Working lives of teachers & leaders
By Toni Whittle, Behaviour Consultant, Behaviour Smart Ltd
Just before you all went off for Easter half term, the government published its research report into the working lives of teachers and school leaders (Department of Education, 2023). It will come as no shock to you what was reported.
When we explore the workload, it is very evident that you consistently go above and beyond. Full-time leaders reported working on average 57.5 hours and 51.9 hours for full-time teachers. Four in ten leaders reported working at least 60 hours. Your commitment is commendable but its also coming at an expense.
Returning to teach following the pandemic, school staff wellbeing has visibly decreased and there is an obvious increase in anxiety. When this is compared to the general adult population this indicates that our educators are experiencing lower levels of wellbeing than the adult population as a whole.
Let’s work together to improve wellbeing.
For people with teaching responsibilities, the average number of teaching hours is reported as 21.3. This is a massive difference between the 50-60 hours spent working and the actual time spent teaching. There is a big discrepancy between what your employed to do, what you got in the job to do, what your passionate about and what you should be doing….. and that is to teach.
Stay fixed for the solution.
I’m sure you all know why this is, but what does the research say? Amongst all teachers, general administrative work was the task most commonly cited as taking up ‘too much’ of their time. Including data recording, inputting, and analysis, behaviour and incident follow up’s.
This is where we can help.
Pupil behaviour, and recording and reporting of this is very much taking up large amount of your time and a sizeable amount of teachers and leaders did not feel as well supported as they could be, sadly 18% said they were either ‘occasionally’ or ‘never’ supported. This is then impacting on recruitment and retention. A quarter of teachers and leaders reported that they were considering leaving the sector in the next 12 months for reasons other than retirement and this increases much more when the pupil behaviour in their school is rated as ‘poor’.
We got you covered.
At Behaviour Smart, we are smart about behaviour. Our clever technological system, helps staff to accurately record and report behavioural incidents, which is not only evidenced to improve pupil behaviour. But will also give staff time back. You do not need to spend all your spare hours (and more) contacting parents, social workers and other professionals, our smart software will do this for you. You don’t have to waste your time digging out and manually analysing your behaviour data, our programme will do that for you. Need reports, we got you covered. If we consider the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974), every time we have an incident with a young person, we should then be reviewing the risk assessment. Our software completes this previously strenuous task for you, with ease.
Schools using the product are reporting an improvement in behaviour by 83%. In a recent inspection OFSTED stated to a head teacher that this was “the most detailed and analytic” behaviour management software. Staff using the product rave about the ease of use and how it produces accurate risk assessments and individualised positive behaviour support plans.
Be smart about behaviour, with Behaviour Smart. Give yourself time back for your welfare and get back to the job you wanted to do, with clever technology. Get in touch for your free demo.
Adams, L., Coburn – Crane, S., Sanders-Earley, A., Keeble, R., Harris, H., Taylor, J. and Taylor, B. (2023)
“Working lives of teachers and leaders – wave 1”, Department of Education. Available at: Working lives of teachers and leaders - wave 1: core report (publishing.service.gov.uk) (accessed 21/04/2023)
