Outwood Grange Academies Trust (OGAT) has defended its plan to extend the school day after a teaching union warned it will ballot members for strike action over the plans.
A spokesperson for the trust said its secondary school day currently ends at 2.30pm, “which we have to recognise currently falls short of the government’s 32.5-hour-a-week minimum expectation.”
The NASUWT teaching union has warned that it will ballot members for industrial action unless the trust withdraws plans to increase secondary teachers’ working hours.
Teachers will not be required to ‘work beyond contracted hours’
The trust has said the plans would not require teachers to work beyond their contracted hours and are intended to mean teachers spend more time with students.
OGAT, which runs 28 secondary schools across the North and East Midlands, is planning to increase the length of the school day and teaching contact by 30 minutes per day from September 2025 onwards so it ends at 3pm.
NASUWT said the measures “will increase teacher workload and working time and damage morale”.
According to the union, OGAT has refused to withdraw the proposals despite opposition from trade unions representing the trust’s workforce.
OGAT said it has been consulting with colleagues and trade unions since October and has made changes to the original proposal as a result of this.
“We are disappointed that union partners are balloting for industrial action before consultation ends,” a spokesperson for the trust said.
‘One of the worst attacks’ on teacher terms and conditions
Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT’s general secretary, said that “NASUWT has made it very clear that, to avoid industrial action, OGAT must withdraw its plans and agree to work with us on any proposals affecting the delivery of the curriculum and length of the school day.”
“Plans to substantially increase teacher contact time amounts to one of the worst attacks on teachers’ terms and conditions,” Mr Roach said.
He added that this policy risks moving OGAT from being a “relatively successful trust” to one that will “experience significant employee turnover and industrial relations problems”.
Letters sent to OGAT school parents in January set out that the school day would still start at 8.20am, and would be six lessons a day lasting 55 minutes.
The letters said the results of the consultation would be shared in May.
The former government pushed back its original deadline for all schools to be offering a minimum of 32.5 hours a week to September 2024. It had originally been announced in the Conservative government’s schools white paper.
Only one in 10 teachers and leaders polled last year said their school was not already complying with this requirement.
Unions had warned adding time to the school day would create “significant financial and logistical challenges” for schools.
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