Education should rethink its 1,265 hours of directed time rule, according to the chief executive of a major multi-academy trust.
Becks Boomer-Clark, CEO of Lift Schools (formerly Academies Enterprise Trust), which has 57 academies and around 4,500 staff across England, described the counting of hours as “a really archaic way to look at the profession”.
Speaking at a fringe event about teacher professional development at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool on Tuesday, Ms Boomer-Clark said: “I’m not sure there are many [other] professions that count hours.
“That’s one of the really challenging things, I think, in terms of breaking us free: recognising what learning actually looks like, seeing time as a finite resource and also acting as professionals.”
She added: “I think we’ve got to have a much more mature, sophisticated and flexible understanding of time.”
The future of the workforce
Directed time is when teachers are directed by their headteacher to be available for work. The allotment of a maximum of 1,265 hours per academic year, spread over 195 days, was first introduced in the 1970s. That works out as 6.5 hours per day.
To aid teacher retention, “we’ve got to shift our thinking”, Ms Boomer-Clark said.
She added: “When I speak to our Gen Z teachers coming through now, I’m having to really cast aside things that I’ve long held as absolutely cast iron to understand what it is that they want from work, and how it is that they see work sitting alongside the rest of their lives.
“And they don’t talk to me about 1,265. They talk to me about flexibility, fluidity, a sense of purpose and accountability, a sense of investment.”
Ms Boomer-Clark’s comments came during a wider discussion about teacher professional development and how a better provision could help retain more teachers. She said professional development “should be an entitlement for teachers”.
“Developing talent, keeping people fresh, energised, focused, motivated, excited to be working with young people in schools every day, is probably the biggest part of our work,” she added.
But, she said: “I think we have underestimated for far too long what really high-quality learning for adults looks like, and I think we’ve underestimated how much it costs, both in terms of design costs and also in terms of the value in time.”
‘We cannot recruit our way out of the crisis’
Also on the panel was Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
Mr Di’Iasio made a comparison with the NHS, which he says offers “good personal development” and was a “good role model” for the education sector “because [NHS staff] work incredibly long hours... out of service”.
On the importance of professional development for teachers, Mr Di’Iasio said: “The truth is that we are in the middle of a recruitment and retention crisis, and we cannot recruit our way out of that crisis. We must start looking at how we retain as a way forward.”
“Allowing greater time within the school year to invest in teacher training and development, and to make sure that it’s something that’s built into your journey as a teacher” will be a part of this, he added. However, he warned it would be “a big job” to solve.
Mr Di’Iasio said that professional development must be “a number one priority” for education secretary Bridget Phillipson, even among a raft of problems facing schools.
He said: “If we’re looking at the different things the Labour Party needs to do right now, they are all intertwined, and you cannot separate one from the other. You need to make sure that teacher development is part of the recruitment issue, is part of the retention issue, is part of the curriculum issue. They’re all interconnected.”
Workload pressures
On the question of 1,265 hours, Chris Weavers, national official (campaigns and communications) at the NASUWT teaching union, clarified that “for many teachers, it is only half the time they’re working in a given week”.
“We absolutely need to look at the working time of teachers, but I’m not sure 1,265 is the problem.”
Instead, Mr Weavers said: “Flexibility is what we hear constantly about from members - particularly from various underrepresented groups including women, ethnic minority teachers, those with caring responsibilities - who are forced out of full-time employment in schools and into the supply sector or out of the profession completely because they can’t access any meaningful flexibility.
“We absolutely need to address that issue.”
In a written comment following the event, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU teaching union, told Tes: “Teachers and leaders already work far too many hours...Removing 1,265 would mean that teachers would have no recourse or ability to challenge excessive hours.
“Removing a protection that most teachers out of goodwill ignore is completely the wrong direction to take. You don’t need to remove the 1,265 to accommodate flexible working requests or have fluidity...What our members want is a better work-life balance and for schools to adopt and promote more flexible working options.”
Mr Di’Iasio also clarified after the panel that “professional development needs to be prioritised and built into the normal working practices of all teachers”.
He added: “It’s right to look at how other professions tackle this issue to see how we can best support schools and colleges to develop their professional development opportunities.”
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