Teachers in England are being offered a range of incentives to make the job more appealing, including two free periods a week to give them a lie-in, a nine-day fortnight and more planning time at home to help with work-life balance.
An escalating crisis in teacher recruitment and retention is forcing schools and academy trusts to come up with novel ways to attract new recruits into the profession and keep experienced staff in front of classes.
As part of its manifesto commitment to recruit 6,500 new teachers, the government wants teachers to be able to do more planning at home to improve flexibility, but experts say the sector will have to go much further if it is to compete with other professions, including on pay.
A new report published on Thursday by the education charity Teach First calls for every teacher to be given a “flexibility” entitlement, including short-term secondments away from school to work in other sectors and career breaks offering unpaid leave.
The Teach First CEO, Russell Hobby, said: “For too long conditions in the teaching profession have failed to keep pace with what the next generation of workers crave in a career – and what they can find in other sectors.
“This means that, despite having huge respect for teachers, Gen Z are simply not signing up in sufficient numbers. This is holding back the education of our young people, especially from poorer backgrounds.”
The Teach First report, Tomorrow’s Teachers: A Roadmap for Attracting Gen Z, includes a survey of more than 3,000 16-24-year-olds, which found that although 73% regard teaching as a job with purpose, they also perceive it as stressful (42%) and poorly paid (36%) in a sector with inadequate funding (36%).
Schools up and down the country are already using their initiative to make the job more attractive. All Saints Catholic College, a state secondary school in west London, is giving every teacher a double period off one morning a week.
“Teaching is a performance profession. You need to be on your A-game every single day of the week and that’s difficult,” said head teacher Andrew O’Neill. “My approach has always been that we need to treat teachers like elite athletes. They are given the best treatment. They are looked after and they’re cared for.”
The school can afford it, he says, because it is well funded, with 50% of pupils attracting additional pupil premium money.
The initiative began at the start of the autumn term, and staff have used their new freedom to stay in bed, do yoga, go for a run and take their own children to school “You can tell who has had the morning off,” said English teacher Bethany Ames. “It’s quite visible. When they come in they are very happy.”
It’s just after 10.30am on Wednesday and Ames has just arrived in school after enjoying an extra hour in bed. “I had coffee, I went for a run, I managed to get a bit of washing done and I got myself ready for the rest of the week. I took the longer route to work and I came in ready and refreshed.”
Ajay Narisetti, head of RE, has been teaching for 18 years. For the first he has time on his hands every term-time Wednesday morning. “This is jackpot for me personally. I’m a family man with two children. It makes a huge difference just taking them to school in the morning.”
In a separate move, Dixons Academies Trust, which runs 16 schools and one college, has just introduced a nine-day fortnight. Trust leader Luke Sparkes said staff would be paid the same but only have to be in school nine days over a fortnight instead of 10.
“They can do what they want. It’s about giving people autonomy and agency. The reality is that some people will choose to do some work on that day, which means they don’t need to work in the evenings or at the weekend,” said Sparkes. It’s still early days. It’s a genuine reduction in workload. We are hoping it will reduce staff absence.”
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According to the most recent official data published by the Department for Education (DfE), nearly as many teachers left the profession in England last year as entered it. According to the school workforce census, 44,002 teachers joined in the year to November 2023, while 43,522 teachers left, with teacher vacancies up by 20%.
Teach First says its proposal for a £7.5m pilot to give teachers the chance to pursue a short-term secondment in a different profession could help turn the tide and “would help Gen Z gain the diverse career experiences and skills they crave, as well as providing new skills and perspectives which teachers can use to benefit their pupils upon their return to teaching”.
In one example, a physics teacher at a school in Macclesfield completed a residency at Cern in Switzerland before returning to the classroom. Mat Galvin, the teacher’s principal at Macclesfield Academy, said: “The opportunity augmented the teacher’s subject knowledge and provided an invaluable experience she brought back to her pupils and our wider community.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “We are currently working through the most severe recruitment and retention crisis in living memory. Given the opportunities for flexible working in other professions, teaching needs to find ways to compete if it is to solve the recruitment and retention crisis.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “While such initiatives may help they will not be enough, however, to address the scale of the problems we are facing, and the only real answer to that is for the government to improve pay and conditions.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said:“Teacher recruitment and retention is in a parlous state. That is why the Education Secretary has already begun a reset of the government’s relationship with the sector, with the intent to re-establish teaching as an attractive, expert and ultimately go-to profession for graduates.
“We are taking steps to support teachers’ wellbeing and ease workload pressures, including clarifying that teachers can carry out their planning time at home, improving flexible working for staff.”