The boss of one of the country’s biggest academy trusts has suggested the “archaic” directed time cap for teachers should be reviewed, saying “if we want to be seen as a profession we can’t continue to rigidly count hours”.
Becks Boomer-Clark, chief executive of Lift Schools, said instead of “counting hours”, Gen Z teachers want “flexibility, fluidity, a sense of purpose”.
Directed time is the number of hours in a year during which school leaders can direct teachers to be at work and available for work.
The Conservative government had explored ditching the cap in 2021, but a union leader said at the time any move would be “met with fury in the profession”.
But Boomer-Clark, speaking at Labour conference fringe event today, said: “I’m not sure there are as many professions that count hours, and that’s one of the really challenging things, I think, in terms of breaking us free.
“Recognising actually what learning looks like, seeing time as an absolutely finite resource, but actually also acting as professionals if we want to be seen as a profession.”
Need for ‘more mature’ model
She said the directed hours model was a “really archaic way to look at professions as we move into this next phase”.
“I think that we’ve got to have a much more mature and sophisticated and flexible understanding of time.
“When I speak to our Gen Z teachers coming through now, I’m having to really cast aside things that I’ve long held as a sort of absolutely cast iron truth, to understand what it is that they want from work, and how is it they see work sitting alongside the rest of their lives.
“They don’t talk to me about 1265, they talk to me about flexibility, fluidity, a sense of purpose and accountability, a sense of investment. And I think we’ve got to shift our thinking.”
In reality, most teachers work longer than the 1,265 hours a year. A 2019 report found that teachers work an average of 47 hours a week, with one in four working more than 59 hours.
Last year, government introduced a non-statutory expectation that schools open for a minimum of 32.5 hours a week.
During the conference panel, on teacher development, an audience member suggested education should follow the NHS in “embedded” professional development into its culture.
‘Lack of flexibility is the problem’
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leadership, said he had friends in the health service who work “incredibly long hours, but they do it in service and because it’s part of the commitment that they give because of the way they feel about responsibility for the work that they do.
“And I don’t remember them ever saying to me on a Friday night, when they arrive two hours late for us going out for a drink, that they’ve got to 1267, and that’s them done.
“So I think that there’s a lot to learn from the health service. Some of that’s good, and some that’s bad. But around the professional development, it’s very good, definitely.”
Chris Wheeler, NASUWT union’s head of campaigns, added directed time is “only half the time teachers are working in a given week.
“I absolutely agree that we need to look at the working time of teachers. I’m certain that 1265 isn’t the problem, but flexibility is.
“We come across constantly members, particularly from various underrepresented groups, forced out of full time employment in schools and into the supply sector or out of the profession completely because they can’t access any meaningful flexibility. So we absolutely need to address that issue.”
Boomer-Clark also said government should guarantee funding for the core entitlement of teacher development.
