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How do we persuade parents that split classes are no bad thing? Well, if you are a parent, answer this question: who would you prefer your child to be taught by - one pedestrian full-time teacher or two sparkling part-time teachers on a job share?

The answer will always be the latter, obviously. And yet flexible working is not the norm in schools, at least not for the majority. Many believe that you can only have so many flexible contracts before the whole education endeavour - learning, parent buy-in, logistics, the timetabler’s sanity - falls apart.

At Huntington School, we don’t buy into that. We openly encourage part-time working because we want to retain our best teachers. We have 112 teachers but only 86 full-time equivalent teachers (FTE). Our part-time teacher contracts range from 0.2 to 0.8 FTE. We have a number of job shares.

Now, I am not going to claim this is easy. There are practical issues that ensure part-time working is effective. It’s all in the curriculum planning and the timetabling. Sticking rigidly to a well-established timeline for completing the timetable is crucial. The key is to begin planning next year’s timetable 12 months in advance:

• We begin timetabling in September for the following September. Any changes to the time allocated to different subjects in different years are agreed by the end of the first half of the autumn term.
• In early November, I ask for requests for flexible working, with staff given around six weeks to put in their request.
• In early January, we communicate decisions on all staffing requests.
• Early February is the deadline for our Year 10 and Year 12 options, which determines our final staffing requirements for September.
• By the end of February, we communicate to all part-time colleagues on variable contracts an indication of what their teaching might be in September, because they might want to move jobs or they might want to book childcare.
• Between March and May, we complete the timetable.
• In the last week of May, we confirm next year’s final FTE for all part-time teachers.

To make this work, you need a team dedicated to making it work. At the heart of accommodating part-time requests for us is Mike Bruce, our assistant head with responsibility for staffing and curriculum planning. He liaises with our externally employed timetabler.

With so many part-timers to keep happy, Mike is a busy man. But our staff are happy, because what shines through when you talk to Mike about timetabling our part-timers is his humanity. You can have all the timetable planning structures you like but if you cannot communicate face to face with colleagues in a considerate, sympathetic way, then trying to balance the needs of part-time colleagues with the needs of the school will always end in conflict.

What follows is Mike’s sage advice; it is proverbial gold dust when it comes to timetabling part-time teachers in a single timetable:

• First, we have a blanket policy of accepting all requests for flexible working because we want to keep great teachers.
• We negotiate a contract that suits part-time teachers in terms of the number of hours. Don’t underplay the negotiation part: some institutions just tell teachers their hours for the next year. We have recruited several part-time colleagues from other schools where the approach has not been so sensitive.
• We ascertain at the outset if there are immovables. For example, some colleagues need to be off on a certain day owing to childcare. Other colleagues can be a little bit more flexible with this as their childcare providers are more flexible.
• Next, we ascertain whether they would prefer whole days or part days or a mixture. Our standpoint is always that we can’t guarantee full days. In practical terms, the vast majority (90 per cent) of those on 0.7 FTE or 0.8 FTE get a day off if they really want it (see point 5). Anybody below 0.7 FTE is guaranteed one full non-working day.
• We are transparent throughout the process with part-time colleagues. We prioritise part-timers’ timetables. Subject leaders are told at every stage of completing the timetable to show part-time colleagues what has been timetabled and ask whether they are happy with the blanked-out time. If not, then we fix it. If they are, then we carry on timetabling the next year group. It is at these timetable completion stages when subject leaders often make the decision to split a class and accommodate the full day off that their member of staff required. The subject leaders and I look at the splits we make. It’s not just arbitrary. I have also trained subject leaders over the years; we are in a position now where most of the established subject leaders know the consequences of a split and who best to split classes between.
• The overriding thing here, though, that underpins our successful part-time staff policy is communication - and I don’t mean via email. Talking face-to-face with colleagues is the best way to find the compromise between what they need and what we can realistically offer. You can understand better nuanced requests, such as: “Wednesday period 5 is a better blank for me as I can do the school pick-up and swimming lesson. I’d rather do that and come in at break on a Thursday than have Thursday morning off.” You store those nuggets for the following year. I have a list of colleagues to see over the late spring, early summer term to confirm those nuances. They really appreciate that touch and it makes them far more accommodating when I need a favour.
• You have to be able to go the extra mile to solve some colleagues’ nuanced needs. You need someone on the inside who can solve the knotty issues that crop up. I remember spending an evening completely reconstructing a subject timetable just after Years 9-13 had been scheduled, as the subject leader had got her Year 13 group codes the wrong way around. I spend many hours trying to tweak a timetable to help someone and as long as I can go back to them and say, “I’ve done my very best,” they are appreciative. They know they can ask me to look again at their timetable, and that’s important, too.
• Finally, there’s rooming. Part-time colleagues, particularly those across two or three departments, can get a raw deal with rooming. I am mindful that when subject leaders send me their rooming, I always, then, have a list of part-time teachers so that I can personally check their week. I’ll show it to them and then we’ll work out a better rooming solution. I’ll go back to subject leaders (or sometimes individual colleagues affected) and say, “I’ve moved you out of your room on a Tuesday period 4 so that Sue can teach in there all afternoon.” They are always fine with it but, again, this is a conversation, not an email.

So much for the logistics of secondary schools. In primaries, the challenges are slightly different. The ideal has always been one teacher to one class throughout the year. Handover time is the difficult, gnarly issue for all part-time teachers but especially in primaries, Cassie Young, head of school and Sendco at Brenzett Primary School in Kent, tells me. Here’s her advice for this phase:

• Give handover time wherever possible. In a perfect world, job-share teachers should have face-to-face time together to discuss plans and individual pupils. They need protected time to be together. Although some more established part-time teachers can do this remotely, it seems to work only once the partnership is up and running successfully. The ideal is two teachers working three days/2.5 days, with planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) at the same time in the middle of the week.
• Try, wherever possible, to have a full-time member of support staff in the class so that there is a consistent adult in the room, particularly in the EYFS and key stage 1 classes.
• Try to appoint job-share partners who either have a very similar way of working or who have diverse curriculum strengths. This means that the pupils are either getting a very similar pedagogic experience, regardless of the person teaching them, or they have the best teacher in front of them for that specific subject.

Ruth Whymark, headteacher at The Vineyard School in Richmond upon Thames, has a couple of additions:

• Timetable handover time where you can, and allocate PPA time together for handover activities. With the addition of electronic communications, it can work.
• You have to really want to do it - this is not about doing it for the sake of it. Actively supporting flexible working helps to retain people within the profession, particularly those who are experienced, and this involves providing professional learning and leadership opportunities for part-time workers.

At these schools and at Huntington, we all have accepted that workplace norms are changing. To provide a world-class education, we must ensure, first and foremost, that our teachers are happy, healthy, well qualified, highly motivated, hardworking, well-trained experts; only then will they be their best for their pupils. Consequently, keeping excellent part-time teachers happy and in the classroom is essential for our children’s futures.

Encourage part-time working at your school - you know it makes sense. And get yourself a Mike Bruce. We all need a Mike Bruce.

John Tomsett is headteacher at Huntington School in York. His latest book, co-authored with Jonny Uttley, CEO of the Education Alliance, is called Putting Staff First

This article originally appeared in the 29 May 2020 issue under the headline “Is flexible working for teachers truly possible?”