It’s Wednesday. It’s half past five. You said you’d be done by seven.
You’ve opened LinkedIn for two minutes, which is never two minutes, and the first post you see is from someone senior at a trust. Something about teacher wellbeing. A photo of them looking thoughtful.
Your marking is on the kitchen table. You’ve moved it twice already. You tell yourself you’ll start in a minute. You know how this goes.
If teacher workload is the reason you can’t start tonight, you’re not a weak link. The system is the problem. But there’s one thing nobody teaches us, and it quietly changes how the pile feels.
Why teacher workload feels so unmanageable
The latest figures say 71% of UK teachers describe their workload as unmanageable. 83% say it’s their main source of stress. Only 3% work inside their contracted hours.
Those numbers feel abstract until you’re the one moving the marking pile. Then it’s just Wednesday at half five and you’re wondering why you can’t start.
You already know the culprits. Policies nobody’s looked at in years. A second data drop that takes three evenings and never comes back with any actions. An initiative that landed in your inbox last week with no extra time to do it. A pastoral caseload that’s grown without anyone acknowledging it.
The gap between wellbeing messaging and the classroom
There’s a pattern I keep seeing. Leaders at the top of schools and trusts producing a steady stream of content about inclusion, belonging, equity and wellbeing, while the teachers working for those same people can barely get through a lesson. Kids being abusive. Policies that don’t work on the ground. Plenty of PR. Not much scaffolding underneath it.
I’m one of the voices on LinkedIn talking about teacher work life balance. I know the gap is real. I also know I sit inside it. The answer isn’t to stop talking about it. The answer is to be honest that the message from the top and the experience in the classroom are often two different things.
The skill nobody builds for you
I’ve written before about how the to-do list quietly becomes a prison sentence rather than a set of choices. This piece is the bit that comes next.
My own shift came less from tools and more from confidence. (Tools matter. But they only matter once you’ve decided what’s worth your time.) Part time HoD. Mum to a neurodivergent child who was close to school avoidance. Something had to give. Learning where I could push back, and actually doing it, repeatedly, changed things more than any system I’ve tried.
But that confidence doesn’t come from nowhere. Nobody really builds it for you. Not in teacher training. Not when you step into middle leadership. You might get shown an Eisenhower matrix once on an INSET. That doesn’t help someone paralysed by the pile in front of them, or someone grinding through busywork because at least it feels like movement.
Knowing which things are actually worth doing is the harder question. We rarely ask it out loud together.
POOCH: a framework we already use with students
At my school, we use a restorative practice framework called POOCH with young people. It stands for Problem, Options, Outcomes, Choice, Help. When a student’s done something they shouldn’t, we sit with them and walk it through.
- What’s the problem, in your words, not mine.
- What options did you have, or do you have now.
- What might happen if you picked each one.
- Which one are you choosing.
- Who can help, or what help do you need.
It works because it makes the student name the thing themselves. Not our words. Theirs. It shows them real options, including ones that weren’t obvious. And the choice is owned, not imposed.
I’ve been wondering how many teachers have ever run POOCH on themselves.
Running POOCH on your own teacher workload
Pick the thing on your list that’s quietly making you feel sick. For the sake of argument, the second data drop of the term. Technically optional. Practically not.
Problem, in your words. Not “I’ve got data due Friday.” More like, “I’m being asked to produce something that takes me three evenings, that I don’t think anyone reads, and I’m resenting it.”
Options. Do it the way you always have. Do a lighter version and flag it. Ask your line manager whether the format could be trimmed. Ask whether it’s needed at all, given the last one never came back with any actions. Swap it against another yes you gave earlier in the term.
Outcomes. You mostly already know what happens with each. You might be surprised by one of them. You’re rarely surprised by the one you’re already doing.
Choice. Which one, this time.
Help. Who could make this easier. Your line manager. Your pastoral lead. The colleague drowning in it next to you. Your head, if you’ve got that kind of relationship.
A lot of the time the answer isn’t “torch the whole data drop.” It’s “do a version, and send an email that opens a conversation.” That’s a choice. It’s smaller than the fantasy. It’s also real.
Saying no as a teacher when your options feel small
Sometimes the options feel small. Sometimes your manager isn’t the listening kind. POOCH still helps, because it separates “I have no choice” from “my choices are constrained.” Those are different things, and collapsing them is what makes the pile feel unbearable.
One thing worth saying. I’ve got a good relationship with my head. A lot of that comes from being willing to ask the question. Not bolshy. Just willing to say, “can I check what this is for, because I’m about to spend ten hours on it.”
I’ve nudged colleagues the same way. Did you ask. Did you suggest the shorter version. Did you say the other thing would have to drop. And honestly, most of the time they’ll say, “no, I didn’t.” Or, “I don’t think I could.” Why not. Because we’ve quietly decided we can’t.
Nobody actually told you that you had to work this weekend. Nobody told you the thing being asked of you is non-negotiable. We think it is because that’s just how teaching is. But is it. Who wrote that rule.
A quiet close
The muscle most of us need more of isn’t time management. It’s the muscle of asking the question.
If that’s the kind of teacher you already are, or the kind you’re quietly becoming, there’s a group of us working on this in the open. Not dispensing advice from a stage. Figuring it out alongside.
If you’re somewhere harder than that, there’s support that’s free and confidential from Education Support.
