Teacher Recruitment and Flexible working

The publication of the latest initial teacher training (ITT) figures for 2023-24 once again show that the Government is falling well below its target which will maintain an effective teacher recruitment pipeline. The deficit is considerable - with only half the number of postgraduate ITT secondary trainees required starting their training in the 2023-24 academic year storing up further recruitment challenges for secondary schools in 2024-25. 

Perhaps we should not be surprised that young graduates are not looking to pursue a career in teaching. Aside from the issue of teacher salaries and the increasing inability for teachers to get onto the property ladder, it is clear that the changes in working patterns in wider society are having their impact. 

Freedom and flexibility 

When those of us of an older generation chose to go in teaching, it was a hugely attractive career because it offered significantly more holiday than our peers working in other professions. Term time may have been hectic, but the rhythm of the school year meant that the next break was never too far away. There was a play-off between salaries and free time and those of us who chose education did so because of greater freedom that the profession offered. 

This is no longer true. Education has been left behind as wider society has embraced WFH (working from home) and implemented flexible working.  

This is particularly true of GenZ graduates – the only working norm that many of them have experienced is hybrid. My son, who graduated in 2020 has been working in the City for the past three years. In that time, he has only been into the office three times on a Monday, and once on Friday (and that was because it was easier to go on to a social event after work)! Changing job six months’ ago, he negotiated the same terms with his new employer. 

As is well documented, GenZ take a very broad view of WFH, to include working from the airport heading out for a long weekend, or even working from Glastonbury!  

Education – flexible working? 

In this context, education comes across as hugely restrictive and demanding. No wonder that students, weighing up their career options, are looking for other, more flexible options. 

Schools (at least in our current model) are face-to-face organisations. Teachers are required to be in school for a minimum of 32.5 hours, five days a week.  

This to some extent recognises that schools not only offer an education, but they also perform an important function of providing day-care to children and young adults. For this to happen, teachers need to be in school. WFH every Monday and Friday is currently not really an option for our profession. 

The Government has acknowledged that increased flexibility is going to be an essential ingredient to teacher retention and teacher recruitment. The publication of Flexible working in Schools (May 2023) outlines some ways in which this might be achieved. Teachers can request job shares, part-time working or to WFH during their PPA time.  

Quite how such requests will work out on the ground is yet to be seen. If wider society is anything to go by, requests for part-time working are likely to be accompanied by a request not to be in school on Mondays and Fridays, and who would blame them? 

Flexible working requests undoubtedly are going to put an additional strain on school leadership teams. As anyone who has constructed a secondary school timetable will tell you, the more part-time workers and requests for consolidating PPA into blocks of useful blocks of time there are, the more complex the timetable becomes. If there are too many requests, there is gridlock.  

The consequence is that job interviews are set to become negotiations over terms and conditions, as schools compete with each other to secure a new recruit on how flexible that they can be as an employer. 

Furthermore, as the DfE guidance acknowledges, there are clearly going to be additional costs entailed in introducing flexible working: handover times on a job-share for example. It is unclear where this funding will come from. 

A new model for secondary schooling? 

In the long run, the chronic teacher recruitment crisis and additional pressures for flexible working are likely to lead to new models for secondary schooling.  

It is much easier to create flexible working for teachers if schools themselves are hybrid. If teaching moves online then, as home-learning during Covid demonstrated, teachers can WFH.  

Such a model would require significant investment in technology to enable students to access learning and to communicate with their teachers. Home learning during Covid threw up a considerable digital divide: well-resourced schools with strong embedded learning platforms were able to deliver much more effective remote teaching and learning in a way that less technologically prepared schools were not.  

This model would also require the provision of in-school supervision by ‘support teachers’ for students who require child-care and who are unable to work from home. 

Moving to a hybrid model for secondary schooling will require a quantum shift in what we, as a society, consider ‘good education’, but it may be forced on us by necessity.