According to a Department of Education survey 75% of ex-teachers cited workload as the reason they left teaching. This comes
after the latest figures from the Health and Safety Executive show that
teaching is ‘one of the most stressful jobs in Britain’, with cases of work
related stress in teaching being twice the average across all industries over a
three-year period.
Articles on the TES website relating to teacher workload have gained hundreds of comments from teachers
feeling the pressure, including those whose physical and mental health,
relationships and families are suffering due to the amount of work and pressure
placed upon them and those who have ultimately chosen to leave the profession
altogether.
Tasks that teachers are expected to complete throughout the
year include (but not limited to):
- · Planning and delivering high quality lessons
- · Marking work and providing feedback
- · Designing assessments
- · Marking assessments
- · Tracking student progress
- · Organising and delivering extra-curricular activities
- · Making phone calls home or meeting with parents
- · Attending meetings
- · Data entry
- · Attending open evenings
- · Supervising detentions
- · Compiling student reports
- · Writing references
- · Helping draft university applications
- · Helping students with job applications
- · Attending professional development sessions
But what can be done to lighten the load? School leader and
TES columnist Colin Harris suggests living by the rule “If it doesn’t improve
the lot of the pupil then don’t do it”. Perhaps easier said than done but in
practical terms finding ways to speed up processes and make the work easier to
complete are highly valuable.
While all the tasks listed are valuable, planning and
feedback are the activities which contribute the most to the academic success
of students. An online, cloud-based platform can provide easy to use,
streamlined processes to help teachers save time when setting and marking work.
For example, Fusion VLE allows you to create assignments that can be resource
rich using the easy drag & drop upload. Assignments can be given start
dates and deadline dates which can be automatically added to student calendars
and students and parents can be automatically notified of any new assignments
that have been set. You are provided with a clear, visual indication of when a
student has completed work and as the teacher you are able to then go into the
student work and view, mark and provide feedback via a single screen.
Self-marking quizzes are also a great way to assess students without creating a
hefty pile of time consuming marking. Fusion VLE keeps an up-to-date log of
assignments, submissions and grading, making the process much more efficient
and saving valuable time. The fact that it can be accessed on any device with
an internet connection means teachers can access materials and data, including
tracking pupil progress, quickly and easily in one place.
Other Fusion features include easy communications with parents,
students and colleagues, writing reports, creating and compiling resources,
school and class blogs & forums, website building, MIS Integration and much
more.
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