Flexible working in schools #1
Demand for flexible working has been increasing for some years in the UK; a research report in 2017 found that 87% of full-time employees either worked flexibly or wanted to.[1] The Covid-19 pandemic has required organisations to take a creative approach to flexible working, and workplaces in all sectors are taking the opportunity to refine their longer-term practices, and deliver the flexible options that 13 million employees plan to ask for.[2]
While adjusting an office-based working pattern is not without its challenges, doing so for a teaching role is significantly more complex. As well as the perceived challenges such as timetabling, budget and workload, there are concerns about the impact on students, fears about ‘opening the floodgates’ and a lack of expertise in skills such as flexible job design.
However, this does not mean that the teaching profession should resign itself to being un-flexable. On the contrary, if headteachers, trusts and local authorities want to keep hold of their high-calibre staff, and attract more of them, incorporating flexible working into their HR strategies is an important step to take.
This article explores why improving access to flexible working in schools is so important, and which factors could make it a success, as well as sharing examples of effective practice across primary and secondary schools. It is based on our experience from previous work within the teaching profession, as well as a specific project supporting HR teams across a network of Multi-Academy Trusts, carried out during the Summer Term of 2020.
The issues around staff recruitment and retention within the profession are well known. Although the pandemic appears to have triggered a spike in graduate teacher training applications[3], pre-Covid-19 data indicated that targets for the required number of secondary school trainees have been missed for the last seven years, and that 33% of state school NQTs leave within five years.[4]
Evidence suggests that some teachers leave the profession because they cannot access flexible working or part-time opportunities.[5] According to a Teacher Tapp survey, 40% of teachers say they would like to work part-time, but only 16% of vacancies published on Teaching Vacancies between 2018 and 2020 were advertised as flexible in some way. A 2019 DfE survey found that 13% of teachers said they had considered flexible working but felt unable to request it,[6] and many secondary school teachers reduce their hours when they leave the profession.[7]
Furthermore, when teachers take a career break, the lack of flexibility often discourages them from returning. In data from the DfE’s Return to Teaching initiative, 46% of ‘career breakers’ (categorised as individuals who had left teaching to raise a family) said a lack of flexible or part-time opportunities was a barrier to returning to the profession.[8]
This may also impact on progression; DfE data from November 2019 for state-funded nursery and primary schools showed that while 86% of all teachers were women, only 74% of headteachers were. In state-funded secondary schools, the gap was even bigger; 65% of all teachers were women, but only 40% of headteachers.
It is clear, then, that if the profession wants to encourage talented individuals to choose teaching over other professions, to encourage them to stay, and to offer equal opportunities to rise to the top, improving access to flexible working is critical.
Covid-19 has created serious challenges across all industries and sectors, and teaching is no exception. Schools have been forced to introduce remote learning at speed, and many teachers have been juggling their school responsibilities with those of their families. Additionally, evidence from across the workforce as a whole suggests that the pandemic is having a disproportionate impact on working women (who, as noted above, make up the majority of teaching staff).[9]
However, the pandemic has also shown what is possible. There has been a greater understanding that some aspects of the job can easily be achieved remotely. Teachers have been able to set and mark work from home, and many have delivered live virtual lessons. There are also valuable learnings from this time around using technology and improving communication; Senior Leadership Team and department meetings have continued, over online platforms. An additional benefit is that leaders and managers have become more aware of the commitments and responsibilities that their colleagues have outside of work.
So while no one would suggest that this is the best way to run a school, school leaders now have the opportunity to reflect on some of the flexible working practices that have developed during this time, and look to refine and incorporate effective practices into flexible working strategies, for the benefit of both individual staff and the whole school.
Stakeholder engagement has suggested that there are a number of factors that are common to schools which have made a success of flexible working:
For flexible working to flourish, it needs to be actively championed by the Headteacher and SLT. This means taking a whole-school approach to flexible working, so that it is built into school development plans, policies and strategies, rather than seen as solely an HR responsibility. It also includes thinking creatively about how to match staff needs with recruitment, curriculum and teaching requirements, and building this into the timetabling process. And it involves being proactive about finding out what flexibility staff might want, rather than waiting to be asked and grudgingly accommodating requests.
It also means role-modelling the change leaders want to see. While part-time headteachers are rare, they do exist, and their example makes the leadership role more appealing to middle leaders who might otherwise be deterred from seeking promotion.
The remote working experiment caused by Covid-19 has highlighted the role of strong communication in keeping separated teams together, and this is equally important in more normal times for teams that include flexible workers.
Leaders who seek to improve access to flexible working can make sure everyone is on board by communicating clearly what they are doing and the benefits of doing it. Once more people are working flexibly, leaders need to make sure their communication plans include those who are not physically present, such as offering virtual team meetings.
As well as communicating any changes to staff, leaders need to engage them in the process of making a more flexible approach work. This means sharing the responsibility for exploring what is possible, and delivering it in practice. The process is more likely to be successful if team members are involved in the decision making, encouraged to see that they may not be able to have everything they ask for, and understand the need to be flexible in return.
The challenges to flexible working in teaching are often complex to overcome. But, as some schools have shown, it is possible to accommodate flexibility within the timetable, and to do so without negatively affecting students’ experiences and learning.
Taking an open-minded approach allows leaders to see obstacles as things that can be overcome, rather than roadblocks to change. Similarly, it helps to understand that flexible roles need to be designed differently if they are to succeed, and that being flexible about responding to teams’ needs is likely to deliver better outcomes. The requester should also be open to considering different options and being flexible in return.
There are some good examples of effective practice across primary and secondary schools which other schools could consider. These include:
You can read more about one secondary school which has embraced flexible working, resulting in half the teachers working part-time and a 7% staff turnover rate, here: Huntington School case study.
[1] https://timewise.co.uk/article/flexible-working-talent-imperative/
[2] https://www.directlinegroup.co.uk/en/news/brand-news/2020/140520200.html
[3] https://www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-teacher-training-applications-65-due-lockdown
[4]https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/848851/ITT_Census_201920_Main_Text_final.pdf
[5] https://www.nfer.ac.uk/media/2047/nufs04.pdf
[6]https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/808351/FW_interim_report_FINAL.pdf
[7] Teacher Retention and Turnover Research – Is the Grass Greener Beyond Teaching?, NFER, 2017
[8] Evaluation of the Return to Teaching Pilot Programme, research report, DfE, 2018.
[9] https://timewise.co.uk/article/covid-19-risks-gender-pay-gap-chasm
