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In July last year I began a journey. When I returned from my second maternity leave I was astonished that there was no national jobshare platform; somewhere I could find a partner to interview with for a position which suited my level of experience in school.
I researched a little further and stumbled across an infographic by Emma Sheppard, founder of the Maternity Teacher Paternity Teacher project.
It said that 76% of teachers are women and more than half have children under the age of 18. Women aged 30-39 represent over a quarter of teachers leaving the classroom every year, and more than half of those who leave to look after families do not return to school.
When I researched flexible working in other sectors, I read reports about it leading to an 80% increase in productivity. So why are we not embracing flexible working in education?
In collaboration with the Teach First Innovation Series, which has been helping me to define the problem, I met Lindsay Patience (@mumsyme). We have been working on the issue ever since.
What have we discovered? Firstly, there are examples of brilliance which existed long before flexible working became a hot topic (and the subject of a DfE summit last October).
Secondly, just because something is a hot topic, that doesn’t mean anyone is actually doing anything about it – yet.
One of the most powerful things we’ve learnt is that taking time to share research with people who may not have had a chance to read it themselves can be really helpful.
Many people simply do not know that flexible adverts get up to 17% more applicants, or that there is no academic research that suggests split classes (classes with two teachers) are detrimental to pupil outcomes.
Colleagues may have noticed one or two teachers leave for maternity and never return (or return part-time), but many do not realise that 6,000 women aged 30-39 leave the profession every year.
It has not occurred to them that a lack of flexible working opportunities, especially at leadership level, might account for the fact that 63% of headteachers are male, in a profession which is dominated by women.
Once you know the figures, it doesn’t take too much to recognise that there is a problem and that, rather than continuing to be aghast at the statistics, we need to start solving it.
Flexible working is by no means the only solution but, in a profession which is haemorrhaging talent, it might be an idea to try it out.
The barriers we have come up against tend to be repeated: timetable, negative previous experience, lack of knowledge about what flexible working is, and a general concern that it will ‘open the floodgates’.
These perceived barriers tend to be shared not only among headteachers and members of SLT, but among teachers themselves, who are often so convinced that their school would deny a flexible working request that they do not make one at all.
This year we have made it our mission to educate both schools and employees about flexible working. This is not simply about debunking myths, but is about selling the benefits of flexible working for schools, employees and pupils.
We hope that by normalising flexible working, we can retain effective teachers and, ultimately, improve pupil outcomes. Here are some pointers for your next staffroom conversation about flexible working:
If you’re interesting in finding out more, take a look at these organisations working alongside us:
Lucy Rose is an English teacher and co-founder of Flexible Teacher Talent. Get in touch at flexibleteachertalent@gmail.com or on Twitter at @flexteachtalent.
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