Teacher Workload & Retention in International Schools

Teacher capacity decides what else a school can do. OECD’s TALIS 2024 found lower-secondary teachers work about 41 hours a week, including 4.6 hours of marking. Forty per cent say too much marking causes them stress, rising to 43% in the UAE. Leaders can cut marking that doesn’t change learning, run professional development that sticks, and plan staffing by department.

This is the hub for our Teacher Capacity, Workload & Staffing pillar. It is written for principals and heads of department who need teachers’ time for teaching, intervention and feedback, and who are tired of initiatives that add work without adding results.

How much do teachers work, and on what?

About 41 hours a week on average across OECD systems, according to TALIS 2024. Of that, 22.7 hours are teaching, 7.4 are lesson planning and 4.6 are marking and correcting. Marking is about 9% of working time.

System	Total hours per week	Marking and correcting	Teachers citing too much marking as a stress
OECD average	41	4.6 hours	40%
United Arab Emirates	40.4	5.4 hours	43%
Saudi Arabia	30.3	4.8 hours	62%
Singapore	47.3	6.4 hours	—

In England, the DfE’s Working lives of teachers and leaders survey found full-time secondary teachers worked 49.3 hours a week in 2025. The share of teachers and middle leaders who felt they spent too much time marking fell to 38%, from 46% in 2022 and 2023. These are national samples, not international-school teachers, but they set a useful baseline for a school’s own survey.

How can schools reduce marking workload?

By marking less but better. The UK’s Independent Teacher Workload Review Group recommended that “all marking should be meaningful, manageable and motivating”, and advised: “if your current approach is unmanageable or disproportionate, stop it.” The EEF’s review of written marking found that “some forms of marking, including acknowledgement marking, are unlikely to enhance pupil progress”. It also found that “pupils are unlikely to benefit from marking unless some time is set aside to enable pupils to consider and respond to marking”.

In practice, that means auditing marking load by department, stopping acknowledgement marking, reserving detailed marking for mocks and extended work, and automating routine practice marking. Our guide How to Reduce Marking Workload includes a calculator: classes × students × pieces per week × minutes per piece, divided by 60.

Can AI take marking off teachers?

For practice work, yes; for assessed work, no. Cambridge’s 2026 Handbook says “teachers must not use artificial intelligence (AI) as the sole or primary means of marking candidates’ work”. Pearson and JCQ say the same. England’s regulator Ofqual expects AI marks to become “more acceptable in contexts such as formative and low-stakes assessments”. So the realistic gain is in homework, quizzes and practice papers, which is where much routine marking sits. See the best AI marking tools for IGCSE and A Level.

What makes professional development work?

Mechanisms, not days. The EEF’s Effective Professional Development guidance says leaders should “focus on the mechanisms” and ensure professional development “builds knowledge, motivates staff, develops teaching techniques, and embeds practice”. Its mechanisms fall into four groups:

Group	Mechanisms
Build knowledge	Managing cognitive load; revisiting prior learning
Motivate staff	Setting and agreeing goals; presenting information from a credible source; affirmation after progress
Develop teaching techniques	Instruction; social support; modelling; monitoring and feedback; rehearsal
Embed practice	Prompts and cues; action planning; encouraging monitoring; context-specific repetition

For international schools, that argues for short cycles run inside departments: model a technique, rehearse it, use it, get feedback. It also argues against one-off training days, which tend to inform without changing practice. For the board courses, qualifications and free options available to IGCSE teachers, see IGCSE teacher training in 2026.

How should international schools plan staffing?

By department and by exam series, not by headcount alone. Three pressures shape it:

1. Exam-board load. Schools running both Cambridge and Pearson, or modular IAL, carry more exam series, entries and mock cycles. Computer science departments face the biggest change, with Cambridge’s revised 0478 and new 0265 and Pearson’s new IAL Computer Science. See the Exam Board Change Radar.
2. Specialist gaps. New subjects such as IGCSE Psychology 0266 or Statistics 0479 raise the question of whether a school can staff them at all.
3. Mid-year change. When a teacher leaves mid-course, the continuity of marking, data and resources decides how much students lose.

Our guides to teacher turnover and retention and delivering a subject without a specialist go further. For whether a small A Level class pays its way, see Is an A Level subject viable?

How can schools protect continuity when teachers leave?

Keep the course, not just the teacher, documented. Assessment data by student and topic, schemes of work, mock papers and marking standards should belong to the department, stored where a new teacher can find them in a week. Written ownership of assessment decisions helps here, with the academic director, head of department and exams officer each clear on their role. A school’s assessment operations should survive any single departure. When a replacement arrives mid-year, use a 30-day onboarding plan.

How should a school run a workload review?

Once a year, in a fixed month, using the same questions each time. A review that fits one term:

1. Survey staff on hours, marking time and the tasks they would stop, using the questions TALIS and the DfE use so results can be compared.
2. Run the marking calculator for every department and year group.
3. List every recurring task that is not teaching or planning: data drops, reports, duplicate record-keeping, meetings. Record who asked for each and what decision it informs.
4. Stop or merge tasks that inform no decision. The DfE’s marking review group put it plainly: “if your current approach is unmanageable or disproportionate, stop it.”
5. Publish the changes to staff, with what was removed, and check the effect at the next survey.

The EEF’s implementation guidance supports the same discipline for any new initiative. It asks schools to “do fewer things better”, and notes that “reviewing and stopping some existing practices may be required”.

What should a teacher workload policy include?

A short policy, owned by the senior team, that sets limits rather than aspirations. The full section-by-section version is in A Teacher Workload Policy for International Schools (Template):

• Marking expectations by subject and year group, in pieces per fortnight, with acknowledgement marking removed.
• Data drops: how many a year and what each is used for.
• Meetings: maximum frequency and length, with an agenda tied to decisions.
• Response time: lesson time for students to act on feedback, so marking is not wasted.
• Technology: which tools take routine marking off teachers, within Cambridge and Pearson rules on AI.
• Review: the annual workload review above, with results shared with staff.

What should leaders measure?

Workload that matters, measured the same way each year:

• hours worked and marking time, from a short staff survey each term
• the share of staff who say they spend too much time marking, as TALIS and the DfE ask
• marking load per department, from the calculator
• whether professional development included rehearsal and follow-up
• how quickly a new teacher can find a class’s data and resources

How schools do this with AI Buddy

AI Buddy takes routine practice marking off teachers. Students’ answers to past-paper-style questions are marked instantly with feedback, and teachers see results by class and topic. Teachers’ marking time then goes to mocks and extended work, where judgement matters. Because data and practice sit with the department, a new teacher inherits a class’s record on day one. Tutopiya reports from its own school data up to 70% less marking time for teachers using AI Buddy. That is our figure, not an independent one, so test it against your own baseline.

Frequently asked questions

How many hours do teachers in international schools work?

No international-school-specific figure exists. OECD TALIS 2024 reports about 41 hours a week on average for lower-secondary teachers, 40.4 in the UAE and 47.3 in Singapore.

How can schools reduce teacher workload?

Audit marking by department, stop marking that doesn’t change learning, automate routine practice marking within the exam boards’ rules, and run professional development in short, embedded cycles.

What makes teacher professional development effective?

The EEF says it should build knowledge, motivate staff, develop teaching techniques and embed practice, through mechanisms such as modelling, rehearsal and feedback.

How do schools cope when an IGCSE teacher leaves mid-year?

By keeping assessment data, schemes of work and marking standards at department level, so a new teacher can pick up the course quickly.

Discover how AI Buddy helps schools strengthen teaching, learning and evidence-informed school improvement. Or start a short consultation with our schools team using the form below — we will get back to you directly.

Sources

• OECD, Results from TALIS 2024: The demands of teaching and country notes (October 2025)
• Department for Education, Working lives of teachers and leaders: wave 4 (November 2025)
• Department for Education, Eliminating unnecessary workload around marking (2016)
• Education Endowment Foundation, A Marked Improvement? and Effective Professional Development
• Ofqual, Principles of AI use in marking (January 2026)