Welsh government initiative aims to tackle bureaucracy in the classroom

The Welsh government has launched a new initiative designed to help reduce the unnecessary workloads caused for teachers by bureaucracy.

A total of £1.28 million of new investment has been set aside to support the creation of new school business managers in 11 local authority areas, with a two-year pilot scheme to assess the degree to which this intervention can prove helpful to teaching staff.

These school business managers will provide groups of primary schools with dedicated support for heads and teachers, allowing them to focus their attentions on raising standards and addressing the needs of pupils by taking responsibility for non-teaching activities such as finance, administration and procurement.

It comes as part of a broader series of steps being taken by the Welsh government to address issues raised by teaching professionals over workloads and the amount of time taken up by administrative tasks.

To further support these efforts, a new guide has been launched by the Welsh education and training inspectorate Estyn, providing advice on how teachers can reduce unnecessary activity, with specific guidance on planning lessons, marking, and assessing and collecting data.

Education secretary Kirsty Williams said: "Reducing unnecessary workload and enabling teachers to spend more time supporting pupils' learning is so important. The resources developed with unions and others and published by Estyn today will help ensure that workload issues are considered and we will continue to take action in this area."

It is hoped that these measures will go hand in hand with broader Welsh government efforts to raise standards of teaching across the entire Welsh schooling system.