Too much of teachers' time is taken up by "mind-numbingly useless" bureaucracy which saps staff morale and fuels the staffing crisis, says a union leader.

The emphasis on data in England's schools does nothing to boost 

learning, said Association of Teachers and Lecturers leader Mary Bousted.

Dr Bousted called on the government to cut this workload to make teaching a more attractive profession.

Ministers have promised measures to ease the paperwork burden on teachers.

"The average working week for a teacher is now 60 hours and that average includes the school holidays. So in term time teachers are working excessive hours," Dr Bousted told the BBC ahead of the ATL conference in Liverpool.

"And the problem is so much of what they're doing isn't related to effective teaching and learning.

"It's just bureaucratic paper filling, data driven, mind-numbingly useless work they're doing for accountability purposes rather than raising standards of teaching and learning."

Dr Bousted urged the government to implement the findings of three reports on teacher workload in England which it published over the Easter weekend.

She warned: "If teachers have no time to relax, no time to recover from what is a very demanding job, then they are leaving the profession.

"Unless we do something about this workload problem then there aren't going to be teachers to teach children."

Read more...