With one thousand teachers in every constituency, Labour must commit to reducing their workload

Teachers are getting organised ahead of the general election and according to the Guardian, ‘the competition for the teacher vote is hotting up’. The successful Stand Up for Education campaign led by the National Union of Teachers over the past year has forced the three main parties to recognise that education is at a critical tipping point, with teacher workload soaring and morale plummeting across the profession.

In response, the Government launched its own ‘Workload Challenge’ survey in the autumn and within a matter of weeks over 40,000 teachers had made submissions. At the end of January teachers in the NUT will be meeting their MPs to discuss the issues they face around workload and to press for change. With around a thousand teachers in every constituency, the Labour Party must make a clear commitment to listen to and act on their advice if we want to gain their support at the general election.

After four years of Michael Gove’s intransigence and deteriorating industrial relations between teachers’ unions and the coalition parties, Gove’s replacement Nicky Morgan and Lib Dem Schools Minister David Laws have both signalled a newly-found willingness in this election year to listen to teachers’ concerns and act to make changes. Admittedly, it felt like the Labour Education Secretary was late to publicly acknowledge the issues but Tristram Hunt’s intervention last weekend contained some vital signs that he understands some of the issues that teachers face as workers in an increasingly challenging profession.

The national dispute between Government ministers and teachers’ unions is on-going and Labour needs to make a radical return to its founding principles to avert a parliament rife with more industrial action. Miliband and his team need to re-dedicate themselves to the workers they represent including teachers, and strive to improve the quality of their working lives. With teachers working up to 60 hours per week, according to the Department for Education’s own survey, a Labour government should respond by setting achievable targets to reduce workload.

Firstly, Labour must commit to reform the bureaucratic way in which schools are held to account, beyond the current Ofsted model of high accountability based on low trust. Of course high levels of accountability are essential to ensure that we are delivering the very best services but the heavy paperwork and narrow inspection criteria too often dictate the day-to-day running of schools living in fear of the next inspection. As a result of ever shifting agendas and political wrangling, Ofsted has lost the respect and confidence of the teaching profession. We need to move beyond Hunt’s proposals to reform Ofsted to the creation of a new system based on high trust in teachers, recognising that school improvement is better driven where there is support and dialogue and teachers are free to focus on teaching and learning.

Any teacher will tell you that work-life balance is essential if they are to provide engaging and challenging lessons, yet working time has gone up by around 10 per cent under this government. The teacher is the best resource in their classroom and burnt out teachers cannot deliver the world-class education we all want in our schools. A Labour government should require all schools to adopt a binding work-life balance policy to ensure the people we trust to educate and care for our children day-in day-out are best placed to teach ‘world-class’ lessons.

We also need a fresh approach to professionalism. Tristram Hunt is committed to ensuring that all teachers are qualified or working towards qualification and no child deserves any less than this. However, teacher qualification is only the starting point. We need to commit to funding high-quality, professional development for every teacher on an annual basis, building in time for training within the working day. The divisive performance-related pay system made compulsory under this government has increased unnecessary evidence gathering in many schools but shows no sign of actually improving educational standards. A renewed commitment to national pay structures would signal a return to trust in teachers.

The NUT has drawn up a broad manifesto for improving education. It sets out robust yet common sense policies in areas such as a broad curriculum, ending child poverty, building new schools and giving power to local authorities to deal with the school places crisis. If Tristram Hunt wants to set out a truly transformative agenda for education that teachers would support at the ballot box he should start by reading the NUT manifesto.