How to Decide If a Meeting Is Really Necessary

Every school leader has been there – a packed calendar full of meetings, one after another, leaving barely any time for the work that actually moves the school forward. Meetings are a staple of school life, but the question every head teacher should ask before sending that calendar invite is simple: does this meeting really need to happen? The answer, more often than you’d expect, is no. Learning to distinguish between necessary and unnecessary meetings is one of the most impactful skills a school leader can develop.

Why meetings matter (when they’re done right) 🔗

At their core, meetings serve as a structured way for people to come together, exchange information, and make collective decisions. In a school setting, they can be powerful tools for collaboration, alignment, and professional growth. But their value depends entirely on whether there is a clear and legitimate purpose behind them.

There are four broad reasons that genuinely justify calling a meeting:

Sharing important information: Sometimes, information needs to be delivered directly and in person – not because it can’t be written down, but because it requires context, tone, or the opportunity for immediate clarification. A new safeguarding policy, changes to the school timetable, or updates about an upcoming inspection are the kinds of things that benefit from face-to-face delivery. When the message is complex or sensitive, a meeting ensures everyone hears the same thing at the same time and can ask questions on the spot.

Collaborative planning: Schools run on coordinated effort. Whether it’s planning a new curriculum rollout, organising a school event, or preparing for parent-teacher conferences, planning meetings bring the right people together to divide responsibilities, align timelines, and troubleshoot potential issues. These meetings work best when they have a clear agenda and defined outcomes.

Problem-solving: When an issue affects multiple staff members or departments – say, a spike in student absences or a persistent behavioural pattern – a meeting can be the most efficient way to pool expertise and brainstorm solutions. According to Edutopia, effective meeting time should be reserved for work that genuinely requires in-person collaboration, such as tackling complex problems together.

Training and professional development: Faculty meetings can serve as valuable spaces for job-embedded professional learning. As Education Week highlights, faculty meetings are one of the most underutilised tools for professional development that happens during the school day. When used for modelling teaching strategies, discussing research, or conducting collaborative book studies, meetings become engines of growth rather than time sinks.

Questionable reasons for holding meetings 🔗

If legitimate meetings have clear purposes and expected outcomes, illegitimate ones are often easy to identify by what they lack. Here are some common but problematic reasons meetings get called in schools:

Meetings for the sake of meetings 🔗

This is perhaps the most widespread issue. A weekly staff meeting is on the calendar, so it happens – whether or not there’s anything meaningful to discuss. The agenda gets padded with announcements that could have been emailed, and everyone leaves feeling like their time was wasted. Research consistently supports this concern. A CBS News report on a study by UNC Charlotte professor Steven Rogelberg found that employees attend roughly 18 meetings per week, and they consider nearly a third of those to be unnecessary. For schools operating on tight schedules, even one wasted meeting per week adds up to significant lost time over a term.

Meetings to exert authority or control 🔗

Some meetings are called not because there’s a genuine need for collective input, but because a leader wants to assert their position. These gatherings tend to be one-directional – the head teacher speaks, everyone else listens, and there’s no real opportunity for dialogue. Teachers quickly recognise when a meeting is about control rather than collaboration, and it erodes trust. As Discovery Education points out, trust is a stronger foundation for school leadership than mere buy-in, and meetings used as vehicles for top-down directives undermine that trust over time.

Meetings to reprimand or single out 🔗

Using a group meeting to address an individual’s performance issue or mistake is both ineffective and demoralising. It creates a culture of fear rather than accountability. If a specific teacher needs feedback or correction, that conversation should happen privately, in a one-on-one setting where it can be constructive rather than punitive.

Meetings driven by habit or insecurity 🔗

Sometimes, leaders call meetings because they feel they should be seen leading, or because cancelling a meeting feels like doing less. But as Miriam Plotinsky writes in Edutopia, there is nothing wrong with removing meetings from the calendar when they serve no purpose. Holding fewer, more purposeful meetings actually signals stronger leadership, not weaker.

The real cost of unnecessary meetings 🔗

The impact of unnecessary meetings goes beyond mere annoyance. According to workplace research, employees lose an average of 146 hours annually to meetings they consider unproductive. A Harvard Business Review study found that 71% of senior managers across various industries said meetings kept them from completing their own work. In a school context, those lost hours come directly at the expense of lesson planning, student feedback, mentoring, and the kind of deep professional work that improves outcomes.

Beyond time, there’s an emotional toll. Teachers who are repeatedly pulled into pointless meetings experience frustration, disengagement, and burnout. When staff feel that their time is not respected, morale drops. And in education, where teacher retention is already a major challenge, poor meeting culture can be one more factor pushing talented professionals toward the door.

Alternatives to meetings 🔗

Before scheduling a meeting, school leaders should consider whether the same objective can be achieved through a different channel. In many cases, it can – and more efficiently.

Email updates 🔗

For routine announcements, schedule reminders, or policy updates that don’t require discussion, a clear and concise email does the job. Global Services in Education recommends using email for non-urgent information, noting that it allows staff to read and respond at their own convenience. The key is to keep emails focused and well-structured – a rambling email is nearly as wasteful as a rambling meeting.

Memos and shared documents 🔗

When a more formal communication is needed – say, updated procedures for reporting incidents or a new timetable structure – a memo or shared document is a strong alternative. Unlike a meeting, a written document can be referenced later, ensuring nothing is forgotten or misremembered. Online shared documents are particularly useful because they can be updated in real time and accessed from anywhere. Edutopia suggests a weekly running updates document where leaders can post action items and announcements, with key tasks highlighted for visibility.

Direct conversations 🔗

Not everything needs to involve a full group. If a head teacher needs input from two or three people, a quick hallway conversation or phone call is often more effective than pulling ten people into a conference room. One-on-one meetings between school leaders and individual staff members are particularly valuable for feedback, mentoring, and addressing personal concerns – situations where a group meeting would be inappropriate.

Collaboration platforms 🔗

Tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Trello, or even a simple shared Google Doc can reduce the need for synchronous meetings entirely. TeachThought notes that project management platforms allow teachers to access information anytime, collaborate asynchronously, and stay aligned without sitting in the same room. For schools that have embraced digital tools, these platforms can handle much of what traditionally required a meeting.

Key questions to ask before calling a meeting 🔗

Developing a habit of critically evaluating every potential meeting before it goes on the calendar can transform a school’s culture. Here are the essential questions every school leader should ask:

What is the purpose of this meeting? If you can’t articulate a clear goal in one or two sentences, the meeting probably doesn’t need to happen. A vague agenda like “general updates” is a red flag.

What outcome do I expect? Every meeting should end with something concrete – a decision made, a plan agreed upon, a problem addressed. If the expected outcome is simply “people were informed,” ask yourself whether an email or memo could achieve the same thing.

Who actually needs to be there? One of the biggest sources of meeting waste is inviting people who don’t need to attend. Keep the group small and relevant. Staff members who are not directly involved can be informed of outcomes afterwards.

Can this be handled another way? Run through the alternatives – email, memo, quick conversation, shared document. If any of these can accomplish the same goal, skip the meeting.

Is this the right time? Timing matters. A meeting scheduled at the end of a long teaching day, or crammed into an already packed week, will not produce good results. If there’s no good window, that itself may be a sign to delay or replace the meeting with an asynchronous option.

Building a healthier meeting culture in your school 🔗

Changing meeting habits doesn’t happen overnight, but small, consistent shifts can make a significant difference. Start by auditing your current meeting schedule. Look at each recurring meeting and ask whether it’s still serving its original purpose – or whether it has become a habit that no one questions.

Consider adopting a “no agenda, no meeting” rule. If you can’t put together a meaningful agenda with specific discussion points and expected outcomes, the meeting gets cancelled. This simple policy, recommended by workplace strategists and organisational psychologists alike, forces intentionality into every gathering.

When you do hold meetings, respect people’s time. Start on time, end on time – or better yet, end early. New Leaders recommends sending the agenda at least a day in advance so participants can prepare, and using the in-person time for collaborative work rather than announcements that could be shared in writing.

Finally, seek feedback from your staff. Ask teachers whether meetings are helpful, what they would change, and what information they’d prefer to receive in other formats. This isn’t just good leadership practice – it signals that you value their time and are willing to adapt.

The goal isn’t to eliminate meetings entirely. Some conversations can only happen face to face, and the collaborative energy of a well-run meeting is hard to replicate through any other format. The goal is to make sure that when people do sit down together, it’s worth everyone’s time.

What do you think? How often do you find yourself in a school meeting that could have been an email or a memo? What criteria do you use to decide whether a meeting is truly worth holding?

References

1. https://www.edutopia.org/article/fewer-school-meetings-can-be-genuine-improvment/
2. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-5-ways-to-make-your-faculty-meetings-more-valuable-than-an-email/2025/05
3. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unnecessary-meetings-cost-big-companies-100-million-annually/
4. https://www.discoveryeducation.com/blog/educational-leadership/teacher-meetings/
5. https://hbr.org/2022/03/dear-manager-youre-holding-too-many-meetings
6. https://www.gsineducation.com/blog/meeting-alternatives-for-meaningful-communication
7. https://www.teachthought.com/technology/8-mostly-digital-alternatives-meetings/
8. https://www.newleaders.org/blog/tips-to-lead-better-team-meetings-this-school-year