Only one in 10 teachers and leaders report that their schools are not yet complying with the government’s target for all schools to be running a 32.5-hour minimum week, a poll has found.
Just 11.5 per cent of respondents to a survey conducted by Teacher Tapp, who are working in state schools, said their students were not required to be in for at least 32.5 hours a week, which is equivalent to 6.5 hours a day.
Last summer, the government pushed back its deadline for all schools to be offering a minimum of 32.5 hours a week by a year, to September 2024. It said it moved the original deadline of September 2023 “in recognition of the pressures facing schools”, but headteachers’ leaders accused it of “dithering” after it was slow to publish related guidance.
More than eight in 10 (81.7 per cent) teachers and leaders who responded to the survey said they were already offering the minimum requirement - up from just over three-quarters (76 per cent) in an equivalent survey last year.
‘Unnecessary distraction from serious issues facing schools’
“We have long argued that this policy is an unnecessary distraction from really serious issues facing schools, given that most already open for at least 32.5 hours a week,” said James Bowen, assistant general secretary of the NAHT.
“This new data only serves to confirm this belief,” he added.
More respondents from primary schools said they were already meeting the 32.5-hour week, at 85.8 per cent, up from 81 per cent last year.
There was also an increase from last year in secondary teachers and leaders reporting that they were delivering a 32.5-hour week, from 72 per cent to 77.7 per cent.
“Even for schools which open for a bit less than this, there’s little evidence to suggest that adding five to 10 minutes to the school day is likely to bring much, if any benefit, but plenty to indicate it will create significant financial and logistical challenges,” Mr Bowen said.
Schools facing financial difficulties may have to extend the hours of lunchtime supervisors and other support staff, or face a “logistical nightmare” changing transport arrangements, he added.
The NAHT urged the government to instead focus on recruitment and retention, increasing pay and funding, and addressing the impact on teacher and leader wellbeing of Ofsted inspections.
Non-statutory requirement is ‘all sound and fury’
The minimum-hour requirements were originally announced in the Schools White Paper in March 2022, but guidance to help schools increase their hours to meet the requirement was not published until July 2023.
The guidance suggests that schools prioritise an increase in teaching time if they need to up their hours substantially.
For schools that need to add less time, the guidance suggests adding “short activities that meet school priorities”, such as daily reading practice.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said the issue was “all sound and fury” as the guidance is non-statutory, “despite the government’s insistence that this is a ‘minimum expectation’”.
“We wish they’d focus on issues like funding and teacher shortages,” he added.
The core school week included in the guidance is from registration in the morning to the end of the school day, including breaks.
Heads’ leaders assumed the 32.5-hour expectation had been shelved
Before the guidance was published, headteachers’ leaders had previously written to Nick Gibb, who was then schools minister, urging the Department for Education to drop or delay the expectation for September 2023.
At the time, unions said schools had waited more than a year for guidance and many had assumed the expectation would not be going ahead.
Former ASCL general secretary Geoff Barton said last year that “in many cases, the only thing these schools will realistically be able to do to meet the expectation is have slightly longer break times”.
“However, in order to implement these changes, they will have to consult parents, notify staff and adjust transport arrangements. It is the government that is wasting time, not schools.”
Teacher Tapp asked the question of teachers and leaders on 10 May this year, and 9,405 people working in state schools responded, including 3,687 teachers and 1,958 members of senior leadership teams (others were heads or middle leaders).
A DfE spokesperson said: “We are pleased that despite the minimum expectation not coming into effect until September 2024, the majority of schools already deliver a 32.5-hour week - equivalent to 8.45am to 3.15pm, Monday to Friday.”
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