Teachers have reacted with cautious optimism to plans set out by the new Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, to reduce teachers' paperwork to enable them to spend more of their time with pupils in the classroom.

That’s the view of specialist educational recruitment consultancy, TLTP Education (The London Teaching Pool) after Ms Morgan wrote to teaching unions to say she wanted do to more to tackle the issue of “unnecessary workload” faced by teachers to give them more time with children.

“The issue of excessive workload and the pressure that comes with it has been a recurring concern of the teachers on our books for some time,” explains Darryl Mydat, Managing Director, TLTP Education. “Their feeling of being unable to devote as much time as they would like to classroom teaching, together with a sense that their concerns were not being listened to by the previous Education Secretary, Michael Gove, had led to considerable disillusionment and, in some cases, good, experienced teachers either leaving the profession or going to work abroad.”

Ms Morgan’s pledge follows the publication of research in the summer, which showed teachers in England spend just a third of their working week teaching pupils, despite working longer hours than their counterparts in other European countries. The study, by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, revealed that full-time teachers in English secondary schools worked 48 hours a week, with one-in-10 reporting weekly workload of 65 hours or more. On average teachers spent just 20 hours a week in the classroom, with the remainder spent on admin, lesson preparation and marking.

In her letter to the unions, the Education Secretary wrote that she had been “”struck by the national and international evidence around this issue… but also by what I have heard from individual teachers about the tasks they are sometimes asked to take on.

“Teachers join the profession to teach and we have a common interest in reducing – where we can – unnecessary work that takes teachers’ time away from teaching.”

“We have spoken with many of the teachers that we place, especially at the start of the new academic year, and whilst they have at least a half-a-day each week for planning, preparation and assessment, it doesn’t come close to the actual time they spend,” explains Mydat.  “However, many remain sceptical and want to see what steps the Education Secretary takes to back up her words with additional resources which means this administrative burden is lifted substantially from classroom teachers to enable them to get back doing what they came into the profession to do.”

TLTP Education forms part of the TLTP Group, a public sector recruitment consultancy founded in 2006.  It provides teachers with access to the latest job opportunities, while supporting schools in attracting the very best teaching candidates and school support staff. It is also the sponsor of Pride in Teaching, an initiative that aims to help promote the value of teachers and the work that they do in nurturing talent and drawing out the potential in children and young adults. By promoting the great work going on in schools, TLTP, through Pride in Teaching, is committed to restoring pride among our teachers and returning the profession to the position of respect it deserves.

Ends.