On low hanging fruit

The new Grattan Institute report might have been the answer all along

Often I write this newsletter to question, challenge - ok complain. But the new Grattan Institute report is probably the most pragmatic and optimistic thing I have seen come out of research into teachers’ work in a long time. Their research and proposal is a true example of innovative thinking, not because the ideas themselves are innovative, but because the idea of selling this to teachers and especially principals is such a bold move. There’s potential to transform the industry.

The proposal seems so obvious. It really has been staring us in the face. It’s based on three principles that teachers have been arguing for for years.

First, let teachers teach, by better matching teachers’ work to teachers’ expertise: Improve the integration of specialist and support staff in schools to help teachers focus on high-quality classroom instruction, and to ensure that non-teaching staff can perform duties that don’t require teaching expertise.

Second, help teachers to work smarter, by reducing unnecessary tasks: Examine administrative activities, but also core teaching activities. Reduce the need for teachers to ‘re-invent the wheel’ in curriculum and lesson planning.

Third, rethink the ways teachers’ work is organised in schools: Ensure industrial agreements give school leaders the flexibility to strike a sensible balance between class sizes and teachers’ face-to-face teaching time, and to smooth out workloads over the school year by scheduling more time for teachers to work together on preparation activities in term breaks.

The idea is that principals can be given professional development to support them in creatively reworking timetables, budgets and processes to harvest that low hanging fruit, more teacher time. It appeals to a common sense that things have to change, it won’t theoretically cost extra money, and it aims to solve a lot of the frustrations teachers have about their work. What could go wrong?

I have argued for years that teacher time should not be considered ‘free’. Even just discussions of productivity in education are such a cultural shift. For this reason, I would welcome any and all of the planned strategies. It’s a real shame that teachers unions don’t bring this kind of ‘staring you in the face’ innovation to their negotiations, but that might be a newsletter for another day. I think there are three considerations that if addressed will be key to the plan’s success or failure.

1. School systems will need to make sure that there is a strong supply of staff who can do the less qualified work that teachers have typically done. Recognising that the babysitting aspect is not the best use of our qualifications is a great start and may also help to raise the status of teachers. But without bodies to fill these roles, we won’t get past the first reform imperative.

2. I’m not a fan of the way two elements of working smarter are rolled into one. There’s not a teacher in the world who will object to less double handling, data entry and compliance processes. But teachers love their autonomy. It’s a draw-card of the profession. I’m personally in favour of less variance in curricula but it would be a mistake to assume that everyone wants to use standardised materials.

3. The survey showed that teachers were willing to negotiate on class size in exchange for a chunk of extra planning time. I don’t know a single teacher who prefers a class of 30 over a class of 10. It will be interesting to see if these survey results play out when crunch time comes. I feel this may disproportionately affect the teachers who need the extra time most, for example the new grad who has been given the bottom English class. Principals would need to think very hard about their leadership of this strategic change, so that we don’t lose any more early career teachers than we already do.

I do wonder how this will play in the court of teacher/leader opinion. So far, nobody has come up with anything better. Quantifying and really valuing teacher time is most certainly the first step to redressing teacher workload and I hope that principals and teachers can maintain an open and solutions-focused mind.