HUNTER public school teachers will gain access to a new bank of curriculum resources as part of a government plan to reduce their workload.
But the NSW Teachers Federation has labelled the plan as "nothing more than window dressing".
Minister for Education Sarah Mitchell said on Monday the suite of curriculum resources would eliminate the need to reinvent lesson plans.
"This is a game-changer for teachers in NSW," Ms Mitchell said.
"Teachers have told us that finding or making high quality resources that align with the curriculum is the number one tax on their time.
"We've listened closely to our teaching staff, developing online, high-quality, centralised, universally available learning materials they can draw on."
She said the resources would lift student outcomes and were not about taking the creativity out of teaching.
"It's about providing teachers with a basic recipe for student success, while allowing them to contextualise how they use the ingredients to get the best outcomes for their students," she said.
The government said feedback from more than 4000 submissions to a review of teacher workload identified the need for universal curriculum resources.
Grattan Institute research found centralised resources could save teachers an average of three hours per week and that 86 per cent of teachers across Australia reported they 'always' or 'frequently' do not have enough time for high-quality lesson planning.
The announcement came the day after Ms Mitchell unveiled a trial of more than 200 administration roles, which would see successful applicants - possibly including parents - work with teachers on non-teaching tasks such as data entry, paperwork and coordinating events and excursions.
Federation regional organiser Jack Galvin Waight said the plans were "nothing more than window dressing".
"It will do next to nothing to address the issues that are crippling schools in the Hunter and are leading to a profession in crisis," he said.
"What we have is a desperate attempt from the Minister to deflect attention from the real issue and that is the chronic teacher shortages that have been caused by unsustainable workloads and uncompetitive pay."
Mr Galvin Waight said the administration roles would not adequately lighten workloads.
"Instead of making the profession more attractive, the government just wants to make it look more attractive through marketing and advertising," he said.
While centralised resources may assist some teachers with programming, he said, "what we need is for the Minister to deal with the underlying issue, teachers need time to teach".
"There has been no change to teaching preparation time since the 1950s for secondary teachers and the 1980s for primary school teachers."
