CONTRIBUTORS
Is home working possible?
Naomi Howells, Managing Director for recruitment specialists, Class People, examines the possibility of a move to partial home working for teachers
Just days before Christmas, the education secretary Bridget Phillipson advocated some home-based working as a right for all state school teachers, in a move she says will address the cultural workplace challenges of teaching and help stem the growing retention crisis. It is her belief that offering teachers the right to work away from the classroom for lesson preparation, marking, and pupil assessment (PPA), offers better work
life balance without compromising contact time with pupils. The state of the industry
It’s no secret that the education sector is understaffed, given both the mass exodus of trained teachers in recent years, alongside the missed recruitment targets by the Department for Education (DfE). Current statistics highlight a high level of vacancies across the country, generally poor mental health, and an estimated 13,600 teacher gap in the marketplace. There are also stark warnings that the situation will worsen if we do not secure the “missing mothers”: the loss of roughly 9,000 females in their thirties who leave seeking better work life balance for their own families. The most recent Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders (WLTL) survey puts this bluntly, highlighting that of those considering leaving the profession in the next 12 months, 47% will do so because of the lack of flexible working opportunities, up from 34% in 2023. What’s more, a survey from the DfE’s Teaching Vacancies service has highlighted the pull of flexible working, with 57% of the 7,000 teachers surveyed wanting to work in a school that’s open to flexible working. What does the law say?
It is almost a year since the Flexible Working (Amendment) Regulations 2023 came into force on 6 April 2024, giving all employees the right to request flexible working from their first day on the job (previously only permitted after 26 weeks in a role); the right to make two requests for flexible working per year, compared to the previous one; and a requirement for employers to consult with the employee, and respond within two months. Flexible working does not have to include time working from home, but it’s something being strongly advocated for teachers, particularly those working full time. Making it happen
Different schools are adopting different approaches to homeworking for teachers, but it is invariably proving beneficial to the schools that make it happen. Dixons Academy Trust is actively encouraging teachers to take PPA time offsite, meanwhile The Education Alliance academy trust now approves 98% of all flexible working requests, and has introduced a policy for teachers to attend their own children’s sports days and school plays.
Practically, offering home working comes down to scheduling. Already a complex process, timetabling has traditionally been worked to maximise teaching time for pupils, leaving teachers with PPA time in individual free periods. Successful models are now approaching timetabling on a teacher-by-teacher basis, identifying opportunities for teachers to have a morning or afternoon each week for PPA at home, or alternatively ensuring the first or last period of each day is left free for the same reason. Proactive timetable management is essential, with home-working at the core.
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www.education-today.co.uk
What is unique about the teaching of teachers?
Do the same methods that might be applied when teaching children, or adults in general, have the same impact when it comes to teachers? Gareth Conyard of the Teacher Development Trust ponders the uniqueness of the teaching of teachers.
One of the joys of working with teachers is the relentless drive to improve outcomes for the children they are teaching. Whether it is engaging in grand projects like the curriculum and assessment review currently being led by Professor Becky Francis on behalf of the Government, or conversations amongst colleagues in a school or subject department, there is something inherent in being a teacher which promotes looking for improvements and new ideas. This has been supported by a specific field of study around pedagogy which brings together teachers, school leaders, and academics from around the world to explore new evidence and ideas on how best to teach children. The last decade and more has seen a substantive increase in the wider understanding – not always without controversy – of things like cognitive science, for example, which have translated directly into the pedagogical approaches used in schools throughout the country. By having a specific field of focus, the lens of pedagogy helps all involved in teaching explore concepts, challenge ideas, and develop new thinking whilst working within a generally agreed understanding of what they are trying to achieve.
One area that has had less attention, however, is our understanding about the teaching of teachers. What might be different about that discipline and how best can we frame conversations and come together to explore new ideas? There is a phrase for the teaching of adults – andragogy – but this is generic for all adult learning so, although it is no doubt useful, does it do enough to capture anything unique about the teaching of teachers? Is there something, for example, more ‘meta’ in trying to teach the very people whose understanding of pedagogy is so strong? Do we need to think about whether the same approaches that are used for children – pedagogy – or adults more broadly – andragogy – need to be refined or adapted when teaching teachers? What assumptions do we make if we don’t set aside time to think this through? Let’s look at an example. I was recently in a conversation with a trust CPD lead who talked about the work they were doing around the trust on coaching for teachers. In particular, the team had considered the cognitive load of introducing a new programme. But the evidence they used was largely around our understanding of cognitive load from their pedagogical approaches – that is, cognitive load for children – when we know that adult brains process information differently and also know that the level of expertise possessed has an impact on how new information is digested and acted upon. What difference might it make to the introduction of a new coaching programme if considered through a specific lens – a deliberate seeking of relevant evidence – of teaching teachers? It might be that the unique differences are few and undoubtedly the teaching of teachers will share many characteristics with wider pedagogy and andragogy, but until we really start to explore the question in depth, we will never know. Watch this space for more work from us on this idea!
February 2025
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