Motion 26
Reducing Workload & Improving Staff Wellbeing in Education
“That this Congress asserts that all workers should be protected from unsustainable work-related expectations, excessive workload demands, and foreseeable health and safety risks in the workplace. It is unacceptable that thousands of teachers are exposed to risk from foreseeable harms, including those arising from unsustainable and excessive workload demands, every day. Teachers’ wellbeing and health are worsening, and many wish to leave the profession for this reason.
“In recent years, several factors have combined to push teacher workload to unsustainable levels. Long teaching hours; large class sizes; fewer resources; difficulty in accessing support from local authority employers and professional agencies; educational reform; the rising number of pupils with Additional Support Needs; fewer promoted staff; worsening pupil behaviour; and unproductive bureaucracy—all have combined to heap additional and unsustainable workload pressures on Scotland’s teachers.
“Research from the University of the West of Scotland shows that teachers in Scotland are working an average of 46 hours per week — that is 11.39 hours on average, unpaid, beyond their contracted 35-hour working week. Workload burden is directly associated with lower levels of job satisfaction, damages teachers’ wellbeing and work-life balance, and creates staff retention challenges.
“Congress therefore calls on the General Council to lobby the Scottish Government to:
- provide sufficient funding for schools to enable safe, healthy, and sustainable working environments for staff whose safety and wellbeing are put at risk daily due to insufficient resourcing and excessive workloads;
- deliver on their promise of reducing teachers’ class contact time by 90 minutes per week;
- deliver on their promise to recruit additional, fully qualified teachers;
- reduce the bureaucracy in Scottish schools, including that around standardised assessment; and
- provide the requisite resources and staffing to effectively respond to all pupils’ needs in respect of learning and behaviour, including those pupils with additional support needs”
Mover: Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS)
RSS