School leaders are carrying an ever-growing ‘invisible workload’ of emotional labour, crisis management and unrecognised responsibilities that rarely feature in job descriptions. Leadership Focus journalist Nic Paton explores the hidden demands of the role, their impact on well-being and retention, and why many are calling for greater recognition and support.
The hidden reality of school leadership
The complexities of simply trying to carve out time for a quick Teams call with Leadership Focus illustrate all too starkly the burden of the ‘invisible workload’ that school leaders face day in and day out during the school day.
These comments (highlighted above) come from, respectively, Christine deGraft-Hanson, head teacher of Garston Manor School in Watford; Lorna Legg, head teacher of Offwell Church of England Primary School in Devon; and Claire Roche, assistant head teacher at Rowan Tree Primary School in Manchester. We’ll come back to their stories in more detail shortly.
KATE ATKINSON,
NAHT NATIONAL SECRETARY (ADVICE)
As NAHT national secretary (advice) Kate Atkinson explains to Leadership Focus: “Much is written about school leaders’ workload; it’s usually in the context of hours worked, accountability pressures and things like data demands. Less visible, but no less impactful, is another layer of labour that head teachers and senior leaders shoulder every day. It is work that is rarely logged, formally recognised or resourced, but shapes leaders’ well-being, decision‑making and capacity to lead.
The panel at the end provides more detail on this but leaders, as Kate points out, are routinely expected to do the following:
- Support staff experiencing stress, illness or personal crises
- Mediate between parents and teachers in high‑emotion situations
- Hold difficult conversations while maintaining trust and professionalism
- Remain outwardly composed during safeguarding incidents or external scrutiny
- Internalise responsibility for every aspect of school life, even where ‘technically’ it is not their responsibility.
“In advice calls to NAHT, this ‘invisible workload’ frequently sits beneath stories of burnout, illness and moments where exhausted leaders reflect on mistakes made under pressure. These tasks often fall outside of formal job descriptions and accountability frameworks, but they have become a defining feature of modern school leadership,” she adds.
At the same time, leaders describe having to ‘park’ their own emotional responses to ensure others feel supported – something that can bring with it “a heavy but often unspoken” emotional burden, she argues.
“School leaders are expected to provide calm, stability and reassurance. This ‘bedrock’ role is played in relation to staff, pupils, parents and sometimes the wider community, even in the most challenging of circumstances,” Kate says. “While vital to the health of a school, this labour is rarely named, measured or resourced.”
The hidden reality of school leadership
The complexities of simply trying to carve out time for a quick Teams call with Leadership Focus illustrate all too starkly the burden of the ‘invisible workload’ that school leaders face day in and day out during the school day.
These comments (highlighted above) come from, respectively, Christine deGraft-Hanson, head teacher of Garston Manor School in Watford; Lorna Legg, head teacher of Offwell Church of England Primary School in Devon; and Claire Roche, assistant head teacher at Rowan Tree Primary School in Manchester. We’ll come back to their stories in more detail shortly.
KATE ATKINSON,
NAHT NATIONAL SECRETARY (ADVICE)
As NAHT national secretary (advice) Kate Atkinson explains to Leadership Focus: “Much is written about school leaders’ workload; it’s usually in the context of hours worked, accountability pressures and things like data demands. Less visible, but no less impactful, is another layer of labour that head teachers and senior leaders shoulder every day. It is work that is rarely logged, formally recognised or resourced, but shapes leaders’ well-being, decision‑making and capacity to lead.
The panel at the end provides more detail on this but leaders, as Kate points out, are routinely expected to do the following:
- Support staff experiencing stress, illness or personal crises
- Mediate between parents and teachers in high‑emotion situations
- Hold difficult conversations while maintaining trust and professionalism
- Remain outwardly composed during safeguarding incidents or external scrutiny
- Internalise responsibility for every aspect of school life, even where ‘technically’ it is not their responsibility.
“In advice calls to NAHT, this ‘invisible workload’ frequently sits beneath stories of burnout, illness and moments where exhausted leaders reflect on mistakes made under pressure. These tasks often fall outside of formal job descriptions and accountability frameworks, but they have become a defining feature of modern school leadership,” she adds.
At the same time, leaders describe having to ‘park’ their own emotional responses to ensure others feel supported – something that can bring with it “a heavy but often unspoken” emotional burden, she argues.
“School leaders are expected to provide calm, stability and reassurance. This ‘bedrock’ role is played in relation to staff, pupils, parents and sometimes the wider community, even in the most challenging of circumstances,” Kate says. “While vital to the health of a school, this labour is rarely named, measured or resourced.”
When every day goes off plan
Take, for example, Christine’s description of her day, even before her 9.30am call with Leadership Focus (ironically, of course, itself an additional ‘invisible’ extra burden on a school leader’s day). “Already I’ve had to speak with six members of staff about an unexpected issue raised by a parent. I’ve held a senior leadership team briefing and a whole-staff briefing. My deputy head teacher has just passed me a partially finished report that needs to be ready for Tuesday. Someone has brought me a letter about a request from a parent,” she says.
JAMES BOWEN,
NAHT ASSISTANT GENERAL SECRETARY
“Invisible workload is what school leaders will tell you about their day – your best-laid plans go to waste within about five minutes of walking into the building,” agrees NAHT assistant general secretary James Bowen. “The idea that you can structure your day as a school leader and you can map out very nicely what should happen is pretty laughable.
“I was speaking to someone the other day who said they’d come in at 8am, and someone had knocked on the door and explained that there was a major issue brewing in the school that needed immediate attention. They started to deal with that. Within an hour of that happening, a pipe burst, and they had sewage leaking all over the playground. That’s the day.
“Or, you go in and then someone says, ‘I have a parent at the school gate in floods of tears’, or someone needs to see you. In schools, you work on a very tight staffing basis. There are not loads of people, so you can’t go, ‘Well, we’ll get the so and so to deal with it’. When 95% of your staff are in classrooms, who else is going to pick it up? Nearly always, it comes back down to you as the school leader,” he says.
When every day goes off plan
Take, for example, Christine’s description of her day, even before her 9.30am call with Leadership Focus (ironically, of course, itself an additional ‘invisible’ extra burden on a school leader’s day). “Already I’ve had to speak with six members of staff about an unexpected issue raised by a parent. I’ve held a senior leadership team briefing and a whole-staff briefing. My deputy head teacher has just passed me a partially finished report that needs to be ready for Tuesday. Someone has brought me a letter about a request from a parent,” she says.
JAMES BOWEN,
NAHT ASSISTANT GENERAL SECRETARY
“Invisible workload is what school leaders will tell you about their day – your best-laid plans go to waste within about five minutes of walking into the building,” agrees NAHT assistant general secretary James Bowen. “The idea that you can structure your day as a school leader and you can map out very nicely what should happen is pretty laughable.
“I was speaking to someone the other day who said they’d come in at 8am, and someone had knocked on the door and explained that there was a major issue brewing in the school that needed immediate attention. They started to deal with that. Within an hour of that happening, a pipe burst, and they had sewage leaking all over the playground. That’s the day.
“Or, you go in and then someone says, ‘I have a parent at the school gate in floods of tears’, or someone needs to see you. In schools, you work on a very tight staffing basis. There are not loads of people, so you can’t go, ‘Well, we’ll get the so and so to deal with it’. When 95% of your staff are in classrooms, who else is going to pick it up? Nearly always, it comes back down to you as the school leader,” he says.
“It could be anything. It could be a phone call that says there was a violent incident last night in the local estate that children witnessed, or that there’s been a death in a pupil’s family and they’re coming in – you have to deal with that.
“You might find yourself sitting down with a member of staff who’s just been given a medical diagnosis or has had a death in the family, who needs you emotionally. You step out of that meeting, and there’s a parent who’s furious and wants to speak to you. The emotional drain and toll it takes on you is immense, with very little time to recharge between jobs.
“Then on top of this, there is all the strategic stuff: ‘We need to sit down for two hours now and talk about the curriculum assessment review and what that means.’
“Furthermore, one of the things school leaders will tell you is that work is always on their mind or in the back of their mind. In some jobs, at five o’clock on a Friday night, you can switch off the laptop, walk away and not think about it until Monday morning. School leadership isn’t like that. You are constantly thinking about it. So over the weekend, for example, you worry about that social services referral and whether or not it got done.
“Often, when you speak to school leaders during the six-week summer holidays, they’ll say, ‘It took me three weeks to switch off; it wasn’t until the middle of August that I could actually switch off mentally’. So I think you’re carrying that constant accountability, constant responsibility, on your shoulders, in your head, and all of that is part of what’s going on here as well,” James adds.
“It could be anything. It could be a phone call that says there was a violent incident last night in the local estate that children witnessed, or that there’s been a death in a pupil’s family and they’re coming in – you have to deal with that.
“You might find yourself sitting down with a member of staff who’s just been given a medical diagnosis or has had a death in the family, who needs you emotionally. You step out of that meeting, and there’s a parent who’s furious and wants to speak to you. The emotional drain and toll it takes on you is immense, with very little time to recharge between jobs.
“Then on top of this, there is all the strategic stuff: ‘We need to sit down for two hours now and talk about the curriculum assessment review and what that means.’
“Furthermore, one of the things school leaders will tell you is that work is always on their mind or in the back of their mind. In some jobs, at five o’clock on a Friday night, you can switch off the laptop, walk away and not think about it until Monday morning. School leadership isn’t like that. You are constantly thinking about it. So over the weekend, for example, you worry about that social services referral and whether or not it got done.
“Often, when you speak to school leaders during the six-week summer holidays, they’ll say, ‘It took me three weeks to switch off; it wasn’t until the middle of August that I could actually switch off mentally’. So I think you’re carrying that constant accountability, constant responsibility, on your shoulders, in your head, and all of that is part of what’s going on here as well,” James adds.
The need to switch off
IAN HARTWRIGHT,
NAHT HEAD OF POLICY (PROFESSIONAL)
“I don’t think policymakers really understand what the day-to-day is like for school leaders. It also, for me, tells us something about work intensity, especially for leaders, which is an interesting issue that often goes under the radar in these discussions,” agrees Ian Hartwright, NAHT head of policy (professional).
“There is significant change coming into schools, a lot of which we are supportive of – the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) changes, changes to the curriculum and assessment, work around engagement and so on. But somebody has to organise and deliver that on the ground; even if you are just going to map it, you have to do all the work around it.
“Leaders work the longest hours of all teaching professionals, and pretty much all teaching professionals routinely work excessive hours. Most – indeed, almost all – leaders are doing more than 50 hours a week, which is more than enough. We’re not looking after the wider well-being of leaders and making sure that they have periods of proper rest.
“NAHT’s longitudinal survey evidence unequivocally shows that deputy and assistant head teachers considering headship see all this; they see the enormous workload – visible and invisible – and, unsurprisingly, decide ‘I don’t think I fancy that – the risks to my well-being are too great’,” Ian argues.
Ian’s comments about the need for “periods of proper rest” emphasise a further important point. While there may not be much that can be done to reduce this constant buffeting during the school day, one thing that can help is to make sure it doesn’t carry on outside school hours or, even worse, during school holidays. In France, for example, there is now a ‘right to disconnect’, which gives workers a legal right to switch off from work-related communications and activities outside their normal working hours.
The need to switch off
IAN HARTWRIGHT,
NAHT HEAD OF POLICY (PROFESSIONAL)
“I don’t think policymakers really understand what the day-to-day is like for school leaders. It also, for me, tells us something about work intensity, especially for leaders, which is an interesting issue that often goes under the radar in these discussions,” agrees Ian Hartwright, NAHT head of policy (professional).
“There is significant change coming into schools, a lot of which we are supportive of – the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) changes, changes to the curriculum and assessment, work around engagement and so on. But somebody has to organise and deliver that on the ground; even if you are just going to map it, you have to do all the work around it.
“Leaders work the longest hours of all teaching professionals, and pretty much all teaching professionals routinely work excessive hours. Most – indeed, almost all – leaders are doing more than 50 hours a week, which is more than enough. We’re not looking after the wider well-being of leaders and making sure that they have periods of proper rest.
“NAHT’s longitudinal survey evidence unequivocally shows that deputy and assistant head teachers considering headship see all this; they see the enormous workload – visible and invisible – and, unsurprisingly, decide ‘I don’t think I fancy that – the risks to my well-being are too great’,” Ian argues.
Ian’s comments about the need for “periods of proper rest” emphasise a further important point. While there may not be much that can be done to reduce this constant buffeting during the school day, one thing that can help is to make sure it doesn’t carry on outside school hours or, even worse, during school holidays. In France, for example, there is now a ‘right to disconnect’, which gives workers a legal right to switch off from work-related communications and activities outside their normal working hours.
Invisible workload, visible impact
LAURA DOEL,
NAHT NATIONAL SECRETARY (WALES)
NAHT in Wales has recently won a similar concession for school leaders, as part of a review of the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (Wales), as Laura Doel, NAHT national secretary (Wales), explains.
“NAHT Cymru has been campaigning for a long time to reduce workload and improve well-being – in fact, in 2023, we entered into industrial action in Wales over workload,” Laura tells Leadership Focus.
“One of the resolutions of that dispute was that we would look to enshrine in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document some protection for working hours of school leaders in particular. We have run numerous surveys showing that our members in Wales frequently work more than 65 hours a week and are regularly contacted during holiday periods and over weekends.
“When speaking to members in Wales, they said that, while they recognised long hours came with the job, they wanted it to be clear that when they have a break, they are on a break.
“We put this evidence into our latest submission to the independent Welsh Pay Review Body and had a number of meetings with the Welsh Government around this. We are very pleased that, as a result, Wales will be the first nation in the UK to legislate on protected leave for school leaders,” Laura continues.
“That will mean that during holidays and weekends, school leaders will be left alone. They will only be contacted in extreme circumstances – for example, if there is a death in the school community, if there are safeguarding concerns involving a learner or if something happens during a holiday period to prevent the school from reopening as normal, such as a flood, a fire, no heating and so on. Those are all reasonable requests, and I am sure no school leader would object to being contacted in those circumstances.
“But it means we now have a precedent in Wales that makes clear that school leaders need to be left alone to recharge and refresh during those holiday periods. It will give head teachers agency to say, ‘No, I don’t need to and am not going to deal with that at this point’. A genuine concern from a parent, a call from the police or a safeguarding issue, of course, they’re going to step up and deal with that. That is not the purpose of ‘protected leave’ as a concept. Protected leave is to combat the regular intrusions head teachers get while on leave or over weekends that, in fact, could be dealt with either when they return or by someone else.
“This is a huge achievement for Wales, but it is a huge deal, too, for NAHT nationally because it allows other jurisdictions – England and Northern Ireland – to press for the same thing, for it to be rolled out to the other nations. It is something that, hopefully, we’ll be able to build on as a profession,” Laura adds.
Not long after Laura spoke to Leadership Focus, the pressure NAHT was applying in England paid off, with the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) recommending better protection for leaders’ working time, including the right to uninterrupted breaks during school holidays and weekends.
DR GRAHAM GAULT,
NAHT NATIONAL SECRETARY (NORTHERN IRELAND)
Workload, workload intensity and invisible workload are also all pressing concerns for members in Northern Ireland, says Dr Graham Gault, NAHT national secretary (Northern Ireland). In fact, as he points out, workload is very much at the heart of the ongoing trade dispute with the Northern Ireland Department of Education.
“There is so much invisible workload that it creates an undercurrent of work that rarely features in any formal accounting,” he highlights. This is amplified by the steady erosion of the capacity of support agencies, whose responsibilities (and workloads) then end up, either de facto or formally, with schools and school leaders.
“Delays in accessing children and adolescent mental health services, long waiting lists for assessments and stretched social care provision – those issues don’t disappear; they just land on school leaders and stay there,” Graham says.
“In practice, that means senior leaders spend more time chasing referrals, attending multi-agency meetings and holding risk for extended periods, often without the authority or specialist support to resolve that risk.
“In many cases, we find it is work that sits outside a school’s traditional remit, indeed outside education altogether. But it becomes the daily reality of leading a school whenever other parts of the wider social structures fall apart.
“Another area that we see in Northern Ireland is the breakdown of early intervention from health services at very early stages in a child’s life, with key developmental milestones being missed. Early intervention becomes impossible whenever parts of the wider system break down. And school leaders are picking that up, too.
“Then there is the impact of societal changes, especially how schools are nowadays being engaged with by parents and communities. There is an increasing awareness of rights, which is good, and there has been the development of complaints processes, which, again, is not a bad thing. But a more transactional relationship has developed between home and school.
“A lot of our members would report, in some cases, the ‘weaponisation’ of those accountability processes. School leaders are expending significant time managing concerns, challenges and escalations. And much of that is careful, relational, time-consuming work for which – certainly in Northern Ireland – school leaders have no formal training and no time to deliver it.
“Individually, each of these responsibilities might be manageable but, collectively, they create that relentless undercurrent of work that just doesn’t appear in any formal accounting of workload,” Graham adds.
Invisible workload, visible impact
LAURA DOEL,
NAHT NATIONAL SECRETARY (WALES)
NAHT in Wales has recently won a similar concession for school leaders, as part of a review of the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (Wales), as Laura Doel, NAHT national secretary (Wales), explains.
“NAHT Cymru has been campaigning for a long time to reduce workload and improve well-being – in fact, in 2023, we entered into industrial action in Wales over workload,” Laura tells Leadership Focus.
“One of the resolutions of that dispute was that we would look to enshrine in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document some protection for working hours of school leaders in particular. We have run numerous surveys showing that our members in Wales frequently work more than 65 hours a week and are regularly contacted during holiday periods and over weekends.
“When speaking to members in Wales, they said that, while they recognised long hours came with the job, they wanted it to be clear that when they have a break, they are on a break.
“We put this evidence into our latest submission to the independent Welsh Pay Review Body and had a number of meetings with the Welsh Government around this. We are very pleased that, as a result, Wales will be the first nation in the UK to legislate on protected leave for school leaders,” Laura continues.
“That will mean that during holidays and weekends, school leaders will be left alone. They will only be contacted in extreme circumstances – for example, if there is a death in the school community, if there are safeguarding concerns involving a learner or if something happens during a holiday period to prevent the school from reopening as normal, such as a flood, a fire, no heating and so on. Those are all reasonable requests, and I am sure no school leader would object to being contacted in those circumstances.
“But it means we now have a precedent in Wales that makes clear that school leaders need to be left alone to recharge and refresh during those holiday periods. It will give head teachers agency to say, ‘No, I don’t need to and am not going to deal with that at this point’. A genuine concern from a parent, a call from the police or a safeguarding issue, of course, they’re going to step up and deal with that. That is not the purpose of ‘protected leave’ as a concept. Protected leave is to combat the regular intrusions head teachers get while on leave or over weekends that, in fact, could be dealt with either when they return or by someone else.
“This is a huge achievement for Wales, but it is a huge deal, too, for NAHT nationally because it allows other jurisdictions – England and Northern Ireland – to press for the same thing, for it to be rolled out to the other nations. It is something that, hopefully, we’ll be able to build on as a profession,” Laura adds.
Not long after Laura spoke to Leadership Focus, the pressure NAHT was applying in England paid off, with the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) recommending better protection for leaders’ working time, including the right to uninterrupted breaks during school holidays and weekends.
DR GRAHAM GAULT,
NAHT NATIONAL SECRETARY (NORTHERN IRELAND)
Workload, workload intensity and invisible workload are also all pressing concerns for members in Northern Ireland, says Dr Graham Gault, NAHT national secretary (Northern Ireland). In fact, as he points out, workload is very much at the heart of the ongoing trade dispute with the Northern Ireland Department of Education.
“There is so much invisible workload that it creates an undercurrent of work that rarely features in any formal accounting,” he highlights. This is amplified by the steady erosion of the capacity of support agencies, whose responsibilities (and workloads) then end up, either de facto or formally, with schools and school leaders.
“Delays in accessing children and adolescent mental health services, long waiting lists for assessments and stretched social care provision – those issues don’t disappear; they just land on school leaders and stay there,” Graham says.
“In practice, that means senior leaders spend more time chasing referrals, attending multi-agency meetings and holding risk for extended periods, often without the authority or specialist support to resolve that risk.
“In many cases, we find it is work that sits outside a school’s traditional remit, indeed outside education altogether. But it becomes the daily reality of leading a school whenever other parts of the wider social structures fall apart.
“Another area that we see in Northern Ireland is the breakdown of early intervention from health services at very early stages in a child’s life, with key developmental milestones being missed. Early intervention becomes impossible whenever parts of the wider system break down. And school leaders are picking that up, too.
“Then there is the impact of societal changes, especially how schools are nowadays being engaged with by parents and communities. There is an increasing awareness of rights, which is good, and there has been the development of complaints processes, which, again, is not a bad thing. But a more transactional relationship has developed between home and school.
“A lot of our members would report, in some cases, the ‘weaponisation’ of those accountability processes. School leaders are expending significant time managing concerns, challenges and escalations. And much of that is careful, relational, time-consuming work for which – certainly in Northern Ireland – school leaders have no formal training and no time to deliver it.
“Individually, each of these responsibilities might be manageable but, collectively, they create that relentless undercurrent of work that just doesn’t appear in any formal accounting of workload,” Graham adds.
When invisible workload hits differently
School leaders across the board experience intense invisible workload; it is, as we have seen, part and parcel of an increasingly busy and intense school day.
But female school leaders, school leaders with disabilities and school leaders of colour can all experience it even more sharply, as members of NAHT’s equality networks all emphasise. This brings us full circle back to the comments from Christine, Lorna and Claire – all network members – at the beginning of the article.
As Lorna, a member of the Leaders for Race Equality Network, explains: “There are certain things that are part of the job: safeguarding, responding to family crises and staff crises. That is the job: making sure people can function, checking in with them, resolving problems before they arise, being available and absorbing those concerns. A school wouldn’t work without us being prepared to do that.
“But I do also think there has been an increase in ‘asks’. There is now, I feel – and this is from feedback from the network too – more racist abuse, as well as more parents who are demanding high levels of SEND support, more use of artificial intelligence (AI) to weaponise legislation and more information requests. And it is all compounded by the high-stakes accountability culture we face as school leaders.
“We have to mediate; we have to radiate calm. But who supports us? Where is the acknowledgement in terms of clinical supervision that, for example, social workers have, or health service clinicians have?
“I do think voicing this is important, sharing it. There needs to be recognition, centrally from the government, of the need for clinical supervision for school leaders. There also needs to be greater diversity in the people providing the support so that they understand those issues and can advocate effectively for that person,” she adds.
“For us as Black leaders, global majority leaders, the pressure is immense,” agrees Christine, a member of the same network. “This is my first headship. I was also the only Black head teacher in a local authority with 520 schools, and I did not want to come in and ‘let the side down’.
“Even now, I say to colleagues from the global majority, ‘You have to keep pushing’. There are risks in all schools that need to be dealt with and that are not related to the ‘day job’ of delivering a high-quality education. We have staff issues and pressure from the local authority to deal with. And then the pressure of dealing with proving that, as a Black person or a leader from the global majority, you are just as good,” she adds.
Another school leader, in the West Midlands, and also a member of the Leaders for Race Equality network, says: “I am also from the global majority. Working with the network has highlighted the very different experiences and challenges that members of the group face.
When invisible workload hits differently
School leaders across the board experience intense invisible workload; it is, as we have seen, part and parcel of an increasingly busy and intense school day.
But female school leaders, school leaders with disabilities and school leaders of colour can all experience it even more sharply, as members of NAHT’s equality networks all emphasise. This brings us full circle back to the comments from Christine, Lorna and Claire – all network members – at the beginning of the article.
As Lorna, a member of the Leaders for Race Equality Network, explains: “There are certain things that are part of the job: safeguarding, responding to family crises and staff crises. That is the job: making sure people can function, checking in with them, resolving problems before they arise, being available and absorbing those concerns. A school wouldn’t work without us being prepared to do that.
“But I do also think there has been an increase in ‘asks’. There is now, I feel – and this is from feedback from the network too – more racist abuse, as well as more parents who are demanding high levels of SEND support, more use of artificial intelligence (AI) to weaponise legislation and more information requests. And it is all compounded by the high-stakes accountability culture we face as school leaders.
“We have to mediate; we have to radiate calm. But who supports us? Where is the acknowledgement in terms of clinical supervision that, for example, social workers have, or health service clinicians have?
“I do think voicing this is important, sharing it. There needs to be recognition, centrally from the government, of the need for clinical supervision for school leaders. There also needs to be greater diversity in the people providing the support so that they understand those issues and can advocate effectively for that person,” she adds.
“For us as Black leaders, global majority leaders, the pressure is immense,” agrees Christine, a member of the same network. “This is my first headship. I was also the only Black head teacher in a local authority with 520 schools, and I did not want to come in and ‘let the side down’.
“Even now, I say to colleagues from the global majority, ‘You have to keep pushing’. There are risks in all schools that need to be dealt with and that are not related to the ‘day job’ of delivering a high-quality education. We have staff issues and pressure from the local authority to deal with. And then the pressure of dealing with proving that, as a Black person or a leader from the global majority, you are just as good,” she adds.
Another school leader, in the West Midlands, and also a member of the Leaders for Race Equality network, says: “I am also from the global majority. Working with the network has highlighted the very different experiences and challenges that members of the group face.
“Contributing to the NAHT’s ‘You are not alone’ book forced me to think more deeply and objectively about my personal journey and the extent to which one’s ethnicity compounds the ‘invisible workload’. Surprisingly, I found that in leading a semi-rural village school, my ethnicity and gender impacted relationships with the community far less than they have in my current urban multi-cultural setting, where, for example, an allegation of racism towards a particular ethnic group of parents left me both astounded and dumbfounded.
“While I love my job and feel privileged to have been able to play a key role in shaping the lives of future generations, we have a job to do, and we do so with passion and professionalism.
“However, the ‘invisible workload’ is par for the course and appears to be growing at a pace. It is no longer unusual to have impromptu meetings or calls from external agencies, such as social workers, family support workers or the police, which more often than not result in numerous discussions with staff members, arranging support for pupils, liaising with parents who may not be receptive to conversations of this nature and ensuring that documentation relating to such instances is unbiased, concise and time-stamped.
“Parental complaints are also becoming commonplace; the most recent one took me 12 hours in total to investigate and respond to. I was determined to ensure that every AI-generated statement had a robust response. Complaints can, of course, be escalated to governor level and, occasionally, what appears to be on a whim, to Ofsted.
“The resulting workload ultimately means less time focusing on the enhancement of teaching and learning – every school’s priority. Never afraid of hard work, I accept that the role can be challenging, but it does become wearing. It is, therefore, imperative that leaders carve out time to look after themselves and their well-being.
“I’ve been in this role for a long time, yet I am still working towards achieving the work-life balance I believe I deserve. As a director of my own time, however, I am able to, and have got to the point where I will say, ‘Unless somebody needs this document tomorrow morning, I’m not doing it’. You do have to create boundaries for your health and well-being. Self-preservation is key. Only then are you able to preserve the energy and drive to come into work the next day and be the leader you want and need to be.
“For me, it is that you have that mental load anyway – especially as a female school leader – you have that ‘to-do’ list playing on your mind as you come into school,” highlights Claire, a member of NAHT’s Women’s Network.
“And then it’s suddenly, ‘Oh, I’m supposed to be in that meeting. Did you tell me that?’ Or it could be that, suddenly, you’re dealing with a parent who’s had an argument online with another parent and is upset. It’s all those little tasks that happen every day; they’re not written down anyway, and they’re not technically part of the job. But actually, they are the job in many respects. So, it is about people’s well-being.
“Speaking to other members of the network about this issue, one common response was that we’re expected to nurture and look after staff members’ well-being and make sure everyone is OK. There is nothing for the head teacher. We’re humans as well; we’re people. We may have issues at home, health issues or caring responsibilities, but you are just supposed to get on with things. So, there is a disparity in leadership, and you are often just expected to take it on the chin,” Claire adds.
“Contributing to the NAHT’s ‘You are not alone’ book forced me to think more deeply and objectively about my personal journey and the extent to which one’s ethnicity compounds the ‘invisible workload’. Surprisingly, I found that in leading a semi-rural village school, my ethnicity and gender impacted relationships with the community far less than they have in my current urban multi-cultural setting, where, for example, an allegation of racism towards a particular ethnic group of parents left me both astounded and dumbfounded.
“While I love my job and feel privileged to have been able to play a key role in shaping the lives of future generations, we have a job to do, and we do so with passion and professionalism.
“However, the ‘invisible workload’ is par for the course and appears to be growing at a pace. It is no longer unusual to have impromptu meetings or calls from external agencies, such as social workers, family support workers or the police, which more often than not result in numerous discussions with staff members, arranging support for pupils, liaising with parents who may not be receptive to conversations of this nature and ensuring that documentation relating to such instances is unbiased, concise and time-stamped.
“Parental complaints are also becoming commonplace; the most recent one took me 12 hours in total to investigate and respond to. I was determined to ensure that every AI-generated statement had a robust response. Complaints can, of course, be escalated to governor level and, occasionally, what appears to be on a whim, to Ofsted.
“The resulting workload ultimately means less time focusing on the enhancement of teaching and learning – every school’s priority. Never afraid of hard work, I accept that the role can be challenging, but it does become wearing. It is, therefore, imperative that leaders carve out time to look after themselves and their well-being.
“I’ve been in this role for a long time, yet I am still working towards achieving the work-life balance I believe I deserve. As a director of my own time, however, I am able to, and have got to the point where I will say, ‘Unless somebody needs this document tomorrow morning, I’m not doing it’. You do have to create boundaries for your health and well-being. Self-preservation is key. Only then are you able to preserve the energy and drive to come into work the next day and be the leader you want and need to be.
“For me, it is that you have that mental load anyway – especially as a female school leader – you have that ‘to-do’ list playing on your mind as you come into school,” highlights Claire, a member of NAHT’s Women’s Network.
“And then it’s suddenly, ‘Oh, I’m supposed to be in that meeting. Did you tell me that?’ Or it could be that, suddenly, you’re dealing with a parent who’s had an argument online with another parent and is upset. It’s all those little tasks that happen every day; they’re not written down anyway, and they’re not technically part of the job. But actually, they are the job in many respects. So, it is about people’s well-being.
“Speaking to other members of the network about this issue, one common response was that we’re expected to nurture and look after staff members’ well-being and make sure everyone is OK. There is nothing for the head teacher. We’re humans as well; we’re people. We may have issues at home, health issues or caring responsibilities, but you are just supposed to get on with things. So, there is a disparity in leadership, and you are often just expected to take it on the chin,” Claire adds.
Supporting the people who support everyone else
For school leaders with disabilities, the ‘invisible’ workload can be especially challenging, as one middle leader at a school in London, and a member of NAHT’s Leaders for Disabled Equality Network, highlights.
“I’m dyspraxic, and I have chronic pain. There is hidden labour involved in that, just in terms of teaching, for starters,” they emphasise.
“But moving into middle management, into a leadership role, it’s quite different again in the way hidden labour manifests: it is much more integrated. It’s not just that it’s more tiring – there’s a more emotional and relational element, because the hidden label of disability is layered on top of the hidden label of leadership.
“There is a compound effect, too. For me, for example, I get chronic facial pain. So, if I’ve been in a lot of meetings, particularly with a lot of smiling, it can really take it out of me and cause a lot of pain.
“So, you can get out of a meeting and feel really quite tired. You’re expecting to deal with emails, but then along comes that leadership interruption of ‘Actually, there’s a child that’s not coping in the classroom. Can you come?’
“Not only do you have that experience of being wrenched out of what you were doing because you’re on demand, on call – nearly all leadership roles have that element to them – but then, on the fly, you’ve also got to go, ‘Right, I have to keep this together’.
“When I turn up, I need to appear completely focused on it. I need to smile, be calm, approachable and friendly. And that’s going to physically hurt. So, I need to brace myself for that.
Supporting the people who support everyone else
For school leaders with disabilities, the ‘invisible’ workload can be especially challenging, as one middle leader at a school in London, and a member of NAHT’s Leaders for Disabled Equality Network, highlights.
“I’m dyspraxic, and I have chronic pain. There is hidden labour involved in that, just in terms of teaching, for starters,” they emphasise.
“But moving into middle management, into a leadership role, it’s quite different again in the way hidden labour manifests: it is much more integrated. It’s not just that it’s more tiring – there’s a more emotional and relational element, because the hidden label of disability is layered on top of the hidden label of leadership.
“There is a compound effect, too. For me, for example, I get chronic facial pain. So, if I’ve been in a lot of meetings, particularly with a lot of smiling, it can really take it out of me and cause a lot of pain.
“So, you can get out of a meeting and feel really quite tired. You’re expecting to deal with emails, but then along comes that leadership interruption of ‘Actually, there’s a child that’s not coping in the classroom. Can you come?’
“Not only do you have that experience of being wrenched out of what you were doing because you’re on demand, on call – nearly all leadership roles have that element to them – but then, on the fly, you’ve also got to go, ‘Right, I have to keep this together’.
“When I turn up, I need to appear completely focused on it. I need to smile, be calm, approachable and friendly. And that’s going to physically hurt. So, I need to brace myself for that.
“It’s a constant battle – you’re either doing it or worrying about it. This week has not been too bad, but sometimes by Friday, I’m thinking, I really hope there isn’t an incident because I don’t feel like I can find the energy to pull that all together.
“Or, if there is an incident and I end up going to reception to talk to a parent unexpectedly, I’m actually quite scared that I won’t be able to string my sentences together very well – that I’m going to stumble over my words, and I’m going to look incompetent. So even if I don’t know whether that’s going to happen to me or not, there’s this ‘what if?’ fear.
“Sometimes it gets to 5pm and the thing you started at 9am is still there. It feels almost like being physically grabbed and dragged to another place at speed, being wrenched from thing to thing. And that, as a leader, is really exhausting.
“We need to recognise that this does exist and have these conversations, cultivating an open culture and the right support structures. There is more to it than just adjustments and compromises,” they add.
For James Bowen, Lorna’s comments about the value, in this context, of having access to support outside the day-to-day school ‘coal face’ – whether clinical supervision, counselling, coaching or mentoring – are important.
“It is vital that school leaders have people to talk to about this stuff – actually scheduling time to work through what they’re dealing with, even if it’s just an hour a week or fortnight – to step away from the front line, reflect on what’s going on, talk it through with someone and recharge,” he tells Leadership Focus.
“I think that’s where that kind of mentoring role or supervision can come in – and shouldn’t be left to chance. As a leader, you have a duty to yourself to prioritise that time, whatever that time looks like for you, and really hold on to it because it does make you a better leader.
“We all have that sense of guilt for stepping away from it for an hour. But we shouldn’t because, actually, it’s in the pupils’ best interest that you’re at the top of your game, that you process this stuff and that you can come back emotionally refreshed. It’s in no one’s interest for you to burn out within 18 months and, if we’re not careful, the invisible workload on top of everything else can accelerate that,” says James in conclusion.
“It’s a constant battle – you’re either doing it or worrying about it. This week has not been too bad, but sometimes by Friday, I’m thinking, I really hope there isn’t an incident because I don’t feel like I can find the energy to pull that all together.
“Or, if there is an incident and I end up going to reception to talk to a parent unexpectedly, I’m actually quite scared that I won’t be able to string my sentences together very well – that I’m going to stumble over my words, and I’m going to look incompetent. So even if I don’t know whether that’s going to happen to me or not, there’s this ‘what if?’ fear.
“Sometimes it gets to 5pm and the thing you started at 9am is still there. It feels almost like being physically grabbed and dragged to another place at speed, being wrenched from thing to thing. And that, as a leader, is really exhausting.
“We need to recognise that this does exist and have these conversations, cultivating an open culture and the right support structures. There is more to it than just adjustments and compromises,” they add.
For James Bowen, Lorna’s comments about the value, in this context, of having access to support outside the day-to-day school ‘coal face’ – whether clinical supervision, counselling, coaching or mentoring – are important.
“It is vital that school leaders have people to talk to about this stuff – actually scheduling time to work through what they’re dealing with, even if it’s just an hour a week or fortnight – to step away from the front line, reflect on what’s going on, talk it through with someone and recharge,” he tells Leadership Focus.
“I think that’s where that kind of mentoring role or supervision can come in – and shouldn’t be left to chance. As a leader, you have a duty to yourself to prioritise that time, whatever that time looks like for you, and really hold on to it because it does make you a better leader.
“We all have that sense of guilt for stepping away from it for an hour. But we shouldn’t because, actually, it’s in the pupils’ best interest that you’re at the top of your game, that you process this stuff and that you can come back emotionally refreshed. It’s in no one’s interest for you to burn out within 18 months and, if we’re not careful, the invisible workload on top of everything else can accelerate that,” says James in conclusion.
What is ‘invisible workload’?
Invisible workload refers to the substantial volume of informal, spontaneous and often emotionally demanding work that leaders undertake daily – frequently at short notice and with no clear endpoint, explains Kate Atkinson.
“Much of this work happens in corridors, at the gate, late in the evening or during breaks that do not feel like breaks at all. Individually, these tasks might take minutes. Collectively, they consume hours, and yet they remain largely absent from workload assessments, job plans and policy discussions,” she says.
“Moreover, the invisible workload of leadership does not sit in isolation. It is increasingly shaped by systemic gaps beyond schools’ control,” she adds.
Furthermore, delays in SEND assessment pathways, stretched social care teams and limited access to children and adolescent mental health services mean that schools are often left holding responsibility, if not authority, for complex needs over extended periods.
In practice, this results in leaders doing the following:
- Chasing external agencies
- Supporting families through unclear or delayed processes
- Managing risk while waiting for specialist input
- Making judgement calls in the absence of timely support.
“These additional responsibilities expand leaders’ workload significantly, yet sit outside the policy frameworks used to assess capacity or effectiveness,” Kate emphasises.
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