Since I started teaching part-time, my Friday mornings have begun to look remarkably different. Rather than waking up at 5:30am as I do during the rest of the week, I roll out of bed at a leisurely hour and often start my day with a yoga class. After enjoying the luxury of breakfast at my kitchen table instead of a classroom desk, I spend the rest of the day planning my year 10 lessons for the following week. Occasionally, I treat myself by popping out to the post office or the bank. More often than not, I’m sending emails trying to secure writing commissions – now I am teaching part-time, I need to find other ways to top up my income.

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This probably sounds appealing to most teachers, who have usually spent most of their Friday dreading that year 9 double lesson after lunch. And there’s no doubt that teaching part-time has kept me in the classroom; I was very close to becoming one of the 31% of teachers who leave the profession within their first five years of qualifying.

But there are two glaring issues with the Friday I have just described: first, I am still continuing to do school work even on my day off; and second, I’ve had to take a cut in my salary and seek out additional work to make up the difference.

This is the problem with Damian Hinds’ latest plans to solve the teacher recruitment and retention crisis by encouraging part-time and flexible working practices in schools. Without addressing schools’ gaping funding shortfalls and punitive accountability measures, Hinds’ proposal will simply result in some teachers feeling forced into working part-time just so that they can finish their work, unpaid, on their days off. Teachers should not have to take a salary cut just to make an unnecessarily stressful job more “manageable”.

But what might an alternative solution to the government’s current mess look like? A report being released this week by the Autonomy thinktank, endorsed by the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, points to a solution that teachers and school leaders could begin to feel more optimistic about.

Rather than the option of working part-time being available only to those who can afford it, what if all teachers everywhere were able to work a four-day week, and crucially, without a loss in pay? Autonomy’s latest research makes the radical case for a shorter working week, including a suite of pragmatic policies that could be adopted to make the vision a reality. As the likelihood of a general election grows ever closer, Labour’s endorsement of Autonomy’s report feels particularly exciting.

Autonomy’s research documents evidence of shorter working week trials which have shown that employees are more productive, engaged and form healthier relationships with colleagues when given the extra day off. Given the report’s evidence that teachers experience particularly high levels of pressure at work, the benefits of teachers having additional time away from the classroom could have a significant impact on addressing our current teacher shortage.

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Some parents and teachers may understandably be concerned that a shorter school week could have a negative impact on young people’s academic performance. But research conducted by Montana State University has in fact shown that a four-day week has had a positive impact on students’ maths and reading scores in schools in the US where a shorter working week has been adopted. Others might point to the issue of additional childcare costs for parents if schools are closed on Fridays. But Autonomy’s report is making the case for the working week to be shortened for everyone, not just schools, and therefore families would be able to spend more time together if the policy was implemented nationwide.

There are always those who will try to make us believe that a four-day week is a utopian fantasy. But we must not forget that it was this country’s proud history of trade union struggle that won workers the right to a weekend and paid annual leave a little more than a century ago. Only a mass movement, working alongside an ambitious Labour party leadership, will be able to win the radical demand for a shorter working week. But if we’re talking about fully paid Fridays off school for ever, that’s a recruitment and retention strategy I think is worth fighting for.



• Holly Rigby is a teacher, a Labour party member and an activist in the National Education Union

