Teacher workload
Secondary teachers work long hours and have an increasingly complex job.
The main areas related to workload pressure are:
- curriculum and assessment practices
- a lack of time to meet the demands of existing work
- new initiatives (both school and externally driven)
- administration and compliance
- too few ancillary staff
- appraisal, attestation, and registration requirements
- inadequate school management practices
- class sizes that are too large
- inadequate provision of suitable professional development
- pressure to undertake extracurricular activities
- problems with information technology.
Most of these issues have been identified in various reports and working parties since 2003 as ongoing but intensifying problems.
PPTA Workload Taskforce Report
In 2016 PPTA Te Wehengarua published the Workload Taskforce Report - an investigation into issues of workload intensification for secondary school teachers in New Zealand
A range of suggestions for improvements which will allow teachers and school leaders to work more efficiently and effectively and improve secondary teacher recruitment and retention are identified in the report. The summary sheets cover the most frequently referenced issues and suggestions from members
The Taskforce findings in this report reflect the intensification of the workload problems previously identified, by various working parties and reports, over the last 15 years.
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