NQTs: 7 ways to manage your workload

In the 2010 Teachers’ Workload Survey, two thirds of professionals surveyed felt their workload didn’t allow them the time to pursue personal interests outside of work. NQTs in particular, may feel particularly overworked as they adjust to the demands of full time teaching.

With this in mind, we’ve collected some tips to help relieve the pressures and strains that may effect the start of your teaching career.

File the paperwork

An abundance of paperwork is often cited as one of the major issues effecting teachers. To avoid getting snowed under, allocate an hour each week as tidying time so you can be sure that everything is kept in its proper place.

When doing this bare in mind the Pareto Principle, which in this case, means just 20% of your paperwork gives you 80% of your information. Be ruthless, if you’re not using it, then you won’t miss it. (Be careful not to throw away things that can be used as evidence of meeting standards though!)

Make the most of your space

When you get your own classroom, ensure everything has its place, so you can locate anything you may want or need. It doesn’t actually have to be tidy, just well organised. If you’re comfortable in your surroundings you’ll become more efficient; saving time when it comes to preparing the classroom, finding textbooks and sorting out resources. If you aren’t lucky enough to have your own classroom try to make sure that you can negotiate secure storage space in each room you teach in. This helps you manage resources and reduces the number of times you have to carry boxes around.

Get the class to help

Tidying up after students and collecting in books are time consuming activities. To save time, ask your students to help with any minor jobs. Assigning different tasks to classroom monitors is a good way of giving children independence and freeing up your time to tackle more demanding jobs. Talk to your mentor about ways in which you can quickly and effectively establish these routines as they have a very positive impact on classroom management.

Work with support staff

Whilst it can be hard for NQTs to delegate responsibility, it’s important to work with support staff, using their strengths and experience whenever possible.

Remember, they can help you by making resources, delivering elements of the lesson or taking groups for focused activities. They’ll also have knowledge of how the school is run, so if you’re wasting time, unsure of what to do, or where to go, then just ask.

Use peer assessment

For teachers at any level, assessment can be a long process. It’s a learning curve keeping up to date with marking, but you can make the process simpler and more effective by involving your class.

Getting pupils to comment on their own and each other’s work can help inform your assessment. Also, it’s beneficial to students, with studies showing it can encourage learners to be more confident and reflective when working. A simple method of doing this is to make use of a KWL table to check what pupils know in advance, what they have learnt during a lesson and what they want to know in the future. Adding a section for peer and self review helps to ensure that there are lots of assessment opportunities available in each lesson.

Share your planning and resources

Planning is another activity that’s bound to take up a large chunk of your working life. To share the responsibility, try and work alongside colleagues in your year group or department. Dividing up plans and working together will reduce your workload and help you continue your professional development as you learn from teachers around you.

Outside of school, don’t lose contact with your friends from teacher training. Sharing your resources and ideas can be really useful when inspiration has run dry and you’re pushed for time.

Give yourself a break

With there being research to support the idea that happy teachers improve school performance, it’s vital that you give yourself a break. Schedule in an activity that you enjoy each week and make sure you do it. If you can enjoy yourself outside of school then your performance and motivation will increase, helping you to make the most of your core working hours.

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