passport - National Union of Teachers

29Tackling excessiveworkloadTackling the excessive workload culture prevalentin so many schools is one of the NUT’s prioritiesand is good for children as well as for teachersand their families. Recent Government surveyshave revealed that most teachers work onaverage at least 50 hours a week, leaving littletime for family and leisure activities. Tired andover-worked teachers are less likely to performat their best, potentially compromising theeducational outcomes for their pupils.Particular issues of concern to NUT members,highlighted in the NUT’s latest workload survey,include over-burdensome lesson planningrequirements, with some head teachers, forexample, expecting to check all lesson plans,too many meetings, high class sizes, excessivelesson observation and an overall lack ofwork-life balance.You can find more information atwww.teachers.org.uk/workloadSpeak to your NUT school representativeor division/association secretary if you haveconcerns about your workload.Send My FriendThe NUT is a major supporterof the Global Campaign forEducation (GCE), a coalitionof charities and teacher unionswhich organises the Send MyFriend to School campaigneach year.Thanks to the campaigning of hundreds ofthousands of teachers and young people, millionsof primary age children that were previouslydenied access to education now go to school.GCE’s campaign theme this year is ‘Go for Gold’,to tie in with the Olympic Games in London.The campaign narrative tells young people abouta great education race begun in 2000 when worldleaders promised education for all by 2015.It charts the progress to date and notes that muchlike marathon runners, world leaders seem to have‘hit a wall’ with progress stalling of late with67 million children still missing out on school.You can find out more about the campaign atwww.sendmyfriend.org Please support thecampaign and help us put pressure on worldleaders to keep their promise to delivereducation for all.About the NUT