Teachers and flexible working - thoughts?

[mids2019]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/dec/21/uk-teachers-should-be-allowed-to-work-from-home-education-secretary-says

I think this sounds like a good idea but it will have any impact on children's education? How will it be managed?

Some schools already do this.. I have my ppa at home every week. I spend one afternoon a week at home and I’m a full time teacher. It’s not an issue at all.

Ours is rounded up to 3 because of 1 hour lessons. I have a small TLR so I get another hour. I didn’t even think that primary schools would get even less than that. It’s utterly pathetic!

Were allowed to take our PPA at home now.
Only works if it's the last lesson on the day though in reality.
I'd rather have odd hours than a block - the days I have a PPA hour at some point in the day are so much easier to manage. Having it all in one block would make all days really full ( although I realise that this is how primary works- hats off!)

Meh. Most colleagues work several hours from home every day, out of hours, but nobody calls this 'WFH' because we do it for free.
What Bridget is proposing is that teachers can spend their 2.5 hours / week (pro rata) PPA time at home. And possibly to take these 2.5 hours x2 fortnightly instead of weekly, creating the equivalent of one day of WFH per fortnight. It's a drop in the ocean and does nothing to relieve the ridiculous workload teachers face. It might work better in secondary schools where teachers may be able to timetable these hours to coincide with free periods. In primary it is going to be entirely inconsequential.

@Nineandtwenty it's the same for primary and secondary. 10%. It usually works out at 5 hours per fortnight in secondary as sleep tend to have 2 week timetables. Not sure how the PP gets 4 hours - however nit even 4 would really make a difference.

Doesn't work at all in secondary because the PPA time is spread out over the timetable in hour blocks. Pressures on budgets/staffing mean it can't be worked out any other way.

Also @WomanIsTaken what are these 'free periods' of which you speak? Non contact time in secondary is PPA time already. Nobody has more than that.

I do my PPA at home - have done for a couple of years. I find it much better, get more done but I am in a one form entry and don’t have to plan with anyone.

The only time that I would have been able to WFH would have been the final period of the day.
For any other period I would have had to arrive at school and then gone home.
The timetable just didn't allow for it.

… I do have a % of time working from home as a midwife. How do you think guidelines and policies are written, audits completed, mandatory e-learning, service improvement projects….?

My mistake. There definitely used to be a thing referred to as 'free periods' in secondary education ‐my friend used to tease me about her timetable which included some of these. But clearly not anymore -apologies. I often see misconceptions by primary colleagues about conditions in secondary schools and vice versa, such as the PP's suggestion that PPA might amount to as much as 4h, and am glad to be corrected.

What are we going to have next. Midwives working from home.

Depending on the job it's entirely possible. I'm a community midwife in Canada and I do almost all my notes, documentation and follow up from home.

Teachers already do a shed load of work at home so if they have the flexibility to arrive late, leave early or pop to the shops in their PPA I'm all for it.

When I saw this in the papers I said to my husband (primary school teacher) "Oh that's good a teacher might be able to attend their kids sports day or nativity then" but he pointed out that it would be for the fixed slot of PPA so only if the event coincided with your PPA.

Schools are not family friendly in terms of allowing teachers to support their own children in school in my opinion. That doesn't help retention. I think teachers should have a right to one or two days bookable annual leave each year - even if it were unpaid.

It’s a non story. Plenty of schools (not just academies) allow PPA at home. But it’s only 2.5 hours a week for a full time teacher. The main issue for retention is workload.

That's a different thing entirely. Teachers who are on their PPA time would not need anything to be covered by supply teachers, because PPA is non-contact time. And yes, schools are full of supply teachers, often because schools can't recruit actual teachers!

I've literally never heard of any teacher I know being able to do either of these two things.

It's even more rare at secondary as PPA hours are scattered through the week.

I don't want to be at home one day a week, I don't like working at home. I want to work full- time, 5 days a week in school with a bit more protected planning time and with photocopiers that work.

Lol, teachers at my school don't even get 2.5 hours of PPA, we only get 2 hours and if your assembly falls into that, tough luck! Chop another 20 mins off.

This is where its tricky in secondary as most teachers are form tutors and form time is at the start of each day.

The idea that there are teachers not working from home is hilarious. What we really need is a realistic limit on working hours, problem is if it was less than 50 there would be masses not done, particularly in small schools. There is masses of inefficiency in education, I’d love for there to be a real drive on what is actually important and what is extra.

It really is a non-story.
When PPA was first introduced, it was pretty normal to choose where you worked from. Also, if you wanted to use an hour of it to attend your child's assembly, or to get your hair cut or to go to the dentist, that was fine too - you had the same amount of work to do, whether you are doing it on a Tuesday morning, or a Sunday afternoon or a Wednesday night.
Of course, too many HTs no longer trust professionals to manage their own time.

But it is just a gimmicky soundbite. The issue of workload is not being addressed. Anyone who really wants things to change, needs to completely halt OFSTED in it's current form; let teachers teach (and plan and mark) , and get rid of the other nonsense that currently takes up so much time and drains the life from teachers; Build special schools; provide enough funding to properly support the most vulnerable children in our society with skilled, well paid staff, for those who can flourish in mainstream schools; provide pastoral, social, and mental health support for those children that need it; build Social Care resources so that children in desperate situations can get some actual support; in summary, let teacher do the job they want to do - teach!

I’ve had the option of PPA at home for my entire 14 years of teaching.

My secondary has done this for over ten years.

People swop and negotiate to get ppa either first thing in the morning or last thing in the afternoon and then swop duties,

One year my head of department managed to get all her ppa on a Friday afternoon and did many many weekends away.

We do have tutor time just after break though - 2 lessons then break then tutor.

I suggest you stop being martyrs and do something about it.