Seeing students learn, develop and grow as individuals, being a part of their transformations is incredibly rewarding. Watching them become adults, leaving school to go on to enjoy a life of choice and opportunity is our vision at Reach Schools, and we genuinely love what we do.

Teaching is an Incredible Job

At the same time, teaching is intense. It’s all-consuming. You have to expect the unexpected every minute of every hour of every day, both in and out of the classroom. Ensuring pupils make progress every term, while dealing with a variety of complex needs in a world of social media, smartphones and safeguarding concerns can be mentally exhausting. In the thirteen weeks of holiday (that some non-teachers make jokes at our expense about), many of us feel like collapsing on the sofa; others become ill as soon as we stop.

The Effect of the Covid Pandemic

Post-Covid, that pressure has seen many teachers change their careers. The lure of jobs closer to home, with higher wages, shorter hours and hybrid or remote working means many teachers have decided to leave the profession. The pandemic made us all look at our lives and what we want, and for many, that is a better work-life balance. According to the last figures from the Department for Education, teacher vacancies increased by 20% from November 2022 to November 2023, and more than doubled in the last three years. Forty thousand teachers left the profession in 2024, for the second year running. Attempting to fill those vacancies is a constant headache for headteachers across the country, including me and my fellow Co-Headteachers at Reach Schools.

Is Flexible Working for Teachers Achievable?

From a flexible working point of view, teaching is a profession which has its obvious limitations. Though we all attempted it during the pandemic, a school is a vital face to face public service for both pupils and their families – you can’t be a teacher while working at home. There are lessons structured by timetables, time with your form at the beginning of the day, parents’ evenings, fixtures and much more.

The idea of taking time off to take your child to the dentist or going to a wedding on a Tuesday (what were they thinking?) can feel like just too much to ask of your employer. One, (dissatisfactory) alternative is that you take unpaid leave, which happened to me when I asked a former boss for a day off to go to my brother’s wedding. Added to that are the questions around planning for your class if you aren’t there and how will the colleague doing your cover cope?

Frankly, there’s no point in having overstretched teachers in the classroom feeling exhausted. If a teacher is not at their best, then they can’t be their best for their students, and the learning will inevitably be impacted. So trying to be as flexible as possible, within the constraints of individual timetables, is a no brainer. The most important thing for a teacher is to be there for the pupils, helping them learn. With the development of strong relationships we see the best outcomes. So how can that be achieved?

What Do Your Teachers Want?

It is a bit of a balancing act, and at Reach Schools we have been creative in how we adapt to make the work/life flex easier for our fantastic staff. We have had conversations and used surveys to find out what they would prefer. For us, it was important to be open and honest, so our team gets what they genuinely want, while we ensure that we continue to give every child in our care the best outcomes. 

We are not the only ones adapting to the teacher recruitment crisis: Dixons Academy Trust in northern England offers a nine day working fortnight to its teachers, while a third of staff at Thomas Gainsborough in Suffolk work part-time. In the latter, staff absences have dropped by 30%, along with the supply teacher bill. 

What Flexible Working do Reach Schools offer?

Additional Annual Leave

We offer  five days additional annual leave, on top of the thirteen weeks that all state schools provide. These days are accrued for loyalty – for example: providing revision classes, attending  residential trips during school holidays, or working on an important curriculum planning piece over a weekend. The leave can be taken at any time during the school year, meaning you can go to that wedding –  and get paid! Or take a Friday or a Monday, so that you can have a long weekend away. Or go Christmas shopping during the week when it’s less busy. As a result, staff feel compensated for offering important learning for the students in their own time, because they know they will get it back. Almost everyone takes the days they have accrued, and we cover that with our own teachers.

No Supply Teachers

We never use supply teachers, because that’s what is best for our pupils. As all-through schools with a comparatively small (60 or 90 students) intakes every year, the teachers often know the individuals in the classes they are covering. The class teacher sets independent work for the students as we believe that’s a better option than potentially being taught misconceptions by a non-subject expert and that means that covering a class is simple and doesn’t add to your own workload. Staff know that when they are on their leave, someone else is covering their class, so there is a lovely positive culture of everyone having each other’s back.

Ad Hoc Flexibility

We also offer ad hoc flexibility so staff can go to their child’s sports day, or their nativity, and we give compassionate leave for all sorts of reasons on a case by case basis. Life happens, and we do our best to ensure our staff are with the people they need to be, when they need to be. Our people are encouraged to be open and honest about what’s going on in their lives, and we adapt to support them.

Flexible Contracts

Some of our staff have asked for compressed hours, late starts and/ or early finishes. To give you an idea, at one point, we had a  co-headteacher (me), two Deputy Headteachers and an Assistant Headteacher on flexible contracts, and so across the school, we will always try to support flexible working requests, such as late starts to support dropping children off, or compressed hours for those with a much longer commute. Pastorally it can sometimes be tricky, but we have done a really good job of making it work for everyone, ensuring that people do leave when they are supposed to. Ultimately, we don’t want to lose good people, so we do our best. We can’t afford not to.

More INSET days

We have ten rather than five INSET days a year, and we always have one at the beginning of each term. This allows staff to plan and prepare lessons for the weeks ahead, rather than going straight into teaching after a break. This change was a result of our staff survey: the majority said they would rather have more INSET days, than have more holiday. So with those extra five days we can build in extra time for people to do the jobs that they may have taken home, for example: marking GCSE mock papers, moderation, CPD and planning.

Easing the Teaching Workload

The teaching workload is massive, and that’s why our extra INSET days have been really positive. We have also introduced tech tools to help with centralised behaviour and planning systems, and we have no marking policies: instead we have whole class feedback. Observations  are not formal, it’s ten minutes every week and it’s always focused on the next leverage step to develop the teacher to be even better at what they do

All of the above has contributed to a great culture among staff at Reach Schools, and I believe it has helped with our retention rates: fifty percent of our teachers have been with us for five years or more. There is a great support network of colleagues who have become friends, with regular informal social events, and even staff going on holiday together. 

Making Staff Happier

All of this is part of a bigger picture of how we do things here at Reach Schools: building strong relationships with pupils and families, a robust behaviour system, great staff training and support and a curriculum based on subject expertise.

Keep looking for more blogs and videos about these topics in the coming months.

Get in Touch

In the meantime, if there’s a hot topic you’d like us to discuss or you think we should be talking about, do get in touch. Or join our community of educators in Reach Out, by clicking the button below.

Reach Academy Feltham is appointed by the DFE as a Flexible Working Ambassador for Multi Academy Trusts and Schools. Find out more here.