To think 9 day fortnights for teachers is a good idea...

[LadyCrazyCatLady]

...if implemented correctly.

One of the large school trusts local to us have announced that, from September they're aiming for flexible working for teachers within their schools:

The trust said: "We have been focusing on prioritising flexibility for our teachers to support greater work-life harmony.

As a result, we are excited to launch our new flexible working plan which will come into effect in the next academic year (24/25) and includes working towards a nine-day fortnight for teachers.

We want to be bold in our approach. Our ambition is for teachers to be afforded the same flexibility that’s available in many other sectors and now even expected in the post-pandemic world.

Given the nature of teaching, we know that the scale of this flexibility will not always match what others offer outside the sector, but making these changes will go a long way in making a difference.

In line with our deep commitment to self-determination, we want to give our teachers more agency over their roles by offering a flexible working plan that will give them time back.

Nine-day fortnight: We are working towards a nine-day fortnight for teachers without impacting students’ contact time. As far as possible, we want this to be a genuine reduction in working hours and not just trying to fit 10 days of teaching into nine. The analysis we have been conducting shows this is possible in many of our schools.

Remote working: We are pushing forward with a plan that allows remote working during non-contact time, which includes giving more PPA (planning, preparation and assessment) and making it manageable from home or another remote location, and where our teachers want to do this, compressing the free hours or non-contact hours so that they can be away from school for longer periods of time.

Personal days: We want to offer personal days during term time so our teachers are not restricted to only taking time off in the school holidays.

Artificial intelligence: We will look to use technology, where possible, to reduce teachers’ contact time and provide greater flexibility. We want to harness technology more widely to free up more time and allow our best teachers to influence more students than just those physically present in their classrooms."

AIBU to think that, although it would take some major organising, something like this could help with the teacher retention crisis that we currently have in the UK?

I am a teacher. It is very intense in the term time and lots of things in my personal life get put off until the holidays. You definitely need the 13 weeks. However, I definitely don't spend my holidays working or marking. None of my colleagues do, except maybe the last day or two before the start of term.

You have NO IDEA how much work is being done outside of 'school hours', do you? Let alone how much of our own money is spent on resources and things to make classrooms nicer for the children because, you know, we CARE.

We can't 'book leave', we get what we get and we don't get upset. We don't go on holiday in term time to save money BECAUSE WE CAN'T.

This is not free time this is planning time - teachers get 10% planning time. Might work better for primary as secondary ppa seems to be more spread rather than blocked. Might have issues with child protection, illness, cover and meetings.

My secondary school maths' department arranged their timetable such that there were no maths lessons on Thursdays. Every single maths teacher had the whole day for planning and marking etc. I still think it's a great idea.

You do realise that you are replying to someone literally called Barely Literate. 🤣

We want to offer personal days during term time so our teachers are not restricted to only taking time off in the school holidays.

Sounds good to me if it applies to the kids too!

The Dixons Trust aren’t heavy on details but do seem to be saying it’s a day off a fortnight on top of PPA.

I presume they are looking to reduce the class contact time; so it would be one day off in 10 PLUS one afternoon off per week.

It would be really easy to manage - you would just need one extra teacher per 10 existing teacher; that teacher would circle round the school covering one day per week in each class.
For example -
Teacher a - off Monday on week 1
Teacher b - off Tuesday on week 1
Teacher c - off Wednesday on week 1
Teacher d - off Thursday on week 1
Teacher e - off Friday on week 1

Teacher f - off Monday on week 2
Teacher g - off Tuesday on week 2
Teacher h - off Wednesday on week 2
Teacher I - off Thursday on week 2
Teacher J - off Friday on week 2

There are then 1.5 FTE teachers who cover all these “days off” plus all the non contact time.

I'd love to hear from someone at Dixons who could tell us if they are increasing PPA time, to essentially 0.15 FTE per week across a fortnight. Or is contact time in week 1 100% and week 2 is 1 day PPA, therefore no change from 0.1 FTE PPA time.
Would also like to know if it's the former, are they recruiting additional posts to cover the increased PPA or using leadership time or associate staff to cover?
Lots to think about.

I left teaching for flexibility. 70-80% of my work can be completed at home with no one monitoring me as to when I complete it. I do, but often in the evenings late. I schedule send everything for the normal working day.
If this existed then I might have stayed in teaching.

That didn't take long.

@MirrorBack ... what do you do now? Asking for a friend...

Personally I think this is a bad idea and the idea that AI and technology will in some way replace face to face teaching time at all seems a slippery slope. I also have my doubts as to the reasoning behind this, perhaps I am becoming pessimistic in my middle age.

Good. I hope it helps with teacher recruitment, retention and general well-being.

Haha, you have decrypted my posts and found that it's Dixon's that I'm talking about.

If anyone finds out more information, please post it. Maybe we'll have an influx of amazing teachers to the area.

Not teaching, but my local authority has introduced a 9 day fortnight across our children services for our practitioners and team managers, absolutely no depreciable impact on performance for families and a happier workforce. I just wish they'd roll out for the SLT.

This. I already teach 9 days a fortnight. Most of my ppa is on the same day. It doesnt mean i work 9/10.

I think it sounds really good as long as it was 9 days and not a tenth of working. Normal non contact time for planning.

I was getting burnt out and recently dropped a day a week. It’s made improvements to my teaching, parenting and life. I have more energy in the evenings to dedicate to my work once my child is down because I have that 1 extra day a week to do what I please, normally catching up on house/appointments. Leaving my weekends mine to enjoy with my family until a Sun evening.

So, in other words, 10 days of teaching carried out in 9 days. For secondary teachers who might see upwards of 300 children, of all ages, maybe across 2 or subjects, each week, that would be brutal.

I don't fancy having to wrangle that into Nova-T, tbh.

Two week timetable, hours varying, have to make sure teachers for subjects are in particular overlapping blocks so you don't have all the Geography Department out at once when the usual teachers who have it as a second subject are also in PPA, add in working the cover system without your usual bank of staff on PPA who will cover in an emergency...ugh.

But it makes for good marketing, I guess. The 'working towards' is typical sales, meaning 'We'll tell you we're going to do it soon, but in the meantime, here's an expectation of doing 15 days work in 10 and maybe some poor sod in Data will be able to get this to work by 2028 or the expensive tech company that's responsible for our computers will have persuaded the Members to spend tens of thousands on their AI timetabling app that honestly won't send somebody from school 1 to school 28 in the 20 minute break we have to give them by law before gaining self-awareness sometime around period 5 and triggering the Rise of the Machine.'

Teachers (myself included) get half a day per week of non contact time for planning and assessment. Some schools lump this together and give a day a fortnight (my school used to offer this). It should have any impact on students as it's no additional time away than is currently given.

We do not get paid for the time that we are off - we are paid pro rata, and a lot of teachers spend their ‘holidays’ , particularly the short half term breaks, lesson planning for the upcoming terms!

Lots of schools in my area now cover ppa with specialist teachers, music, sport, languages etc. This is much cheaper than supply or an extra teacher employed by school as they are often self employed on hourly or daily rates and don't have to be qualified as a teacher (although often are) this gives the children really good quality lessons in subjects that some class teachers are not as confident in.

Speak for yourself. I currently have 33.5 AL, 8 BH annually and up to 2 FL days per month. A max of 53.5 (=just under 11 weeks) of leave per year. This is actually LESS than I got in my previous job.
Just because you were stupid enough to accept a job with poor t&c doesn't mean we all were.
I'm not a teacher or anything vaguely similar but several friends and family are, so know how hard they work.
Even if I didn't, from a purely objective POV it's pretty obvious that if you're facing a huge lack in a key work area you need to do SOMETHING to solve it, and this seems like a good option.
Would be really interested in hearing what those who disagree would suggest as an alternative. Can't imagine it would be increasing teacher's pay a commensurate amount. Just not teaching kids at all, maybe? reducing compulsory school age back to 14?

That's exactly what it says. The fact that so many here struggle with comprehension is an insight into some of the problems with the education system