Form questions
Teacher survey questions about workload and support
Twenty two questions covers an annual round and ten covers a term check. Three cannot be dropped: how many hours a teacher works outside timetabled class in a normal week, how that time splits across planning, marking, reporting and meetings, and whether the current load is sustainable. The hours number is the only figure in the survey that a timetable can answer.
A teaching staff survey is only worth running if it finds out where the hours go, because everything else a school could ask is downstream of that. These questions count the hours, split them by task, and then ask what would give some of them back.
The questions
Your role
Which faculty or stage do you teach in?DropdownRequired
Offer prefer not to say. Marking load differs enormously between faculties.
How many years have you been teaching?Dropdown
Optional, with prefer not to say. Early career teachers answer every row differently.
Do you hold a coordination or leadership role?Single choice
Yes with time release, yes without, no. The middle answer is where burnout concentrates.
How many different year levels do you teach this year?Number
Preparation load scales with the number of distinct courses, not with class count.
Workload
How many hours do you work outside timetabled class in a normal week?NumberRequired
A normal week, not a reporting week. An estimate beats a blank.
How much of that goes to planning and preparation?Rating gridRequired
Row one of an allocation grid running none, a little, a moderate amount, most of it.
How much goes to marking and feedback?Rating gridRequired
Row two.
How much goes to reporting and data entry?Rating gridRequired
Row three, and the row most often reducible by a decision rather than by money.
How much goes to meetings?Rating gridRequired
Row four.
How much goes to communication with families?Rating gridRequired
Row five.
How much goes to yard duty and co curricular?Rating gridRequired
Row six.
How often do you work on a weekend during term?Single choice
Every weekend through never. A blunt second measure of the hours question.
How sustainable is your current workload?Single choiceRequired
Sustainable indefinitely, sustainable this year, not past this term, not now. A horizon, not a rating.
Support and resources
Leadership protects my planning timeRating gridRequired
Row one of a five point agreement grid.
Behaviour is dealt with consistently across the schoolRating gridRequired
Row two. Consistency, not severity, is what teachers ask for.
I get a straight answer when I ask for somethingRating gridRequired
Row three.
New initiatives arrive with time to implement themRating gridRequired
Row four.
What is missing that would make the biggest difference?Multiple choice
Assistant time, equipment, reliable technology, release time, specialist support, or nothing.
How often does technology in your room fail?Single choice
Specific, countable and usually cheaper to fix than anything else on the list.
Professional learning
What professional learning would you actually use?Multiple choice
Ask would use rather than would like, which collects politeness.
Was the professional learning you did this year worth the time?Single choice
Include a did none option rather than forcing a rating.
What would you stop doing tomorrow if you could?Long text
One task, and why it costs more than it returns.
Which questions to make required
This survey is anonymous and carries no name field; the faculty question offers prefer not to say. Five things are required. The faculty is required because a school wide average conceals the faculty that needs help. The hours number is required because it is the only externally comparable figure in the instrument. Every row of the allocation and support grids is required, since a partly filled grid cannot be averaged. The sustainability question is required because it is the one answer that should change a timetable. Nothing about professional learning is required.
- Which faculty or stage do you teach in?
- How many hours do you work outside timetabled class in a normal week?
- How much of that goes to planning and preparation?
- How much goes to marking and feedback?
- How much goes to reporting and data entry?
- How much goes to meetings?
- How much goes to communication with families?
- How much goes to yard duty and co curricular?
- How sustainable is your current workload?
- Leadership protects my planning time
- Behaviour is dealt with consistently across the school
- I get a straight answer when I ask for something
- New initiatives arrive with time to implement them
The form built from these questions
A static copy of a form built from part of the bank, exactly as it renders.
How to change this for a different school
A primary school. One teacher with one class changes the shape of the workload: preparation is broad rather than deep, marking is lighter, and communication with families is much heavier. Replace the year levels taught question with one about the number of subjects prepared, add a row to the allocation grid for differentiation and individual learning plans, and ask specifically about time spent on students with additional needs, which is where primary workload actually concentrates. A school with a large casual or relief workforce. Casual teachers see the school differently and are rarely surveyed at all. Run a six question version for them: whether they get the lesson plan before the class, whether they know the behaviour process, whether they are told who to ask, whether the pay process works, and whether they would come back. The last answer is the staffing forecast. A small school. Below about twenty five teaching staff, faculty level reporting identifies people, so drop the faculty question and report only a school total. Keep the hours number, because it is comparable against published expectations regardless of how many people answered, and pair the survey with a staff meeting rather than a report.
Questions people ask
Why ask for a number of hours rather than a band?
Because a band hides the tail. A number field gives you a median and a top decile, and the top decile is usually the group already drafting a resignation. Bands compress exactly the range that matters, and a school that only reports a median never sees the people carrying twice it.
Should the faculty be recorded?
Yes, with a prefer not to say option, unless the school is small enough that a faculty is three people. Marking and preparation load vary enormously by subject, and a school wide average conceals the one department where the workload is genuinely unmanageable.
When should a teacher survey run?
Mid term and well before timetabling. Run it after the timetable is set and it collects careful evidence for a decision that can no longer be changed, which teachers notice immediately. Avoid reporting weeks entirely, since the hours answer will describe that fortnight rather than a normal one.
How do you make teachers believe it is anonymous?
Remove every identifying field, say what the reporting floor is, and offer prefer not to say on the demographic questions. Then publish the results in full, including the uncomfortable rows. Belief in anonymity is built by what happened after the last survey, not by an assurance at the top of this one.
What does a good result look like?
On the sustainability question, anything above ten per cent answering not sustainable now deserves an immediate response rather than a place in an annual report. The allocation grid matters more than the hours total: reporting and data entry scoring high is a decision a school can reverse in a week.
Should school leaders answer the same survey?
Yes, with a role question so the groups can be compared. Leaders reliably rate the support rows higher than teachers do, and the size of that gap predicts trouble better than either score alone. It is also the most efficient way to show a leadership team what the survey found.
Is professional learning worth asking about here?
Only in the form of what teachers would actually use. A wish list produces a catalogue nobody attends. Asking whether the learning done this year was worth the time, with a did none option, gives a truer picture of the school professional learning budget than attendance records do.
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