Today the DfE published the findings from the inaugural Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders study – a major new longitudinal survey of over 11,000 primary and secondary teachers and leaders working in English state schools.
The survey, which was conducted in Spring 2022, covers a range of areas, including working hours, workload and satisfaction with pay.
At a time when many teachers are striking over pay, the findings shed light on teachers’ and leaders’ self-reported working conditions.
The findings reveal that for a specific ‘reference week’ in Spring 2022, defined as the respondent’s ‘last working week covering Monday to Sunday that was not shortened by illness, religious breaks or public holidays’, secondary leaders reported working longer hours on average than their primary counterparts (58.3 vs. 56.2 hours for primary leaders, on average). These figures are averaged across both full and part-time workers, and as primary leaders are more likely to work part time than their secondary counterparts, this partially explains this difference.
