EIS Council met on Friday 20th September and approved a strategy for the Time to Tackle Workload Campaign - focusing on two key approaches.
The first strand will be through national negotiations at SNCT level around a 20/20 Campaign – class size maxima of 20 and a reduction in class contact time to 20 hours per week.
These are big-ticket issues and immediate progress will be challenging but the evidence to support these demands will be developed and publicised, with a view to making incremental progress on the targets and influencing future manifesto commitments from the political parties.
Alongside that approach, and with more immediate effect, the EIS will be seeking to tackle excessive workload through the development of greater professional autonomy and teacher agency, under the banner of the school empowerment agenda (which is being consulted upon over this session).
This will be progressed through rolling out training for school reps and activists to enable auditing of school practice, ensuring that activities which don’t impact on teaching and learning are set aside. National guidance will be made available on identified drivers of workload such as forward planning and excessive recording of assessment.
Building on the collective momentum of the pay campaign, members will be supported to say a collective "No" to excessive workload, identified in the VEVT survey as the second biggest contributor to a lack of well-being amongst teachers.
A dedicated page has been established on the website and this will be populated further over the course of the campaign with tips, suggestions, and success stories.
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