The debate about lengthening the school day clearly isn’t going anywhere. 

In May, Sir Kevan Collins pushed for a compulsory extension of the school day as part of his plans on Covid catch-up, and despite his resignation from the post, it seems the idea caught the eye of the new education secretary. Last week Nadhim Zahawi told MPs in the House of Commons he wanted to see all schools move towards being open for six and half hours a day. 

However, a Department for Education review published last week, stated: “Any universal change to the length of the school day would involve significant delivery considerations, particularly how to realise the additional teaching capacity required in order to facilitate delivery within existing legislative, contractual and workforce supply constraints.” 

More:

• Catch-up tsar: Extended school day should be compulsory

• Zahawi wants all schools to be open for 6.5 hours a day

• Do longer school days work? Lessons from history

It’s a highly contentious idea: the implications for the structure of timetables and staff time are huge, and it would inevitably result in changes to teachers’ contracts. For this to work, headteachers need to be convinced that it’s for the right reasons, and more importantly, that they will have the resources to realise the change. 

So how could it work? Where can we find possible models of extended provision to learn from? How can leaders work more creatively and avoid exhausting their staff? Are there any models which can be adapted from other sectors?

1. Lessons from the independent sector 

Boarding schools can offer longer school days because of the way their staffing time is distributed. They also benefit from higher funding as well as existing structures like evening rotas, and also compensate by having longer holidays.

Independent day schools have been working on wraparound care for some time, and many are open from 8am to 6pm. However, teaching is still confined to an average of 6.5 hours, and it’s not compulsory for every student to stay the whole time. Some support staff, such as librarians, start later and finish later to accommodate students working quietly on their homework or independent study until home time. There are also some drop-in sessions to accommodate students who struggle with aspects of their learning. 

A large menu of lunchtime activities is staffed by teachers as part of their contract - something which remains highly controversial in the maintained sector. In addition, there are the usual sports and creative activities. Some are run by teachers, but other activities, such as boxing, are funded separately by parents. There is always a senior leader onsite in case of problems.

But for larger schools in the maintained sector, it’s harder to cover all bases. It’s so easy to overlook what teachers’ goodwill already provides beyond the published timetable, such as school plays, regular sports practices and fixtures. 

And of course, there are already many revision sessions for Year 11s (and sometimes Year 10s too) taken by individual subject teachers on designated nights. On current time budgets, there would be huge challenges in extending these activities to all.

2. Use directed time more effectively

If teachers need to directly teach or supervise during the extended hours, then leaders need to undertake a long-overdue evaluation of workload and distribution of time. 

England’s teachers spend more time on bureaucracy than almost any other nation. Cutting unnecessary meetings, data drops and after-school events could free up time for supervision of homework sessions of half an hour or an hour a week.

Later finishing times would take some selling because of childcare and eldercare responsibilities, but could be a winner if preparation and marking in the evenings became noticeably lighter. The careful trade-off would need to be agreed and overseen by unions and senior management.

The worst move would be for a change in teachers’ conditions of service to forcibly increase directed time; many teachers, already on the brink, would vote with their feet.

3. Shift patterns

While there are currently different patterns in schools for support and teaching staff, exploiting any further variations could revolutionise the ways schools work.

The hospitality sector, for example, operates split shifts in which staff do a couple of hours in the morning, have a few hours off and then return in the evenings. In some countries where siestas are still part of daily life, schools have morning lessons, the early afternoon off and then resume in the evening.

Obviously not every teacher would be on this arrangement: many would still be covering the normal timetable to give complete daily coverage. It would suit those who are happy to use the time for planning, marking and data in a quiet work area onsite to minimise travel between shifts if they don’t then have to take work home. 

One pattern in car manufacturing involves three twelve-hour shifts one week and four twelve-hour shifts the next. I’ve known workers to be very satisfied because they had whole days off and could cope with the longer shifts. No one wants to see twelve-hour days in schools, but there could be an adaptation of this, perhaps of ten-hour shifts. Part time teachers are often happiest if their lessons are grouped so that they have whole days or half days away from school. Could such flexibility be extended to full-timers? 

There is no easy quick fix, which is not in itself a bad thing. If we question what adaptation we need from staff, we ought also to consider the impact of longer days and more academic work on students, many of whom have worked so hard online to keep up. To be expected to do more would be demoralising and counter-productive.

For the moment Nadhim Zahawi has stalled any further advances as he awaits the review of some academy trusts’ pilots. The worst outcome would be to charge ahead and add extra hours to unbearable workloads for both pupils and teachers. At best we might have a thorough evaluation of how the hours within the school day can be best spent and how flexible working could support this.