Head Teachers Want To Leave Roles Due To Workload: New education market research has suggested that more than two in three secondary school head teachers want to quit their role, blaming their disillusionment on an increasingly excessive workload. The research, carried out by the Association of School and College Leaders and TES magazine looked at the opinions of 900 senior staff.

These figures, which generally suggest heads are looking to take early retirement, also suggest that only a quarter of deputy and assistant heads were positive about the prospect of stepping up to fill a vacant school head teacher role. Once again, they cited fears over an intense workload.

Head Teachers Want To Leave Roles Due To Workload

Official figures from the Department of Education recently showed that the average head works around 63 hours per week – with the ASCL / TES survey suggesting that more than four in five (82%) senior staff felt their workload had increased from a year previously. For comparison, less than one percent of respondents (0.79%) felt that their workload had decreased.

Most worryingly, the report by the ASCL and TES suggested that more than two thirds (69%) of those surveyed agreed that they were considering leaving the teaching profession before retirement age – with more than a third (37%) saying they ‘agreed strongly’ with that statement.  Around a third (30%) were currently ‘actively planning’ to leave the profession at the time of the survey.

For the majority of those ‘actively planning’ to leave the profession or to take early retirement, a total sample size of 599, 72% said that workload was a reason for this. Two in five (43%) cited changes to exams and the curriculum, and around a third (29%) blamed the threat of Ofsted inspections. Other reasons given included lack of job security (23%) and re-structuring (9%).

You can read the full research findings on the VoicED Website here: TES/ASCL Workload Survey – March 2014