If you're starting or continuing your ECT years in September 2025, you’re entering the profession at a moment of long-overdue clarity. For the first time since the big workload reviews of 2016, the Department for Education has formally committed to cutting unnecessary workload and has accepted almost all the recommendations made by the Workload Reduction Taskforce, published in January 2024.
These changes won’t magically remove the pressures of working in a school, but they do reshape the landscape: how schools organise meetings, what counts as acceptable marking and planning expectations, what data should and shouldn’t be collected, and what administrative tasks should no longer fall on teachers at all. If you’re an Early Career Teacher, understanding these shifts will make a huge difference to how you manage your time, your wellbeing, and your professional development.
Here’s what the reforms really mean for you.
Why the Taskforce Matters
Teacher workload has been a persistent problem for years. In 2023, working hours were generally held to still be significantly above what is sustainable, and the government accepted that something had to change. The Taskforce brought unions, leaders, and the DfE together with one clear aim:
Reduce average working time for teachers by five hours per week within three years.
To get there, the January 2024 recommendations push schools to strip away the clutter: the paperwork, the duplicated data, the written marking that moves no learning forward, and the administrative tasks that belong anywhere but in a teacher’s job description.
For ECTs especially, whose early years can feel overwhelming, this new national direction of travel is designed to bring some breathing room.
The Tasks Teachers Should No Longer Be Doing
One of the clearest parts of the reform is the reinstatement, in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD), of the list of administrative and clerical tasks teachers should not routinely be required to carry out.
This list is long, but the principle is simple:
If the task does not require the professional judgement of a teacher, it shouldn’t be your job.
This covers things like:
Routine data entry
Typing up minutes
Chasing pupil absence notes
Collecting money
Bulk photocopying
Managing displays
Organising cover
Filing, stocktaking or inventory management
For many ECTs, especially those in busy primary schools, these tasks quietly eat hours if nobody stops them. The reforms give you a clear basis to avoid them: your time is meant for planning, teaching, assessing and developing your practice - not doing the work of an admin office.
Marking, Planning and Data: A Return to Common Sense
The Taskforce didn’t create new marking rules or planning standards. Instead, it reaffirmed something hugely important: the 2016 workload review group reports on marking, planning and data remain the gold standard for what reasonable expectations look like.
That matters, because those reports contain some of the most teacher-friendly guidance the system has ever produced.
Marking
The message is clear and still fully endorsed:
Marking should be meaningful, manageable and motivating.
There is no expectation for written comments on every piece of work.
Deep or “triple” marking is unnecessary.
For an ECT, this means marking should support learning, not create hours of extra work.
Planning
The 2016 planning review was equally blunt:
There is no required format for lesson plans.
Written plans should not be demanded for accountability or performance management.
Planning should be proportionate and focused on the lesson, not paperwork.
Your mentor may ask for short-term plans for support (that’s normal) but they should not be part of a bureaucratic routine.
Data
The data review tells leaders to:
Avoid collecting data that isn’t used
Stop collecting duplicate or differently formatted versions of the same data
Keep data drops to a small number that genuinely inform teaching
If you find yourself entering data repeatedly with no clear purpose, you’re right to question it.
The Big Change: End of Mandatory Performance-Related Pay
The Taskforce recommended - and the government accepted - the removal of the requirement for performance-related pay (PRP) for teachers in maintained schools from September 2024.
For ECTs, this is quietly significant.
Progression from M1 to M2 (and upwards) has always been tied primarily to successfully completing induction, but many schools previously required detailed evidence portfolios, tick-box targets and performance-management paperwork. With PRP removed, that administrative burden should continue to shrink.
You are still appraised, observed and supported, but the link between complex paperwork and pay progression has been deliberately cut back.
PPA and ECT Time: What You Are Guaranteed
Two parts of your timetable are not negotiable.
1. PPA Time
Every teacher must receive at least:
10% of timetabled teaching time
In blocks of at least 30 minutes
Protected from cover, except in genuine emergencies
If it’s on your timetable, it should be sacred.
2. ECT Release Time
On top of PPA, you receive:
10% additional release time in Year 1
5% additional release time in Year 2
This is part of the Early Career Framework and cannot be reduced or repurposed.
Both your PPA and ECT protected time are existing rights and not an additional set of protections granted as part of the Taskforce recommendations. Instead the Taskforce is explicitly calling out that it is critical that this PPA and ECT release time must not be allowed to be filled or expunged by the noted “adminstrative tasks”.
If your timetable does not reflect these reductions, or if they are used for cover or duties, you should raise it immediately — your mentor, induction tutor, or union can help.
So What Will This Actually Feel Like in September 2025?
Every school implements policies slightly differently, but the direction is clear: expectations should be tighter, more focused, and far more respectful of your time.
Planning and marking should feel lighter
You should not be doing hours of written marking or detailed daily plans unless they genuinely support your development. Most ECTs will find marking more streamlined than in the past and planning more collaborative.
Admin should stay off your plate
If you find yourself repeatedly photocopying, producing spreadsheets, organising trips or chasing forms, you can politely redirect this. The national guidance is firmly on your side.
Data should have a purpose
Most schools now operate with two or three data points per year. If you’re entering data more often, it’s reasonable to ask how it feeds into teaching.
Meetings should be more structured
Schools are expected to think carefully about the number and purpose of meetings, especially those that fall into directed time. You should know which meetings are essential and which are optional — and what you’re meant to get out of them.
Your mentor time should be protected
The Early Career Framework guarantees regular, structured mentoring. This should not be eaten up by cover or administrative jobs.
The Lambeth Picture
While every school has its own culture, Lambeth schools follow the same national guidance and statutory expectations as the rest of England - and most go further. The borough has a strong reputation for ECT support, reflective practice, and structured mentoring. The schools we work with commonly review their marking, planning and meeting schedules with workload in mind, especially in light of the new recommendations.
The result is that most ECTs we speak to describe Lambeth as demanding but fair: proper support, clear expectations and a timetable that makes space for development, not just survival.
If You’re an ECT, Here’s What to Do Before Term Starts
Check your timetable: Confirm your PPA and your ECT release time are clearly marked.
Read your school’s marking, planning and data policies: Look for alignment with the 2016 reviews.
Ask early if something doesn’t make sense: Your mentor is there for exactly this purpose.
Join a union: They were part of the Taskforce and can give clear, practical advice.
Final Thoughts
The one significant recommendation by the Taskforce that the government did not accept was to introduce an additional INSET day dedicated to workload reduction.
Aside from that one element, the Taskforce was a resounding success for teachers at all stages of their career.
The workload reforms won’t make teaching effortless - no policy can do that - but they will help make your early years more sustainable. You’re entering the profession at a moment when the system is consciously trying to give teachers more time to teach, more space to think, and less paperwork for the sake of paperwork.
As an ECT, this is your chance to build good habits, understand your rights, and expect a working environment built on clarity, not chaos.
If you understand the reforms and what sits behind them, you’ll start your career with confidence — and with a far better chance of thriving in the years ahead.