Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of the level of work being undertaken by teachers on educational outcomes.

The Department knows that there are many factors that affect educational outcomes. There is an ongoing programme of research within the Department to understand the level of work being undertaken by teachers and headteachers, and the perceptions of workload across the workforce. It is not possible to draw direct causal links between teacher workload and educational outcomes from the existing evidence base.

The Department has taken action to improve teacher and headteacher workload, working with the profession to understand and address longstanding issues around marking, planning and data management. The School Workload Reduction toolkit, developed alongside headteachers, is a helpful resource for schools to use to reduce workload. The Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, published in 2021, is a set of commitments from the Government, Ofsted, and schools and colleges to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff and includes an explicit commitment by the Department to drive down unnecessary workload.

There was a five-hour reduction in teachers' self-reported working hours between 2016 and 2019. While progress has been made working alongside schools, the Department recognises there is still more to be done. The Department will continue to work together with headteachers, teachers and their representatives to reduce unnecessary workload and promote their wellbeing.