8 Strategies For Reducing Your Workload Every Teacher Needs To Know

1.   Prioritise your workload

 Time management is crucial for teachers. Without prioritising, not only will you fail to use your time effectively but you also risk sleepwalking into burnout. Arranging your workload according to tasks’ importance and impact will make life much easier, allowing you to know which projects can be put on hold when time gets scarce.

Before knowing how to cut your workload time, try and number your objectives in rank order. You'll be surprised at the difference it makes!

2.   Find your system for success

 Grizzled veterans of teaching know that you need to develop a personal system for sequencing all aspects of the day - marking, feedback, tidying and more. Here are some tips to that end:

• Find out which aspects of school time you can control. In some schools, teachers can change the scheduling of classes and slot in extracurricular activities that take students away from the classroom.
• Plan for smooth transitions between lessons. Always try to have materials close by for each lesson or activity.
• Make sure homework extends what's been covered in class. 
• Improve student attendance. Make a proactive effort to impress upon pupils and parents the importance of good attendance

3.   Utilise your teaching assistants

Shrewd classroom teachers know that they don’t have to do everything themselves. Teaching assistants, support workers and pupils themselves can handle many classroom tasks and save you enormous amounts of time. Learn to use these valuable helpers.

Teaching assistants are classrooms’ hidden heroes, so draw on their special strengths and abilities. TAs are crucial in conducting small group work and providing individualised attention to the pupils who need it. They can make instructional games and resources, keep bulletin boards current, monitor seating plans, read stories to the class, and assist you in testing.

TAs can also help with clerical and housekeeping duties. Their help with school trips, special activities, and class parties is often indispensable. Make sure to cultivate your teaching assistants’ talents and help them to become increasingly responsible, visible, and involved in the classroom.

4.   Organise the room

What teacher doesn’t love to walk into a classroom that has been personalised with some of you and your class’s excellent arts and crafts skills? A creative approach to imagining and organising your space can boost your productivity and that of your pupils.  

5.   Look after yourself

Your health matters, both for you and for your pupils. The amount of sleep you get, your diet, your level of exercise and your ability to unwind and relax properly will all ultimately dictate how much energy and enthusiasm you can bring to your class.

6.   Cut down on marking

There are many ways to reduce an onerous marking workload without skimping on the need to challenge your pupils. You could try verbal assessments in class to test out pupils’ recall and develop quicker thinking habits. You might also consider trying out fun, formative assessments like mini-quizzes that students can self-mark or can have marked by their peers with your supervision. Kahoot! and Studio Pango are chock full of these kinds of quizzes.

7.   Behaviour management

Dealing with challenging pupil behaviour can chew up a lot of teaching time without the right training, especially when your school does not have dedicated pastoral or behavioural staff. A classroom is a space where all students have the right to learn in a safe and secure way.

That’s why it’s important for educators to familiarise themselves with the latest thinking on how to manage pupil behaviour. Our recent article has some handy pointers for teaching assistants that should also be pertinent for the class teacher.   

8.   Ask for help

There’s no shame in needing help with certain aspects of your workload -- or anything else, for that matter. Unfortunately, fears about being seen as incapable can make asking for help a difficult endeavour for many people. If that chimes with you, here are some good ways to go about requesting help.

There are myriad ‘hacks’ you can use to reduce your workload, but the driving principle is about working smarter, not harder. Working ‘less hard’ may seem counter-intuitive, but it helps save teachers from wearing themselves out in the pursuit of an impossible ideal work ethic. When teachers can direct their time more efficiently, everyone benefits.

Teaching Personnel exists to help educators thrive in their jobs. If you want advice and guidance on your career, get in touch today.