Without teachers, schools can’t do their job. Recognising the problems caused by shortages, Labour made the recruitment of 6,500 new ones a key plank of its education offer to voters in England – one funded by VAT on private school fees. Now a report from the charity Teach First, advocating flexibility and an entitlement to career breaks, attempts to flesh out what improved working conditions in English schools might look like. Given the difficulties faced by recruiters and the alarming drop-off rate – one in four new teachers last less than three years – it is imperative that ministers pay attention to such efforts and come up with a plan.
The 5.5% pay rise agreed this summer should make a difference – although not to teachers in further education colleges, who have once again been left out. But the stress associated with teaching, as well as the pay, is putting off potential entrants, according to a survey of 16- to 24-year-olds. So is the sense that school spending overall is too low. Some heads are already trying out giving staff more time to prepare lessons and the chance to work from home. One academy chain, Dixons, has introduced a nine-day fortnight. Another measure that was dropped by the last government, and ought to be revived, is the offer of paid sabbaticals – to support professional development and incentivise longer careers in teaching.
Like other workplace changes, these would have upfront costs. Career breaks would have to be covered by other staff. But by raising morale and reducing sickness and absences, better working conditions could be part of an overall improvement. If ministers are to succeed in making teaching “a go-to profession” for more graduates, as they aim to, they must be mindful of the changing nature of work, and the growing expectation of a degree of flexibility.
This would be in line with the thinking of the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, and employment experts including Sir Cary Cooper. This week Sir Cary said companies such as Amazon, which are compelling staff to return to the office full-time and eliminating home working, are “the dinosaurs of our age”. Mr Reynolds’ support for more flexible working, as part of the package of workers’ rights due to be announced next month, is similarly unequivocal.
Teachers are not office workers, however, and new norms and expectations around working life create particular challenges for organisations such as schools and hospitals – where home working can only ever be an occasional thing for staff in public-facing roles. Pay is one reason for staff shortages and retention difficulties in these areas. The demanding nature of the work is another. As one headteacher told the Guardian, teaching is a “performance profession” requiring exceptional composure. Earlier this year another educational charity proposed a pay boost for frontline workers such as teachers, equivalent to a 1.8% rise.
As more employees are granted increased flexibility, as they should be, it is reasonable to expect – and to hope – that less flexible jobs will in time come with a pay premium. It was among the serious failings of Conservative schools policy that problems of teacher recruitment and retention – as well as parallel difficulties in other public services – were not tackled.
