Optimising School Workload with Practical Tips and Resources from the AITSL Workload Reduction Toolkit

Ask any teacher or school leader about their biggest source of stress, and you’ll likely hear the same answer: workload. 

Evidence indicates that school leaders and teachers are spending more time on workload, administrative tasks, and compliance than ever before. With little to no extra time to plan or innovate, the increased workload leaves many school staff at risk of burnout and declining satisfaction, morale and self-efficacy in their roles.

Moreover, the growing responsibilities of teaching not only affect current staff but also diminish the profession’s appeal to prospective educators. Recent literature continues to highlight the implications of increasing workload for school staff and its effect on staff wellbeing.

While workload is a highly complex issue, both the literature and educational organisations are pointing to solutions at systemic, school, and individual levels. In 2021, AITSL released a Workload Reduction Toolkit for schools to help optimise and streamline workload; alongside other resources, these tools are valuable in supporting teachers, leaders, and school staff.

This article covers:

• Workload pressures driving stress for teachers and school leaders
• Evidence from surveys and literature on the impact of workload on wellbeing and staff retention
• Best practices from the AITSL Workload Reduction Toolkit to streamline processes and reduce burden
• Practical steps schools can take to manage workload and improve efficiency
• Strategies to support staff wellbeing, work-life balance and personal productivity

Workload: A Key Stressor For Educators 

Workload has been a central topic in education, particularly since the pandemic, which amplified operational and compliance demands. Our review of recent literature on teacher wellbeing in Australia highlighted key stressors, risks, and factors influencing teachers’ decisions to leave, or consider leaving, the profession. Across numerous studies, workload consistently emerged as a leading factor affecting teacher wellbeing and mental health. For instance, UNSW (2024) reported that teachers expressing a desire to leave often cited time pressure as a major factor contributing to their dissatisfaction. Similarly, Corbet et al. (2024) identified that, in Australia, high workload, poor work-life balance, exhaustion and emotional burnout linked to reduced professional efficacy as the main reasons for leaving the teaching profession. These findings align with reports from the Black Dog Institute (2023) and Lemon and Turner (2024), which both highlight the impact of unmanageable workloads, poor work-life balance and teacher shortages on staff stress levels.  

Data from our teacher wellbeing survey conducted across more than 60 Australian schools reveals a similar pattern. On average, the top stressors identified by teachers in various schools are:

1. Administrative tasks – 59%
2. Managing difficult or challenging student behaviour – 54%
3. Long working hours or excessive workload – 51%
4. Lack of planning time – 50%
5. Poor work/life balance – 40%
6. Poor communication between leaders and staff – 37%

Percentages indicate, on average, which stressors were selected by survey participants from a list of workplace stressors that impact them

Overall, these findings highlight that excessive and unmanageable workloads, driven by long hours, limited planning time, administrative burdens, increased reporting demands, and the ongoing impact of teacher shortages, require targeted attention at both the system and school levels. As the focus on staff wellbeing continues to grow, there has been a greater emphasis on the mental health and wellbeing of teachers and staff. The literature clearly indicates what staff genuinely need to support their wellness at work: effective workload optimisation.

Wellbeing Initiatives Staff Actually Want

In addition to identifying key stressors, current literature also (very helpfully) points to approaches, initiatives, and focus areas that teachers genuinely need and want – all of which are also discussed in our Teacher Wellbeing Report. For example, a paper from UNSW (2024) outlines ways schools can sustain and support teacher wellbeing by reducing workload, such as streamlining administrative tasks and reviewing face-to-face teaching demands. The authors suggest inviting teacher input, involving staff in decisions, clarifying the rationale behind tasks, and fostering collaboration through common planning times, professional learning communities, and peer mentoring or coaching. Beyond school or organisation-based initiatives, the paper also emphasises the value of providing staff with resources, training, and strategies to help them manage workload and wellbeing effectively. Similarly, Vo et al. (2024) found that teachers value essential practices that promote, encourage, and support ‘balance’ – the ability to manage work demands while maintaining time and energy for personal life. Lemon and Turner (2024) further emphasise that effective teacher wellbeing strategies involve reducing stress at its source by implementing initiatives that directly address workload and key pressure points.

The Workload Conundrum: Why It  Looks Different in Every School Context

In my experience of working with more than 65 schools to survey staff and review their feedback on wellbeing, key stressors and desired wellbeing initiatives, it’s clear that each survey or feedback session reveals a unique set of workload-related pressure points. While many schools experience similar challenges, each context is nuanced, requiring tailored strategic approaches and recommendations informed by leader, teacher and staff insights.

Reducing the Red Tape: Findings from an AITSL Review into Educator Workload

To identify key contributing factors, AITSL conducted the Review to Reduce Red Tape for Teachers and School Leaders. The review  aimed to reduce the amount of time school leaders and teachers spend on non-teaching, non-learning and non-leadership tasks, allowing them to refocus on teaching, learning and leading, which in turn supports improved student outcomes.

The final report of this review, Shifting The Balance: Increasing the focus on teaching and learning by reducing the burden of compliance and administration (AITSL, 2020), captures the experiences and perspectives of teachers, school leaders, school boards, and jurisdictions on compliance and administrative challenges, with the goal of freeing up more time and focus for teaching and learning.

Research and stakeholder consultations identified seven categories of best practices that contribute to successful red tape reduction efforts across Australian schools and various jurisdictions, systems, and sectors.

These seven better practice approaches include:

• Reduce duplication: Streamline processes and reuse existing resources
• Use technology: Apply digital tools to simplify regulation and practice
• Adopt risk-based approaches: Focus compliance efforts where risks are greatest
• Provide compliance support: Offer clear guidance and practical advice
• Cut red tape: Continually review and remove unnecessary requirements
• Co-design with stakeholders: Consult and involve school leaders and teachers
• Embed reduction in policy: Integrate red tape reduction into policymaking from the start.

The report outlines how actions, at the system, school, and individual levels, can help shift the balance away from compliance and administrative burden, freeing up teacher and school leader time to focus on teaching and learning.

Strategic Steps Schools Can Take to Address Workload in Partnership  With Staff 

The AITSL Workload Reduction Toolkit, adapted from the original version developed by the UK Government, outlines seven key phases for optimising workload management in schools and provides a suite of high-quality support materials and resources.

1. Identify and Address the Issues

Research consistently shows that school leaders and teachers are spending more time than ever on administrative tasks. While many of these requirements (see Table: Compliance and Administration Burdens) are essential for ensuring student safety, meeting legislative obligations and satisfying community expectations, they are often perceived as increasingly burdensome; It’s important to acknowledge this complexity at the start of any conversations or consultations about workload with staff, recognising that many tasks and activities are non-negotiable parts of a teacher’s or school leader’s role. Nevertheless, schools can still find ways to better enable staff to focus their time on activities that have the greatest impact on student growth and achievement. 

The ‘Identify the issues’ section of the Workload Reduction Toolkit offers resources for schools to collaboratively examine workload challenges and identify opportunities for rebalancing. These tools support schools in reviewing existing practices to determine which can be streamlined, modified, or discontinued, freeing teachers and school leaders to focus more on teaching, learning, and leading.

Practical strategies include:

• Clearly outline essential compliance and administrative tasks with staff to ensure understanding and correct any misconceptions
• Survey staff to identify workload issues: The staff survey example resource effectively helps to understand workload concerns impacting many staff members
• Have a discussion with staff about workload issues: The structured conversation template provides a valuable way to gain insights from the specific perspectives of individual staff members
• Use an impact graph with staff to pinpoint issues: An impact graph helps staff consider how individual activities affect teaching and learning relative to the workload they impose
• Explore workload issues with all staff: Support discussions that examine these issues and find ways to lessen administrative and compliance burdens
• Decide what tasks are mandatory versus discretionary: Clarify which tasks, requirements, and commitments are essential and which are optional or encouraged
• Address issues and implement any feasible suggestions and solutions: Act quickly and implement changes quickly in response to staff feedback.

2. Optimise Communication

Poor communication in schools, often an overlooked contributor to workload, can significantly impact staff wellbeing and efficiency. This includes communication between leaders and staff, among colleagues and with parents and carers.

Effective communication is essential for keeping everyone connected and informed about what is happening, reducing confusion, lack of clarity, and preventing frustration, gossip, and rising negativity among staff. Engaging with colleagues, parents, and carers is a vital part of an educator’s role. However, the volume of communication, along with expectations from parents and carers for immediate responses, can sometimes feel overwhelming and contribute to workload stress.. 

Schools can reduce communication-related workload by implementing clear communication policies, establishing effective email protocols, and exploring other avenues streamlining communication with external and internal parties. To address communication-related workload challenges, the Workload Reduction Toolkit provides resources and recommendations for schools to enhance communication, supporting them to:

Reflect on the purpose of their communication

• Conduct a communication audit in consultation with staff to identify strengths and areas for improvement 
• Review all daily communications to see if they are effective and whether any can be eliminated
• Determine which parts of the school generate the most administrative work, such as paper, slips, or forms, and consider if they are necessary or if alternative systems or solutions could be implemented feasibly

Develop clear systems, practices and procedures for communication

• Establish and publish a communication policy: Create a clear policy or protocol focusing on key times of the year
• Consider holding a communication workshop: Run a session with staff to discuss how the school and staff communicates
• Ensure clarity and simplicity regarding staff roles, responsibilities, and expectations: Leaders can reduce unnecessary concerns by ensuring staff understand what is expected of them. 

Consider the use of email

• Develop a school email protocol: Streamline the use of email and provide clear and well-understood practices
• Set out times after which staff should not check, send, or reply to work emails (whilst being mindful of urgent needs)
• Use distribution lists and functions such as out-of-office messages and delayed delivery
• All emails should have a descriptive heading or subject line with a status assigned to it to signify its urgency
• Consider a daily/weekly bulletin to reduce emails or categorise messages.

Review staff meetings and/or reduce meeting times

• Ensure clear and consistent meeting practices, agendas and meeting roles
• Consider the number of meetings in place each week and provide flexibility
• Focus meeting topics and ensure they are in alignment with school priorities.

Use a variety of communication channels with stakeholders and the community

• Create ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ sections on staff and parent communication hubs to reduce additional meetings, time for clarification and/or administrative load
• Explore apps and software that can be used to send communication to relevant stakeholders, as well as collecting forms, making payments and booking appointments.

3. Streamline Data Management

Schools collect and manage large volumes of data to monitor student progress and meet compliance requirements. However, some of these are not regulatory or legislative but are still mandatory for schools, such as student censuses and other forms. Data collection, recording, and management are often perceived as repetitive and unnecessarily burdensome for teachers and staff, particularly if this data is not reviewed or used to inform professional practice. 

The Workload Reduction Toolkit encourages schools to review their data collection and management processes. This can open discussions, challenge previously ‘tightly held’ practices and create opportunities to streamline systems. Involving staff in this review also provides a valuable and practical way to consult with staff on workload reduction. 

To help reduce workload related to data collection, the Workload Reduction Toolkit recommends conducting a review of data management practices, including a data collection audit, assessing how data is used in schools, and implementing practices to streamline data collection.

Suggestions include:

• Consider the data that staff are required to collect or enter: Review how data is collected and identify any efficiencies that can be made to relieve workload
• Undertake a data collection audit: A data collection audit supports school staff in recording details of the types of data collected, how it is retained, and how it is reported
• Facilitate a staff workshop to streamline data management: Run workshops with leadership teams and/or staff to review and streamline data management.
  

4. Strategically Plan Ahead

Schools face varying workloads throughout the year, with certain periods placing heavier demands on staff. Developing yearly compliance and event calendars helps forecast busy times, manage expectations and reduce unnecessary tasks.. 

Well-designed calendars are useful tools for tracking upcoming meetings, deadlines, and milestones. They provide visibility of important dates across the school year, support planning and align activities with strategic priorities.  Importantly, calendars are only effective when timelines are achievable within working hours, when deadlines are reasonable and are considered helpful by staff.. 

I recommend that schools regularly review the impact of their calendars or deadline schedules. The tools in this section of the Workload Reduction Toolkit help schools review their yearly calendar, assess the impacts of workload, and decide whether elements can be streamlined, removed, or scheduled at a different time.

Ideas include:

• Plan ahead and identify times when the school calendar is overloaded. Schools could also plan intentional times (days) through the year where there are no requirements to be met
• Engage in regular reviews: Review the year/term calendar promptly to make adjustments for the upcoming year or term
• Ask a range of staff to review and provide feedback from their perspectives before finalising the calendar for distribution
• Consider running a ‘planning a yearly calendar’ workshop to support the school calendar and work together to identify and manage ‘pinch points’
• Share events, professional learning, and meeting schedules well in advance
• Give regular updates and advance notice of evening and after-school events to parents/carers and staff
• Enforce strict deadlines for adding events to the calendar (i.e., before the end of the preceding term).

5. Gain Support from the Board or Governing Bodies

School boards and other governing bodies play an important role in reducing administrative and compliance burdens on school staff. Their understanding of the workload pressures that educators face is critical to creating supportive and sustainable conditions for teaching and learning. 

The ‘Governance’ section within the Workload Reduction Toolkit includes resources to help schools engage boards or governing bodies to understand the key workload issues and facilitate discussions about their role in addressing them. These tools encourage awareness, collaboration and shared responsibility for reducing pressures at the governance level.

Ideas include:

• Facilitate a staff workshop on reducing governance-related workload. This workshop supports school boards and other governing bodies in understanding the key workload issues affecting staff in schools, and facilitates discussion about their role in addressing these issues.
• Conduct a structured conversation with your school board or other governing body to create awareness of the workload issues in your school
  

6. Enhance Staff Personal Wellbeing to Support Work-Life Balance and Productivity

While systems and schools share the responsibility of recognising and addressing workload-related staff wellbeing risks, it must also be acknowledged that educators also benefit from proactively nurturing their personal wellbeing. This section of the Workload Reduction Toolkit focuses on supporting staff to maintain balance, manage their energy and sustain productivity throughout the year. 

Ideas include:

• Establish a wellbeing committee: Assemble a team of staff to coordinate and promote wellbeing initiatives across the school
• Develop a Wellbeing Action plan: Use established frameworks (see related article) to set goals and monitor progress.
• Establish a Wellbeing Policy: Work collaboratively with staff to create a Wellbeing Policy 
• Encourage  Personalised Wellbeing Action Plans: Support staff in setting personal goals and strategies to manage workload and self-care. See our article on Personalised Wellbeing Action Plans
• Offer professional learning: Provide access to high-quality training and resources focused on productivity, time management and personal wellbeing.

7. ​​Evaluate the Impact

The evaluation phase encourages schools to reflect on the effectiveness of actions taken to reduce school workload and support staff wellbeing. This process begins with a structured discussion or the use of prompting questions to revisit the issues initially identified and the actions that have been implemented to address them.

This section of the Workload Reduction Toolkit provides guidance for conducting qualitative reflective practice, drawing on staff insights and expertise. Discussions during this phase help elicit ideas that are tailored and relevant to each school’s specific context.

By the end of the evaluation phase, schools should have a greater understanding of which initiatives were effective, their impact on staff wellbeing and workflow, and potential next steps for further improvement. 

Ideas include:

• Evaluate the outcomes: Engage leadership teams and staff in conversations about the steps taken and support measures implemented
• Evaluate the impact: Review and measure the effect of workload reduction initiatives on staff wellbeing, productivity and workflow management

Conclusion

Addressing workload in schools is a complex, multi-layered challenge, but it is essential for staff wellbeing, retention and student outcomes. As the Workload Reduction Toolkit demonstrates, effective approaches require a combination of systemic strategies, school-level initiatives and individual practices, ranging from streamlining administrative processes and improving communication to supporting personal wellbeing and reflective evaluation. Schools that take a structured, collaborative approach are better equipped to reduce unnecessary pressures and create a culture where staff can focus on what matters most: teaching, learning and leading with impact.

The Well-Led Schools Partnership program builds directly on these principles, offering a practical, guided pathway for schools to address workload and enhance staff wellbeing. The program begins with a school scan and staff survey to identify key stressors and priority areas for improvement. From there, tailored workshops such as ‘Give Your Staff a Voice’ facilitate open conversations about what needs to change, while clarifying joint responsibilities to ensure collective accountability and wellbeing. Staff and leaders are also supported through optional training in time management and coping strategies, and receive access to our personal wellbeing course, equipping them with the skills to manage work and life sustainably.

Finally, the program helps schools translate insight into action by supporting the development of a Staff Wellbeing Action Plan. This enables schools to set clear goals, monitor progress over time and embed continuous improvement into their school culture. By combining evidence-based strategies with practical, hands-on support, the Well-Led Schools Partnership program provides a comprehensive framework for creating healthier, more effective and more sustainable school environments. 

Get all the details here.