When Charles Dickens Primary School in central London first introduced flexible working almost a decade ago, it was driven by the need to support teacher parents.
‘The reality is that we’re in Zone One and it’s an expensive place to live,’ explains head teacher Michael Eggleton.
The high cost of living was pushing parents out of the City, while the expensive train commutes made staying unsustainable. ‘A distinct pattern was emerging at the time. New parents were returning from maternity leave, staying on for a few years, and then leaving,’ Eggleton says.
Fast-forward ten years, and while the education sector faces an escalating teacher retention crisis as more than 9,000 30-something women and 3,400 men leave state education in a year*, Eggleton’s teacher mums – and dads – are choosing to remain in their roles. ‘I can’t recall the last time a mother working at the school left either before, during or even three years after coming back from maternity leave,’ he says. ‘In fact, everyone is still here who’s had a child in the last five years at least. So we are noticing a real change.’
JOURNEY TO SUCCESS
What started out as an ‘informal, ad hoc and reactive’ approach to flexible working has now grown into an offer that is accessible to all members of staff and is embedded in the culture of the school.
Seventeen of the school’s 70 staff members, half of whom are teachers, have formal flexible working arrangements in place, which consist mainly of part-time and compressed hours. But all staff members benefit from informal flexible working, which could involve working from home on planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) or blended CPD, which takes place either remotely or in person. Family days and ad hoc requests are also granted.
‘Every member of staff has a full-day PPA, which is double what the Government expectation is of ten per cent. Staff who want to work flexibly can work from home for the entire day,’ Eggleton says.
Teachers are also able to take ‘duvet days’ at least once a term to attend their child’s sports day, parents’ evening, or for a special occasion. ‘Offering what we call Gift in Time acknowledges that life doesn’t always fit into the school term. Getting an MOT for your car, having a dentist appointment, caring for a sick child… these are all considerations in our “feast or famine” profession, so it’s important to ensure that there’s a bit of flex in the system,’ Eggleton says.
ATTRACTING TALENT
There are a number of reasons why teachers are attracted to working at this Ofsted Outstanding two-form-entry primary academy and nursery, which is part of The Charter Schools Education Trust. The evidence-informed school, which leads the London South Research Schools Network, is situated in a culturally, socially and ethnically mixed community, a stone’s throw from The Shard, one of London’s iconic buildings. It is one of the few schools in the area not to be impacted by falling rolls. ‘We have long waiting lists across all year groups, including the nursery,’ Eggleton says.
The school not only champions flexible working but is also one of the Department for Education’s flexible working ambassador schools, which provide peer support to other schools and trusts and help them overcome implementation challenges.
PARENT TEACHERS
Parents with children aged two to four years receive priority childcare places at the school’s nursery along with free breakfast and after-school club provision, which runs from 8am to 9am, and 3pm to 5.30pm.
Six staff members are currently utilising the priority nursery places, which enables them to balance childcare with the logistics and demands of the school day.
From next September, Charles Dickens hopes to extend its nursery provision to cater for children as young as nine months, as part of the Government’s plan to deliver 300 school-based nurseries in the lead up to the roll-out of the 30 hours’ funded childcare offer for children aged from nine months up to school age.
Eggleton says, ‘We’re currently consulting on whether or not a term-time-only option is doable for parents and other members of the community. It will then rely on us applying to the DfE nursery expansion fund to see if we can get the funding to do the expansion work. If we get the green light, we aim to open it in September.’
But while having on-site childcare ‘definitely helps’ retain some parent teachers, the ability to work flexibly is the key driver, Eggleton says.
‘The last thing I’d want is for a parent to be using our nursery and having to commute on a busy train at five o’clock, buggy in tow. Just because we have a nursery doesn’t make it accessible. Having that flexibility in the way we work allows it to be doable,’ he adds.
Dan Huxley, for example, is a Year 4 teacher at the school, who has been working flexibly since his first child was born in 2016.
He says, ‘When it was time for my wife to return to work, we decided that we wanted an equal role in childcare. After talking to the school, we came up with a solution where I could combine a day a week of me caring for my daughter that had a minimal impact on the children in my class and the school. This involved working four days a week with my day at home being a mixture of reduced hours and off-site PPA.’
Huxley went back to full-time when his daughter was in full-time education but returned to flexible working when his second daughter was born in 2022. ‘It’s not always easy managing my two roles as a dad and a teacher, but I feel that flexible working has allowed me to balance my work and family life,’ he says.
‘STAY’ MEETINGS
‘Stay’ meetings take place on a termly basis with all members of staff, from cleaners to support staff and senior leaders. ‘We discuss aspirations and long-term goals. Someone might want to become a special educational needs co-ordinator, or would love to stay on at school but want to do a PhD, or have caring responsibilities and would like to work flexibly in the future. We look at how we can support them,’ Eggleton says.
But implementing flexible working practices into schools is not without its challenges. ‘With every flexible working request or part-time offer, you’ve got to remember that we are a people-facing organisation and we need people in front of classes. There must be the staffing in place for that to work,’ he adds.
One of the common problems cited by head teachers is that they would love to offer flex, but cannot afford to recruit someone to fill the other part of that person’s role.
‘If someone were to go part-time, it’s difficult to find someone who could work two days a week, and that’s a challenge,’ Eggleton says. ‘The key is to ensure you include flexible working as an offer in your recruitment adverts.’
Over five years, Charles Dickens has supported more than a dozen primary and secondary schools and nurseries to introduce flex. Eggleton says, ‘There are lots of barriers to becoming a flexible-working school. Our model is unique and may not necessarily work in another school. There are challenges around smaller schools, particularly one-form-entry rural schools and what flex might look like for them. It’s about working with every school individually and looking at what is and isn’t achievable for that setting.’
Research findings at a glance
- Women in their thirties are the largest group leaving teaching each year: 9,147 exited the state education system in 2023, often coinciding with when they have children.
- Lack of flexible working arrangements was cited by 51 per cent of mothers as a principal reason for leaving the state education sector.
- Better support is needed for schools to enable flexible working, along with improved maternity leave pay and priority childcare places. *Source: ‘Missing Mothers’ report by The New Britain Project and The MTPT Project
- New regulations came into effect on 6 April 2024, giving employees the right to request flexible working from day one of employment.
MORE INFORMATION
- www.gov.uk/flexible-working
- www.flexibleworkingineducation.co.uk
- If you are a teacher looking for your next role, or a school looking to reduce your recruitment costs and recruit excellent staff, visit teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk
