When English teacher Gareth Edwards broke his ankle, attempting a karate kick dance move at the school Christmas party, he was able to recuperate at home and teach classes remotely.
Then, when the 59-year-old was contemplating early retirement last year, he was persuaded instead to go down to three days a week.
Had his school, Thomas Gainsborough in Suffolk, not allowed him that flexibility, he “probably” would have ended his career altogether.
Last year, almost 40,000 teachers left state schools for reasons other than retirement. Because of his school’s flexibility, Edwards wasn’t one of those.
Part of Unity Schools Partnership, Thomas Gainsborough is one of 10 ambassador schools and trusts (one for each region) appointed by the Department for Education to develop flexible working approaches and provide advice to others interested in doing the same.
Nationally, only around 20 per cent of secondary school teachers work part-time. At Thomas Gainsborough, it is more than a third (34 of its 100 teachers) – a rise of 15 per cent on last year.
Assistant headteacher Alex Blagona, who leads the school’s flexible working programme, says that, given flexibility, “the vast majority” of staff will “pay that back in kind later down the line”.
The school is also, literally, being paid back. The approach led to a 30 per cent drop in staff absences last year, helping to save £30,000 in supply costs. Paid leave was also down by 80 per cent.
‘Not just being fluffy bunny’
Given the recruitment and retention crisis, schools like Thomas Gainsborough feel they have little choice but to be flexible.
Just over one-third of teachers and leaders in 2023 (36 per cent) were considering leaving the state school sector over the next 12 months (excluding for retirement), up from 25 per cent in 2022. Eighty per cent of teachers leaving blamed the high workload, while 37 per cent cited lack of flexible working opportunities.
“We had to adapt, because teachers know the job market out there means they can find part-time work elsewhere,” Blagona says. “Schools are now aware of the value of their teachers.”
Headteacher Helen Yapp has just allowed one of her heads of department to work from home on the day of our visit because absences elsewhere mean “she had flogged herself to the bone”.
“That was the human thing to do. We talk about trying to understand the invisible emotional backpacks people carry, but I’m not soft – I also don’t want her going off long-term sick. So, it’s not just about being fluffy bunny, it’s about being quite strategic.”
Yapp believes the parents of her pupils are unaware of its flexible approach. “They don’t need to be as it doesn’t affect their child.” However, “they would comment if we had long-term supply”.
But there is nervousness about an apparent public perception of lazy teachers. The DfE’s flexible working group and leaders from its ambassador schools and trusts got together in London last month on the day that a news story broke about a Teach First report on attracting new teachers. Teachers were being “offered lie-ins”, the headline said.
The framing of the story “sent alarm bells” through the group, Blagona says, because “that’s not the narrative we’re trying to push”.
Thomas Gainsborough’s staff can spend their planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time off-site so long as they are not required for cover duties. Several teachers start late on some days – so they can do school drop-offs, not sleep in. They also sometimes leave school early.
Blagona currently has flexibility to work from home four mornings a week, which enables him to spend more time with his daughter and get a “mental break” from the hectic school environment.
Timetabling turmoils
But Blagona says the school, which is the ambassador for the Eastern region, is facing “challenges” in “bringing other schools along with us”.
“It’s still that perception that the new age of hybrid working in the private sector isn’t one that really fits in with the educational picture.”
Two of the original ambassador schools have since pulled out of the programme.
The DfE’s survey suggests a rise in cynicism around the feasibility of flexible working. Fifty-six per cent of teachers and leaders thought flexible working was incompatible with a teaching career, up from 51 per cent in 2022.
Blagona says that among the participant schools he speaks to, “the number one issue” holding them back is timetabling constraints. Some tried offering all staff a free period on set days, which proved impossible.
But he believes timetabling should not be a deterrent. “You have to be canny, it involves thinking outside the box as to how you allocate teachers,” he says.
The secret, Blagona says, is “being open with people, so there’s no special deals done behind closed doors to different members of staff”.
Job-share joy
Thomas Gainsborough’s approach was born out of a “tough pandemic”, after which a dozen staff announced their retirement plans. Its rural location – an hour’s commute from the nearest big town (Ipswich) – makes recruitment tricky at the best of times.
The school “needed a plan to encourage people to join us”. It has been advertising flexible teacher roles, which helps to outweigh the negatives of a potentially long commute for those based further afield.
Half the school’s part-time staff have changed their work patterns since joining, including six young mums and four teachers in job-shares. This is unusual for a secondary school; the DfE’s survey found only 1 per cent of teachers at secondaries in job-shares, compared with 12 per cent in primaries.
Liliana Hurtado-Read, the school’s head of modern languages, job-shares with her husband Laurence. She almost quit after returning from her last maternity leave, finding the hours “quite challenging” given that one of her children has special needs and is partially home-schooled.
Now she teaches Spanish four days a week and Laurence takes over on the other day. They also share a tutor group, which “feels like a family”. When there is a crisis at home, they “step in for each other”.
Liliana says the job-share has allowed the couple to “continue growing professionally and benefit from being with the children”.
But “levels of coordination and organisation” in their household have to be “really high”, and they have “little time together” as a couple. “It’s not an easy thing to do. You need to be able to give from both sides.”
Yapp says being flexible has meant “keeping some of our better staff”. While experienced staff are more expensive to hold onto, it is a price worth paying. “I don’t not balance my budget,” she says.
Wellbeing in work
A common misconception of flexible working is that it costs schools more. The school was reluctant to get into the finer details of its budget, but said its staffing costs this year were 75 per cent of its total income, which has not changed significantly in the past two years.
Government guidance says staff pay typically represents over 70 per cent of expenditure; anything over 80 per cent is “considered high”.
Thomas Gainsborough also receives around £50,000 for being a DfE ambassador school.
Yapp believes the “interest in flexible working is growing”, but there is still a cultural stigma in secondaries where “it’s too complicated not to work full time”.
Mistakes have been made around staff not having “professional understanding that being able to work flexibly needs to fit both parties”.
Since the pandemic, Blagona’s team has also become “really aware” of staff “putting on a brave face and sometimes going into school when really they shouldn’t… Part of maintaining wellbeing is understanding it’s OK not to be OK.”
Debbie Kwakkelstein, the school’s cover manager, recalls how a decade ago its teachers believed that “you couldn’t just have one day off, because no one would believe you were sick. So they used to take two.”
She reassured them that she believed their reasons for absence, which helped bring about a cultural shift towards “lots of one-day absences” instead. “That saves us money in our cover output… There’s a very good rapport of people helping each other.”
Kwakkelstein, 60, was herself feeling “pulled in all directions”, juggling caring responsibilities as a daughter and grandmother with her job, when she started mulling retirement this year. Blagona says the school saw her as a “valued agony aunt” with 20 years of “personal knowledge of staff and supply agencies” they “didn’t want to lose”.
So, they struck a deal, reducing her responsibilities to finding cover in the mornings, rather than teaching cover herself, in return for a 50 per cent pay cut.
Blagona says the willingness to reduce hours “is still rare in schools … Some would rather just see a member of staff go.”
But he believes that holding onto experienced staff for longer means they can “pass down knowledge”, to newer staff members, which “makes them feel valued in school”.
Meanwhile, Edwards’ new shorter working week has given him time for other pursuits. Yesterday he went dancing with a friend – hopefully avoiding any karate-kick moves.
“It does seem like I’ve got the best of all worlds now,” he says. “I have to keep the grin off my face sometimes, as I don’t want to look too smug.”
