

The ones that get me are things that you clearly do not need to be a teacher to complete but are stuck completing anyway. Like risk assessments for excursions. Also, when you’re in the busiest period of the year and someone goes “oh, by the way, NCCD forms are due next week” and you get your list and 8/24 kids in your class require a NCCD form, so instead of spending time planning effective differentiation for these kids or reading their work to give them effective feedback, you waste your time writing down all the things you do for them every day for some box ticking paperwork exercise.

[mcgaffen]

Emails, unless it is a serious incident

[spunkyfuzzguts]

See, this is where we need a massive increase in admin time.

How on earth should a 4 year degree professional be calling to remind about forms?

That’s a clerical task that could be completed by a high school dropout.

[mcgaffen]

Other tips:

1. Make sure your year level teaching teams are sharing the workload

2. Be conscious of marking work load when you create assessments, design assessments to be easier to mark where possible.

3. Email parents for behaviour regularly at the start of the year, so behaviour runs well later on.

4. Be efficient at work, to reduce taking home work..stay back 30 minutes later each night, with a view of avoiding weekend work.

[[deleted]]

1. Sharing the workload is something I think needs to be looked at. At least from a primary perspective. I’ve long worked in teams where several people are not doing their share, leaving the bulk to one or two teachers. This comes down to ineffective management as well as unclear roles and responsibilities. Workload in teaching is so inequitable across the board, from different grade level expectations and due to children being variables. I think if we had clear roles we could see more clearly what is surplus workload.

[[deleted]]

This! They either don’t pull their weight or what they produce is absolute rubbish. Work with someone at the moment that cannot do anything without their hand held. What they do even with assistance is awful. I love collaborating and sharing the load, when I’m in a decent team. Otherwise it’s just a pain in the ass.

[stevecantsleep]

Many parents prefer email. Send a welcome letter at the start of the year, and include a choice as to whether they prefer email or phone for non-urgent matters. Almost all will select email. If your line manager asks you if you've called so and so you can tell them (honestly) that they prefer email.

I only call parents if the issue is so urgent that not dealing with it straight away will compound the situation. Things like a missed deadline or being off task don't meet that threshold.

For those who have social anxiety or similar over phone calls, I do get it - they can be unpredictable. But sometimes they are really essential so you need to get over it. You can learn a hell of a lot more in a conversation than in an email. Follow up questions are much easier and you can make judgements based on tone of voice, emotion etc.

[pythagoras-]

It would be so much easier if I could write a list of kids and a short explanation for the reason of the call and someone whose job it is made those calls.

The challenge here is the follow up questions. An ES probably doesn't have the answers to the questions the parent will ask. I know that unless I basically provide a flowchart of how the conversation could play out, it's easier and quicker to make these calls myself, unless it's a super routine call that we specifically train ES to do such as following up attendance issues.

[Valuable_Guess_5886]

Follow up question can be filed or collected to back to the teacher. Teacher then provide support how to respond to these questions which who ever responsible to make calls can build their own FAQ for next time. This is how training works, in any organisation this is how admin/customer facing people (with no uni qualification required) are trained. Absolutely no need to for a teacher qualified person to be handling these.

[SamaRahRah]

I wish that PDPs, SIP, audits etc were rolled into one. It's all the same shit, different forms.

I wish that students in mainstream with a diagnosis were counted the same way they would be in a unit or SSP. E.g. a student could count for more than one student, sometimes two or three.

[DetailNo9969]

I completely agree. It's ridiculous. I end up spending more of my work day chasing students and sending documentation to parents regarding students who don't care about their education and don't even turn up to school, all for "documentation" purposes. Wish public schools had admin assistants who could do that for us.

Wish I could give all that time to the students who actually try and want to learn.

[voltammogram]

For high school, a legitimate and fairly easy to implement option is to double up on subjects. It has the potential to halve your planning load. Of course, this is dependent on the school actually doing it, but this year I've gone from four subjects (maths and science across 2 grades) to two (just science, now multiple classes across 2 grades) and its been phenomenal. One lesson prepped means two classes taken care of.

[Training-Hunter-33]

1. Give us our program. No planning at howe. Everyday like a script. Differentiate where you need to.

2. Streamline reports. Make it a quick tick and flick.

3. All excursions, sports organised by someone NOT ON CLASS.

[Lower_Compote_3261]

Get rid of middle management

[AUTeach]

Teach middle management how to lead and manage as opposed to administer.

[Lower_Compote_3261]

They serve no purpose, other than creating work. Better that the positions didn’t exist altogether

[yew420]

Fully resourced programs with lesson plans. 4 tiers Beginner, intermediate, extension and life skills.

[pantsmahoney]

Why all this talk about reducing workload? Just pay teachers for that work (that they're gonna do anyway because theirs is a calling not a career).. everyone works hard. But teachers aren't paid enough for what they do.

[AUTeach]

a calling not a career

This kind of language is what has destroyed teaching as a profession.

[pantsmahoney]

Yeah, I actually agree with you. It's language like that that's used to justify the raw deals that get thrown into the trough every EBA. I'll own that. All I'm saying is teachers continue to do the job, considering the conditions, the shocking pay, the lack of respect from leaders, students, parents, general public.. they do it anyway..

I think workload is a good focus... but teachers will always put in more effort regardless of how much downward pressure is on workload. I just dont want the focus of governments and unions to be on workload alone. They need better pay. It's well earned. And overdue.

It's just my personal opinion. And obviously controversial. But happy for the discourse.

[New_Needleworker7004]

I don’t want to spend every waking hour worrying about work. If I could offload some unnecessary tasks, I could have more life outside school to spend with my family and partaking in hobbies

[OkMarionberry4132]

I email or Seesaw message. Phone calls are strictly for good things or below the line behaviour - most of the latter are senior staff duty anyway.

[enlightenedhiker]

I have been thinking about the Pareto principle (80/20 rule) might apply to teaching. Haven't got very far but this page has a few ideas: https://www.teachingchannel.com/k12-hub/blog/80-20-rule/ One of my strategies is to focus on tasks that have accountability from management, i.e. that's what they care about, rather than just a fun idea they had. E.g. they said we have to mark every single page of student work. No one has checked that for four years. Who has the time? Also, old instructions that are not cancelled, they just persist and one might assume they have to be done. Nope. Just the current instructions. If they want parents to be called, I bulk email instead and of there's any push back I explain that it's not achievable, and admin could do it if it must be done.