Could Doing Less Help Schools Teach Better?

A school introduces a promising new approach. Staff understand its purpose and want it to succeed. Yet the existing meetings, reports, systems, and projects remain in place. The new priority enters an already crowded week, leaving teachers to decide where its time will come from.

Reducing teacher workload is connected to the quality of school improvement. Leaders need to consider how much change people can enact well, what support they require, and which existing activities still serve a useful purpose. A plan becomes more credible when it accounts for the work it adds.

Consider the whole working week

An NFER study commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation examined workload-management practices in English schools. Teachers in schools with more workload-reduction strategies reported more positive views of workload, autonomy, and job satisfaction. The study also noted that introducing new strategies can add work in the short term.

A useful leadership response is to examine what staff actually do across a typical week. The official timetable captures only part of the picture. Preparing for meetings, entering similar information into different systems, and responding to repeated requests may consume time that is less visible.

These findings come from English schools and include reported perceptions; they do not establish that any single strategy caused better outcomes. Schools elsewhere can use the questions while checking their own conditions. Changes must preserve safeguarding, required records, accommodations, and other legal or accreditation obligations.

Ask what each recurring activity is for

A review can begin with one category of work, such as meetings or internal reporting. Who uses the information? Which decision does it support? Is the frequency proportionate to the need? Could the same purpose be served more simply?

The aim is to understand the function before changing the process. An activity that appears repetitive may protect continuity, support a student, or meet an important obligation. Staff who carry out and depend on the work should help explain those purposes.

A short meeting with a clear decision can be valuable. A lengthy meeting that repeats information already distributed may need a different format. The question is what the activity enables people to do.

Make room before adding a priority

The EEF's guidance on implementation emphasizes choosing and embedding approaches in the context of the school's improvement needs. That requires attention to people, conditions, and the process of change.

Before launching an initiative, leaders can identify the time needed for preparation, practice, feedback, and review. They can then state which meeting, request, or competing project will be adjusted to make room. Leaving that decision to individual teachers can make implementation uneven and increase uncertainty.

Sometimes the right decision is to improve an existing practice before introducing another. A smaller number of clearly supported priorities can give a staff team something concrete to work on together.

Test a change before extending it

A school might simplify one internal reporting form for a defined period. Before doing so, the team would agree what information must remain available and how to notice any unintended effect.

Staff feedback can then be combined with evidence about whether necessary decisions and student support still work. A reduction in paperwork is useful only if the school continues to do the work the information was meant to support.

Leaders should explain what they heard, what changed, and what remains under review. This makes consultation part of improvement rather than an additional exercise.

For example, a team reviewing duplicate data entry could map who uses each field before proposing one shared record. During a short pilot, it could check time spent, missing information, and whether staff can still make the required decisions. Those measures make the review concrete. If work simply moves to another colleague, the school has not yet solved the problem.

Treat attention as a resource

Schools rely on people noticing, thinking, preparing, and responding well. Those activities require capacity. Leadership includes deciding which demands deserve a place in that limited space.

What is one recurring task your school could examine together, with the aim of making more room for effective teaching?

Illustrative image generated with AI.