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In this final article I am going to try to pull all our thoughts together on the subject of work/life balance. We all know of the dangers of this being out of line and the effects it can have on not only our teaching but more importantly our home lives.
The main 2 culprits for this are Marking and Planning and we have looked at ways of getting these back to a more manageable level in the previous articles. However let me say that this is a constant process and you have to always stay on this and avoid creep. Obviously there may be days when lets say you can't do your marking at school and have to take it home....but make sure it doesn't become a pattern if that's what you do - so some flexibility is needed but be aware if you find too much teaching stuff starts to impinge! Colleagues often ask me how long should I be working in the evenings on schoolwork?. My answer would be this ...for both marking and next day preparation 2 hours is a maximum and you should aim for this. For ECT's it will be a little more and of course preparation for the week ahead will take a little longer, but not too much.
In looking at the remaining elements of that initial list the next area that can cause problem is Assessment. We can look at this in 2 ways
The ongoing marking and assessment of work
The use and analysis of Tests as a measure of progress and understanding.
In the first case the assessment of pupils work, progress and understanding as measured against learning objectives is an ongoing and progressive process. It enables teachers to match assessment directly to learning objectives and also to analyse progress for individuals and the class as a whole. It is easy to do and not time consuming.
However it is the second area where potentially there can be problems. In this culture of accountability there is a tendency for some schools to knee jerk and implement a massive amount of testing and analysis. This burden of course falls on staff and can in some cases be repeated every 1/2 term.
It is of course not unreasonable for tests to be held in order to gather this information - however what is unreasonable is the amount of testing and in conjunction with this, the degree of analysis that is undertaken.....we are talking about children from the age of 4 to 11 and yet question by question analysis in multiple tests is being done - have we lost sight of something here??
Let me give you an example
School staff in 1 school I know of were asked only this year to carry out 5 tests on children 2 weeks before Christmas. Staff were then told to complete a question by question analysis for all the tests and to have it completed before the term ended. This of course "was not in the spirit of Christmas!" (to put it mildly) - the tests were carried out but the staff point blank REFUSED to do the analysis before Christmas.
This leads us nicely into the subject of senior management teams - because they an have a positive or negative influence on workload and teachers work/life balance. Confident and effective management teams will work to filter government initiatives and control the workload demands efficiently for staff. However a weaker or ineffective management team will simply download everything and more onto staff with no regard to the levels or limits.
Should you find yourself in this position (and you will know it immediately) then you have no other professional decision but to leave - not all schools are like this, it isn't your fault and it won't improve!
In summary therefore across all the articles, we have seen just how vitally important it is to get a work/life balance in your career and life. Teaching is a career that can potentially swamp staff with its demands and you need to be constantly aware of achieving and maintaining this balance.
Be brutal in your situation assessments and if changes need making then make them - remember this is a professional job of work not a higher calling and whilst you give it 100% in career terms it is not your life!
There have been several studies conducted in response to this concern in both Scotland and England - whether they make any difference remains to be seen - until then, the solutions are in your own hands!
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