IN THE National Education Union’s latest survey on workload 8,000 teachers gave the unequivocal message to government that enough is enough. Work-life balance is worse than a year ago and the linked issues of workload and accountability are the main reasons education professionals don’t see themselves working in the sector in the near future.

Two-fifths of respondents (40 per cent) predict they will no longer be working in education by 2024, and almost one-fifth of all respondents to the survey (18 per cent) expect to be gone within two years. The workload problem is across the workforce, affecting leaders, teachers and support staff. There is no greater challenge in the teacher recruitment and retention crisis than that of reducing workload and improving the nature of teachers’ work, and the high stakes, low-quality accountability system is a huge barrier to achieving this.

Appropriate professional autonomy, application of pedagogy, and use of their knowledge, skills and experience has been eroded by excessive national policy reform and an accountability system that drives bureaucratic evidencing of work rather than prioritising that which makes the biggest impact on teaching and learning. The downward pressure from a national level — government, and agencies such as Ofsted and Ofqual — must be addressed.