In simple language

What leaders should take from the research

01

Guidance: diagnose before selecting a solution. DfE’s toolkit recommends identifying workload issues with staff and choosing priorities. Its resources concern England, and cover areas such as data, marking, planning and communications. They can inform questions elsewhere without defining another jurisdiction’s duties. DfE: identify workload issues (n.d.) DfE: address workload issues (n.d.)

02

Reported finding: specific tasks took less time in school-led projects. A 2020 Education Development Trust report describes 36 projects using varied designs. Teacher-time data from 14 studies, covering 267 teachers, showed less time on targeted tasks. This was not a single randomised test of the current toolkit or a measure of total weekly workload. Education Development Trust (2020)

03

Guidance: check what changed after acting. DfE suggests staff feedback, pupil-result review and other local checks. A positive before/after pattern can support a practical decision while leaving its cause uncertain. DfE: evaluate workload measures (n.d.)

04

Interpretation: time saved is one outcome. A shorter reporting task may still shift work to another role or reduce useful information. Judge time, task quality and who carries the work together.

Evidence strength and limits

Useful, with boundaries

The reviewed workload guidance and project report come from England. The projects differed in tasks and design, lasted a short period and did not all measure the same outcomes. No saving is guaranteed for a particular school. Check local safeguarding, employment, curriculum and record requirements before changing a task; the worksheet does not determine those duties.

For your next leadership meeting

Seven questions for your leadership team

Use the prompts to examine your own context and decide what, if anything, to change.

  1. Which demand are we reviewing?

    • Who performs it and who requests it?
    • What preparation and follow-up are easy to miss?

  2. What purpose does it serve?

    • Who uses the output to make which decision?
    • What would be lost if the demand stopped?

  3. What do staff report?

    • Whose work is not visible in the timetable?
    • How can people raise a concern safely?

  4. What could we stop or simplify?

    • Is the work required or merely customary?
    • What local duty needs checking first?

  5. Who might inherit the work?

    • Could this change shift time to support staff or families?
    • How will we check that?

  6. What would a fair comparison look like?

    • Are we comparing similar weeks and tasks?
    • How will quality be checked alongside time?

  7. When do we decide what to keep?

    • Who owns the review?
    • What finding would make us reverse or adapt?

What should a workload review measure?

Define the demand narrowly: who does it, how often, how much preparation and follow-up it requires, and what decision it supports. A rough estimate is useful if labelled as an estimate. Compare similar weeks; a reporting week and a quiet week are not equivalent. Invite staff to explain work that the timetable or task list misses.

Proposed school action

These are Cited Leadership discussion proposals, not a tested intervention package.

  1. Identify: invite one team to name a recurring demand. Record its purpose, frequency and who requests or uses the output.
  2. Choose: stop a redundant demand, simplify the format/frequency, or test an alternative. Verify required work before stopping it.
  3. Prepare: define whose workload changes, how quality will be checked and what would trigger reversal. Include support staff.
  4. Review: compare the same task before and after, ask whether work moved elsewhere, and decide to keep, adapt or stop the change.

Fictional example: a department enters the same assessment summary in two internal formats. Leaders confirm that only one is used, then propose a time-limited change to one shared record. This is an invented discussion example, not an evaluated school case or a reported saving.

Primary sources

References

  1. Department for Education. (n.d.). Identify workload issues. Workload reduction toolkit. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
    Design
    Guidance on diagnosis and prioritisation.
    Setting
    England schools.
    Material actually reviewed
    Original HTML guidance and resource descriptions, not all downloadable templates.
    Limitations
    Staff perceptions identify questions for investigation; they do not independently establish task costs or effects.
    Source reviewed
    12 October 2026
  2. Department for Education. (n.d.). Address workload issues. Workload reduction toolkit. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
    Design
    Guidance/resource directory.
    Setting
    England schools.
    Material actually reviewed
    Original HTML resource categories; linked resources not all reviewed.
    Limitations
    Categories are starting points, not a ranked list of interventions with comparative effects.
    Source reviewed
    12 October 2026
  3. Education Development Trust. (2020). Supporting teachers through the school workload reduction toolkit: March 2020. Department for Education. Published 15 July 2020.
    Design
    School-led projects using varied controlled and uncontrolled designs.
    Setting
    36 school-led projects across England, 2019–2020.
    Material actually reviewed
    Original report executive summary and methodology/teacher-time findings (PDF pp. 4–10), plus DfE publication summary; individual posters and all pupil analyses not reviewed.
    Limitations
    Short duration, varied tasks/designs and incomplete outcome coverage limit generalisation; measured task time is not total weekly workload.
    Producer
    Education Development Trust, working with the Teaching Schools Council.
    Funding
    Department for Education commissioned training and support, as described in the report.
    Source reviewed
    12 October 2026

    Reviewed source route

  4. Department for Education. (n.d.). Evaluate workload measures. Workload reduction toolkit. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
    Design
    Guidance on local monitoring.
    Setting
    England schools.
    Material actually reviewed
    Original HTML guidance and listed evaluation methods.
    Limitations
    A local before/after check alone does not show causality or rule out unintended effects.
    Source reviewed
    12 October 2026
  5. Department for Education. (n.d.). Workload reduction toolkit. Improve workload and wellbeing for school staff. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
    Design
    Practice guidance and school-provided resources.
    Setting
    England; marking, data, planning, communications and other areas of school work.
    Material actually reviewed
    Original toolkit overview and “How the toolkit was made and tested” page; every linked case or template was not reviewed.
    Limitations
    Guidance can structure a review but does not guarantee savings or student outcomes in another setting.
    Source reviewed
    12 October 2026

    Reviewed source route

These questions are prompts for local discussion. The cited research does not determine what any one school should do.