A union has threatened strike ballots unless a large academy trust drops plans to extend its school day – which currently ends at 2.30pm – by 30 minutes.
Outwood Grange Academies Trust (OGAT) plans to increase weekly hours at its 28 secondaries from 30 to 32.5 hours, to bring them in line with government guidelines. Currently, their school day ends at 2.30pm.
But teachers’ union NASUWT has warned it will ballot members for industrial action unless OGAT withdraws its plans.
General secretary Patrick Roach said the plan “amounts to one of the worst attacks on teachers’ terms and conditions [and] risks moving OGAT from being a relatively successful trust to one that will experience significant employee turnover and industrial relations problems”.
OGAT says the proposed increase would not breach the teacher cap of 1,265 hours a year.
But NASUWT says it has concerns about the way this has been calculated. It vehemently opposes the plan, which would amount to an 8.3 per cent increase in hours.
Plan could spark retention crisis, warns union
Roach added: “NASUWT has made it very clear that, to avoid industrial action, OGAT must withdraw its plans and agree to work with us on any proposals affecting the delivery of the curriculum and length of the school day.”
He warned the move, which the union said is being proposed without a pay increase, will plunge the trust into a recruitment and retention crisis.
“NASUWT remains willing to discuss with OGAT how it can achieve its educational objectives, but only if it withdraws the threat of measures that will increase teacher workload and working time and damage morale.
“Until then, the NASUWT will be considering industrial action in OGAT schools.”
The DfE introduced new non-statutory guidelines in July 2023, which said it expected all schools to offer a 32.5-hour week.
It initially said all schools should comply with this by September 2023, but then pushed that deadline back by a year “in recognition of the pressures facing schools”.
NASUWT suggested OGAT could reach this 32.5-hour quota by other means – such as by extending the lunch break from 30 minutes to an hour, rather than increasing teaching time.
But the trust said the extra time will allow students to study topics “in more depth” – meaning they will be “better prepared for GCSEs”, a letter to parents at one school states.
Schools would also be able to deliver a “much improved” personal development curriculum, it added.
Currently, its schools open at 8.25am and end at 2.30pm. The trust wants to extend this to 3pm.
However the trust does also run “optional enrichment activities” after 2.30pm. Under the new plans, these would run from 3pm to 3.45pm.
OGAT runs 28 secondary schools in Yorkshire and Humberside, the North East, North West and the East Midlands. It plans to increase the teaching day from September onwards.
A spokesperson for the trust said it is “disappointed” by the threat of strike action.
Union consulting on plan
“We have been engaged in constructive dialogue with our trade union partners and our colleagues since October regarding our proposal to re-shape the secondary school day so that more of our teachers’ time is spent with students, helping them achieve even better outcomes,” they said.
“We have approached this as a genuine consultation which has already resulted in significant changes to our original proposal.
“We have ensured that our proposals will not require teachers to work beyond their contracted hours. Our secondary school day currently ends at 2.30pm, which we have to recognise currently falls short of the Government’s 32.5-hour-a-week minimum expectation.
“Given this, and the benefits that students will get from the proposal, we are disappointed that union partners are balloting for industrial action before consultation ends. We continue to have open dialogue with them and our workforce directly.”
According to government survey data published in 2021, 52 per cent of primary schools and 62 per cent of secondary schools already run a day of six-and-a-half-hours or more.
A further 41 per cent of primary schools and 35 per cent of secondary schools run a day that is between six hours and fifteen minutes and six and a half hours long.
The trust spokesperson added they had also “made a commitment to establish a workforce taskforce to further identify and remove unnecessary workload across our entire workforce.
“Our ultimate goal is to create a learning environment that benefits both our students and our staff. We believe that by working together collaboratively, we can achieve this goal and provide the best possible education for every child in our care.”
