The government should ensure schools can use new planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time at home to improve the flexibility of the job for teachers with caring responsibilities, a teachers’ leader has said.
Dame Alison Peacock, chief executive of the Chartered College of Teaching (CCT), told Tes that “the motherhood penalty is a real problem” and the profession is losing teachers “because of a lack of flexibility”.
The teachers’ leader was speaking to Tes after the education secretary said earlier this week that the Department for Education will clarify the position on PPA time to make it clear to schools that teachers can use this time at home.
Dame Alison’s comments come as a new report called on ministers to provide more support for mothers in schools in order to reach its recruitment goals.
The report, published today by think tank The New Britain Project, revealed that teachers who are mothers are driven out of the profession by a lack of flexible teaching arrangements and excessive workload clashing with family commitments.
‘The motherhood penalty is a real problem’
Speaking to Tes after the report was published, Dame Alison said that schools need to be “much more flexible” in supporting parents, particularly those with young children.
“The motherhood penalty is a real problem because we lose teachers from the profession altogether because of a lack of flexibility.”
Dame Alison said she would like to see “a principle established that where possible, planning and preparation and assessment time should be able to be taken beyond the school”.
However, she warned that coming up with a blanket solution was not the answer and that the government would need to ensure new guidance supports school leaders to work alongside their staff to “make this real in terms of where they work, how they work, how things happen”.
Asked if teachers should be allowed to use PPA time for childcare or school pick-up, Dame Alison said that they should, but that staff would then “have to make up the time in the evening or whenever else you can when you haven’t got other commitments”.
“So I think it’s about trusting teachers to do the right thing to balance out their workload.”
Dame Alison stressed that flexibility should also be available to those not carrying out childcare, for example, she said the time could be used to visit an elderly relative.
“I think we should be trusting our workforce to do that in the best possible way to suit their life,” she added.
Home planning ‘only works for primary staff’
Her comments were echoed by Caroline Derbyshire, chair of the headteachers’ roundtable, and executive headteacher and chief executive of Saffron Academy Trust; she said that PPA time could be used to create flexible working conditions for mothers, particularly when the sessions fall at the beginning and end of the day.
“I think employers should do all they can to create flexible working conditions for mothers...but funding should be made available to incentivise this.”
However, other leaders have warned that a promise of flexibility over PPA by the government will not work for all.
One leader of a multi-academy trust who wished to remain anonymous said that allowing flexibility over where teachers take their preparation time “only really works in primary where PPA could take an entire morning or afternoon”.
“In secondary, three individual periods scattered throughout the week need to be on site,” they added.
And while many schools will already offer flexibility around where teachers take their PPA time, the ability to deliver this as a school depends on how the time is allocated, deputy general secretary of NAHT the school leaders’ union James Bowen warned.
He added it is common for PPA to be allocated in half-day blocks in primary schools, and flexibility at secondary level is “probably much more of a challenge” due to PPA generally being allocated on a lesson-by-lesson basis.
Mass departure of teachers in 30s ‘disrupts school stability’
The New Britain Project report, which surveyed 383 women who left teaching in the state sector in their thirties, found that excessive workload, family commitments and a lack of flexible working arrangements contributed to their decision to leave the profession.
The report argues that the “mass departure” of experienced teachers disrupts school stability and leads to “increased behaviour issues and workloads for remaining staff”, creating a “vicious cycle” of attrition.
“It’s counterproductive to lose experienced teachers simply because some schools can’t offer the basic flexibility now common in most other professions,” it concludes.
The report said that efforts to retain teachers who are mothers would help achieve the government’s ambition to recruit 6,500 new teachers, help maintain “school stability” and prevent increased behaviour issues for the remaining staff.
And it recommends “a comprehensive coaching programme for mothers during and post maternity leave”, to be available to all mothers by 2030.
The authors said the coaching should be piloted first, initially supporting 500 mothers at an estimated cost of £1,500 per mother. The report also recommended training for line managers and leaders to ensure best practice and support. It adds this would come at a cost of £250 per school, and should be funded by the government in a similar way to National Professional Qualifications (NPQs).
The New Britain Project also called for all 3,000 newly established nurseries in schools to give priority to children of school and nursery staff.
As part of its manifesto, the newly-elected Labour government pledged to create 3,000 new primary school-based nurseries through upgrading space in primary schools.
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