Our teachers are burnt-out and stressed-out. Giving them - and their pupils - a four day week will lift everyone's boats
Forest Gate teacher Tom Leather with the school’s head pupil, Matilda Hind. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
We are big fans of reduced working hours (for the same pay) in all occupations. Our demanding century means that we need time both to rest and repair, and to be active citizens facing the challenges of climate breakdown and automation. But it’s been a long-enunciated hope - and maybe it can be advanced on from some new angles.
Here’s one from the excellent think-tank concerned with work and technology, Autonomy. They’ve identified the extreme pressures put on teachers as a great opportunity for a reduction to a four-day week - for both teachers and pupils. The report is here, but their leading points are below:
Teaching is one of the most overworked professions in the UK. As this report notes, the logic of ‘more hours = better education’ holds back the potential of teachers and their work in the UK.
A new survey carried out for this report , found that two-thirds of teachers say they’ve reached ‘breaking point’ because of their workload, and more than a third say they feel stressed every day because of their workload.
71% of teachers reported feeling stressed at least once a week because of their workload.
Over a third (38%) cited stress as a daily experience.
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of teachers said that they had been at ‘breaking point’ because of their work.
Insufficient funding, overbearing bureaucracy and a long-hours culture all need to be addressed. However, there is also a strong case for a direct reduction in working hours.
A 32-hour working week with no reduction in pay is incredibly popular among teachers – almost 75% support the policy.
61% of teachers surveyed also believed that a four-day week would improve their teaching.
69% said that they would be much more likely or somewhat more likely to stay in the profession if they had a four-day week.
Across the UK, undertaking reforms to the structure of the school day and week is a relatively straightforward process.
There are already successful examples: Forest Gate Community School is considered here as a case study.
Against moves towards even longer hours for teachers, governments across the UK should encourage headteachers trying to reduce working hours for their staff.
Moving students to a four-day week, alongside teachers, should also seriously be explored. 45% of teachers would like to see the school week reduced to four-days for staff and students.
This should occur in addition to much-needed measures such as better funding, greater recruitment and reduced bureaucracy.
More here. The Guardian reports on London’s Forest Gate School above, which has been gradually moving in this direction:
On Fridays, the pub next to Forest Gate community school in east London starts filling up from 1pm. It has not always been this way, but ever since the school went down to a four-and-a-half-day week, it has been flooded with exhausted teachers keen to take advantage of their shorter week as quickly as possible.
Other teachers use the afternoon to spend more time with their children, go on a mini-break, catch up on work they would have done at the weekend, or attend the local mosque. The important thing is that the afternoon is theirs to choose how they spend it, says Simon Elliott, who leads the multi-academy trust that runs Forest Gate.
The initiative has been so successful that the school is now consulting on whether to reduce the week further, to four days.
Elliott opted to shorten the week after reading a series of alarming reports on professional stress and burnout for teachers. “If you look at the amount of work teachers do, they do more than similar professions and the workload is very high. I wanted to try and alleviate that pressure at a structural level,” he said.
To achieve this, he removed two pastoral periods from the schedule on Friday and added the four other 50-minute lessons on to weekdays. Children can stay on site to do homework or extracurricular activities.
Elliott said the change has resulted in happier, more energetic teachers – an internal survey showed 98% appreciated the change. Pupils, who often struggle to focus on Friday afternoons, say they enjoy the extra time to spend with friends, or doing extracurricular activities and homework, and have received higher grades since, leading to satisfied parents.
Tom Leather, a PE teacher, said the shorter working week had transformed his life. Before Covid, he went on weekend breaks to Europe, and now his wife is pregnant he is looking forward to having more time to spend with his new child, and later to pick them up from nursery.
“Knowing we’re allowed to leave at 12.10 on Friday means that morale is better. Happier teachers work harder and produce better days,” he said.
Simon Elliott, CEO of the trust that runs Forest Gate. Photograph: Stuart Thomas/Cleverbox
The move to four days is the subject of a new report by thinktank Autonomy, which is making the case for all schools to adopt a four-day week, reflecting a growing trend in the US where 1,600 schools have already shortened timetables.
The report argues that shortening the week would help reduce the high numbers of teachers who leave the profession by cutting their hours, which,at an average of 51, are among the longest in Europe. The UK’s Health and Safety Executive found that teaching staff report the highest rates of work-related stress, depression and anxiety in the UK.
The idea is popular among teachers, at least theoretically. Autonomy’s survey of 500 found that three-quarters would be interested in a 32-hour four-day week if pay is not cut, and over two-thirds said it would encourage them to remain in the profession.