Reducing the Bureaucratic Burden on Teachers


CONTENTS	Paragraphs
Schools' Management and Administrative Systems
Meetings Written Communications Preparing documents Receiving external documents Pupil Reports Schemes of Work and Lesson Plans Use of School Resources	6-8 9 10 11 12 13 14-15
Interpretation of External Requirements
OFSTED Inspection Target Setting The National Curriculum and Assessment Special Educational Needs Prospectuses and Annual Reports	16-18 19-20 21-22 23 24
Schools in Special Measures and with Serious Weaknesses	25
Further Action	26-30
CIRCULAR TO HEADTEACHERS AND TEACHERS: REDUCING THE BUREAUCRATIC BURDEN ON TEACHERS A key objective for the Government is to help teachers teach effectively and to ensure best use is made of their time. The Secretary of State for Education and Employment, David Blunkett, has stated "cutting unnecessary burdens on teachers helps us to raise standards in schools, and that is our top priority". A clear distinction needs to be drawn: paperwork and administration is justified when it helps teachers teach more effectively and supports children's learning; it is not justifiable when it gets in the way. This circular provides common sense guidance to help headteachers, in discussion with their teachers, draw this line. It is based on existing good practice and also on the recommendations of the Working Group on Reducing the Bureaucratic Burden on Teachers and the attendant Coopers and Lybrand study . The Government is committed to reducing the bureaucratic burdens imposed on schools by external demands. It will take a lead, working with other national and local bodies to reduce these demands to an absolute minimum. The Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA), the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) and the Funding Agency for Schools (FAS) have agreed with DfEE how they will review burdens and have set targets for issuing best practice guidance to help schools. Further information on action being taken by the Government is set out at the end of the circular. Some bureaucratic burdens are generated in schools themselves, often in response to legal and other external requirements. These should be tackled in schools jointly by headteachers and their staff. Schools can make significant improvements by drawing on existing good practice in areas set out below. This circular has been drawn up based on the principles outlined in the Working Group's report. Those principles were: schools should be evaluated primarily by the educational standards achieved; teachers should be regarded as competent professionals; the minimum key information necessary for good communication should be provided both to schools and by schools to parents. SCHOOLS' MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEMS Meetings Well-run meetings are essential to the internal management and communications of a school. Schools need to have flexibility to determine the pattern and number of meetings. Those are matters for sensible professional judgement. But schools do need to establish a pattern of meetings which is fully justified. All schools should regularly review the number and quality of their meetings, and should assess their existing practice against the following considerations: only hold meetings when they are justified and cancel unnecessary ones; circulate agendas and papers in good time; set time limits and stick to them; ensure meetings are effectively chaired; always set a clear purpose for a meeting; encourage and take account of all points of view while guiding the meeting to definite conclusions; communicate the conclusions to all with an interest; ensure effective action is taken as a result. We will review and report back to relevant parties on the operation of paragraphs six and seven in a year's time. Written Communications Headteachers should consider carefully whether all written communications with and between staff are necessary. A general review of working methods within the school may well suggest ways in which written communications can be made more effective. For example, the Working Group on Reducing the Bureaucratic Burden on Teachers found that some schools might benefit from reducing the number of memos and internal circulars and making more effective use of staff notice boards. Preparing documents Schools should review the length of all the documents which they prepare, whether for planning or administrative purposes. There can be no single guideline which applies to all the varied documents which schools need, but it is always helpful to ask whether particular papers can be condensed to a specified length. Keeping documents short is a valuable discipline for both the author and the readers, and encourages all concerned to concentrate on the essentials. Individual teachers should not be expected to draft unreasonably long contributions to documents. It is reasonable for teachers to expect concise model policies to be available prior to the writing or rewriting of policies. Schools themselves should be looking at the standards they set for the length and quality of the most common documents. Receiving external documents From time to time schools receive documents which are voluntary in their application. Head teachers, in consultation with their staff, will need to consider whether such documents can be used without introducing unreasonable burdens. Pupil Reports Crisp and concise reports to parents on the progress their children have made need to be produced once a year. These should provide essential messages in a form which parents can readily understand. We shall be consulting before the summer break on how the quality of reports can be improved, whilst giving clearer messages to parents. An important part of that consultation will involve working with parents and teachers to develop models of good practice which deliver sound and accurate reports as economically as possible. Schemes of Work and Lesson Plans Effective lesson preparation is central to teaching. Lesson planning is essential. Plans should be updated, perhaps once a year, but then only if necessary. Undue length and complexity should be avoided, as should unduly bureaucratic reporting back on lessons. We have already published our literacy framework and will develop our numeracy strategy. The Government plans to make available non-mandatory schemes of work for other subjects within the primary curriculum, which should help better focus the time teachers spend preparing plans of work. Teachers, in consultation with their colleagues, will need to exercise their professional judgement in deciding whether to adopt the non-mandatory schemes. Use of School Resources The Coopers and Lybrand study for the Working Group identified a number of administrative tasks often carried out by teachers. They included collecting money, bulk photocopying, copy typing, standard letters, attendance analysis, copying out lists, preparing report sets, processing examination marks, administration of progression and acting as an IT technician. The study suggested that the administrative burden on teachers can be considerably reduced, and the effectiveness of teaching increased, where appropriate administrative support is available in schools to enable those tasks to be carried out. The study went on to identify a number of areas where the increased use of IT would be a further help. The availability of non-teaching staff and information technology varies between schools, and is bound to set a limit to what is possible immediately. The Secretary of State asks headteachers to consider further how to make the most effective use of the full range of resources available to the school, with the aim of allowing teachers to devote the maximum possible amount of time to raising the standards of achievement of their pupils. The Government will continue to examine ways of lifting the adminstrative burdens on teachers and headteachers, including the further application of IT. INTERPRETATION OF EXTERNAL REQUIREMENTS OFSTED Inspection The Secretary of State is concerned that many schools and their Local Education Authorities (LEAs) still devote excessive time and effort to preparing for OFSTED inspections. He has made clear in the ‘Code of Practice on LEA-School Relations’, which is out for consultation at present, that as a rule he does not expect LEAs or others to engage in pre-OFSTED inspections of their schools, as a dry run for the OFSTED inspection. Schools facing the prospect of inspection should concentrate on the essentials and not spend time revising or preparing new documentation unless they are clear that they must do so. The OFSTED guidance document, ‘Making the Most of Inspection’, confirms that: the information typically needed by an inspection team in advance of the inspection is limited to what schools would normally expect to have available; schools should not feel obliged to produce substantial documentation or rewrite policy statements specifically for the inspection. OFSTED will be revising and reissuing their guidance on ‘Making the Most of Inspection’ by September and will continue to make it clear to inspectors and schools alike that the burden of preparing for inspection should be manageable. Target Setting Raising standards must be at the core of schools' work, and every school needs to identify clearly the strengths and weaknesses of the performance of its pupils, and to set targets for raising achievement. The new statutory requirements in this area have been designed in such a way that they will not impose a significant new burden on teachers. Teachers should expect to be involved in helping the school to set challenging and realistic targets. Of course, teachers will be following the progress of their pupils on a day to day basis, and ordinarily the teachers concerned will once a year prepare and discuss forecasts of pupils' likely performance and, once a year, contribute to school reviewing of progress towards targets. The guidance to schools on targets, alongside guidance to LEAs on Education Development Plans, will emphasise the need to keep the new systems simple and manageable, and will build on existing examples of good practice. The National Curriculum and Assessment We announced in January a significant reduction in the level of prescription of the National Curriculum in Key Stages 1 and 2. This will allow teachers to exercise greater professional judgement in how they teach non-core curriculum subjects, whilst giving priority to literacy and numeracy. The Secretary of State looks to the headteachers of primary schools and their staff to take advantage of this opportunity. The Secretary of State intends that the review of the National Curriculum as a whole, to come into effect in September 2000, will give full weight to the issues of manageability which have been raised. The Secretary of State was concerned to be told that the Coopers and Lybrand study for the Working Group had produced evidence that not all schools had reduced the burden of pupil assessment procedures in line with the 1993 Dearing recommendations and the subsequent QCA advice which has been sent to all schools each Autumn. Schools should ensure that any remaining excessive assessment burden is eliminated while continuing to meet the national requirements on assessment. Special Educational Needs The Department issued good practice advice last September on brief, action-orientated Individual Education Plans (IEPs) under the SEN Code of Practice and recommended a simple IEP model for teachers to use. The Secretary of State looks to LEAs, headteachers and teachers to work together to ensure that effective action is taken in this field, and that unjustified demands for information are not made. We intend to launch a review of the Code of Practice itself early in 1999, with the intention of giving schools plenty of time to adjust before a revised Code comes into force. We will consider in the meantime how to provide schools and LEAs with further guidance on ways of managing the Code of Practice processes well. Prospectuses and Annual Reports The Government will shortly consult its partners on a substantial reduction in the statutory requirements for school prospectuses and governors' annual reports. These are important ways of providing information to parents, but we believe the proposals will allow schools much more flexibility to reflect their priorities and the needs of parents. There will be less prescription from the centre, and we look to headteachers and governors to reflect this in the process of drawing up the next round of these documents. SCHOOLS IN SPECIAL MEASURES AND WITH SERIOUS WEAKNESSES There are aspects of the circular which may not apply to schools under special measures or with serious weaknesses. FURTHER ACTION The Working Group Report on Reducing the Bureaucratic Burden on Teachers set out 33 recommendations, covering action to be taken by Government and other central agencies. A full implementation plan has now been drawn up by DfEE with targets for each recommendation. This has been done in consultation with OFSTED, QCA, TTA, FAS and the Local Government Association, and endorsed by the Secretary of State. Work is already well in hand on implementation. DfEE has: put in place arrangements to ensure that implementation costs in schools are considered systematically when new policies are developed; drawn up a specification for demonstration projects to show how a range of schools and LEAs can develop low burden administration systems - these will begin in September; introduced new consultation procedures, so that only a sample of schools is asked to respond; and will shortly adopt a new format for its correspondence with schools so that it is always clear on the front page who it is for, what needs to be done and what the status is - making a clear distinction between statutory requirements that must be fulfilled and guidance which is based on good practice. The Government also recognises the concerns of schools about the possible burdens of bid-based funding arrangements. It will review those arrangements to ensure that the effort involved for schools is not out of proportion to the money available. The Government will take further action as a matter of urgency between now and September. On receipt of this circular the Secretary of State looks to headteachers, in consultation with their staff, to take action to implement the guidelines it contains so as to enable teachers to concentrate their efforts on improving the achievement of their pupils. Produced for the Department for Education and Employment. Printed in the United Kingdom. Extracts from this document may be reproduced for non-commercial educational purposes on condition that the source is acknowledged.