In Business, the meaning of delegation is pretty well-defined, and - consequently - pretty prescriptive. It means that you are the Boss, and that you have people working for you to whom you can allocate tasks - including tasks which you were theoretically intended to complete yourself.
In teaching, most of us are Bosses of no-one; certainly early in our careers. Even the first-level management roles in school offer few opportunities for classic delegation.
How, then, can a chalkface teacher delegate? Creatively, that's how. Schools do in fact offer a variety of people in a variety of roles who are more than willing to help a busy teacher. Some of the following are likely candidates:
- Students
- Teaching Assistants
- Administrative or Office Staff
There is more good news - not only are there people willing to help, but the kind of work they are willing to help with is exactly the kind of work you want to offload - repetitive tasks involving limited-or-no professional judgement. There are however, some important rules to follow:
1. Lay the ground well in advance - before you are in trouble
You should let people know early in the school year that you appreciate help with routine work, and ask if they are in a position to offer it.
2. Identify delegatable tasks - if necessary, change the way you work
If you ask people if they can help, the answer is almost certainly to be 'maybe'; it will depend what the work is, and the most likely criterion is whether the person involved is confident that they can do it. For students, you should keep it simple: sorting books into order, tidying classrooms, stacking folders in crates, taking stuff to lost property. For adult helpers, breakdown your tasks into sub-tasks and identify which of them someone else could do: copying student reports from spreadsheets to database, identifying students who have missed homework, checking off lists, etc.
3. Strive for absolute clarity.
Unlike delegation in business, you should not seek to hand over entire tasks. You should define - with absolute precision - what you want the other person to do.
4. Be genuinely grateful.
There is no obligation for anyone to help you, but someone almost certainly will, if you ask politely, express genuine gratitude, and do not abuse your good fortune.
5. Respect boundaries.
You should expect other people to have different priorities to your own, and in some cases they will have constraints which prevent them from helping you. If, for example, you have a Teaching Assistant in your class dedicated to supporting one particular student, they should not and usually will not accept tasks to help the running of the class as a whole. However, if the Assistant and the student agree, you can allocate classroom administration tasks to the student, and the TA can help....
More guidance of efficient use of Teaching Assistants here