The Department for Education (DfE) has developed a range of tools and resources to support schools manage workload.  The resources in the toolkit have been produced by school leaders, teachers and other sector experts in conjunction with the Department for Education (DfE), and have been tested with a range of schools across England.

Schools can utilise these resources to:

• identify workload issues in school
• address workload issues in school (such as feedback and marking)
• evaluate the impact of workload reduction measures

Schools are advised to adapt these resources to fit their own context. They can help schools start to reduce workload, or can complement what is already being done to reduce workload. They were designed for schools, but can also be used in colleges and other settings.

Instructions for Schools

The DfE recommends that you undertake a review of workload in your school as a starting point. The zip folder identify workload issues in your school contains a simple-to-use survey to stimulate discussion, which can be included in your school improvement cycle.

You may wish to conduct a regular review, involving all staff. This will help you to identify the areas you need to prioritise. Schools which took part in a fully evaluated project using the toolkit made significant improvements in workload and wellbeing after focussing on the issues they identified in their survey. In many cases, pupil outcomes also improved.

In the Wellbeing and Workload folder you will find example wellbeing policies. These can be read alongside the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which is a declaration of support and set of commitments to the wellbeing and mental health of everyone working in education.

You can find more information about how schools and colleges can sign up to the charter.

If you are a school leader, you can use this toolkit with teachers and staff in their directed time, for example:

• as part of their INSET
• in a staff or leadership team meeting
• in a network session with other schools
• as part of school improvement planning

We expect all schools to have signed up to the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter and to be actively working to the 11 principles detailed below, with Senior Leaders ensuring appropriate prioritisation and delegated activity to support the successful implementation.

How to sign up

To sign up as a school or college, you should obtain consent from your senior leadership team, then email wellbeing.charter@education.gov.uk with your:

• school or college Unique Reference Number (URN) – you can find your URN by searching for your establishment on Get Information about Schools
• establishment name
• postcode
• confirmation that you have read the privacy notice for education staff wellbeing charter (PDF, 111 KB, 2 pages) and give permission for your personal data to be used by the department

If you no longer wish for your organisation to be a signatory to the charter, email wellbeing.charter@education.gov.uk to ask for your details to be removed.

Source: School workload reduction toolkit - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)