Is home working possible?

Naomi Howells, Managing Director for recruitment specialists, Class People, examines the possibility of a move to partial home working for teachers.

Just days before Christmas, the education secretary Bridget Phillipson advocated some home-based working as a right for all state school teachers, in a move she says will address the cultural workplace challenges of teaching and help stem the growing retention crisis. It is her belief that offering teachers the right to work away from the classroom for lesson preparation, marking, and pupil assessment (PPA), offers better work life balance without compromising contact time with pupils.

The state of the industry

It’s no secret that the education sector is understaffed, given both the mass exodus of trained teachers in recent years, alongside the missed recruitment targets by the Department for Education (DfE). Current statistics highlight a high level of vacancies across the country, generally poor mental health, and an estimated 13,600 teacher gap in the marketplace. There are also stark warnings that the situation will worsen if we do not secure the “missing mothers”: the loss of roughly 9,000 females in their thirties who leave seeking better work life balance for their own families. The most recent Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders (WLTL) survey puts this bluntly, highlighting that of those considering leaving the profession in the next 12 months, 47% will do so because of the lack of flexible working opportunities, up from 34% in 2023. What’s more, a survey from the DfE’s Teaching Vacancies service has highlighted the pull of flexible working, with 57% of the 7,000 teachers surveyed wanting to work in a school that’s open to flexible working.

What does the law say?

It is almost a year since the Flexible Working (Amendment) Regulations 2023 came into force on 6 April 2024, giving all employees the right to request flexible working from their first day on the job (previously only permitted after 26 weeks in a role); the right to make two requests for flexible working per year, compared to the previous one; and a requirement for employers to consult with the employee, and respond within two months. Flexible working does not have to include time working from home, but it’s something being strongly advocated for teachers, particularly those working full time.

Making it happen

Different schools are adopting different approaches to homeworking for teachers, but it is invariably proving beneficial to the schools that make it happen. Dixons Academy Trust is actively encouraging teachers to take PPA time offsite, meanwhile The Education Alliance academy trust now approves 98% of all flexible working requests, and has introduced a policy for teachers to attend their own children’s sports days and school plays.

Practically, offering home working comes down to scheduling. Already a complex process, timetabling has traditionally been worked to maximise teaching time for pupils, leaving teachers with PPA time in individual free periods. Successful models are now approaching timetabling on a teacher-by-teacher basis, identifying opportunities for teachers to have a morning or afternoon each week for PPA at home, or alternatively ensuring the first or last period of each day is left free for the same reason. Proactive timetable management is essential, with home-working at the core.