Workload is the reason most teachers leave. Not the children. It's the gap between what the job demands and what any person can actually sustain, week after week, without something giving. This book gives you the tools to close that gap: what schools cannot legally require of you, how to cut marking time without cutting your impact, and what actually works when you're trying to hold the job together without it costing you everything outside it.
What's inside: • Three marking models - whole-class feedback, live in-lesson marking, and structured peer and self-assessment - each with ready-to-use templates. • A layered planning system for early career teachers: unit skeleton to lesson pack to last-minute tweaks, without the guilt. • Scripts for difficult conversations: specific language for raising workload concerns with line managers and governors, clearly and constructively. • A leader chapter: what heads and middle leaders can actually do to reduce team burden, with real policies rather than general principles. • Deliberate recovery strategies: what the research says actually works, not just "switch off at weekends." • Current DfE and Ofsted guidance translated into plain decisions, so you can be confident rather than defensive when negotiating what "reasonable" looks like. • There's a dedicated section for trainees and early career teachers building from scratch, and a closing chapter on getting back to the part that makes it all worth it.
Barry Taylor is an HMI-assessed Lead Practitioner, teacher trainer/mentor, and certified wellbeing coach who has worked with schools for over 30 years.
The Teacher's Guide to Managing Workload is written for those who need practical, realistic workload-reduction strategies grounded in policy and classroom reality. Designed to be read in a weekend and implemented on a Monday morning. Try one idea this week and protect your time and energy to teach well.
