All teaching jobs should be advertised with flexible working options, Damian Hinds has said.
The education secretary was speaking today at the Schools and Academies Show in London, where he launched the DfE’s edtech strategy.
He told the event that increasing the opportunities for flexible working was important for retaining teachers.
Quick read: Part-time work ‘critical’ for solving recruitment crisis
Comment: What does edtech strategy mean for schools?
Guide: New teacher recruitment and retention strategy
“It turns out that in teaching, we have a lower incidence of flexible working - part-time, job share and so on - than in society as a whole, and we can’t afford that any more”, he said.
“We are going to need to find more ways to support people in the requirements that they have in their family lives and caring responsibilities and so on.”
He said part of this was about the difficulties accommodating flexible working in school timetables, which is one of the 10 challenges he has set for edtech developers to tackle.
He added: “But we also need a change in culture, we need a change in thinking. To make sure that every time a job is advertised we are saying ‘ask me about flexible options’.
“To make sure we are trying to facilitate job shares where that’s available. To make sure that if there is a conversation about somebody saying ‘I’m not sure I will still be doing this job in five years’ time or even two years’ time’ that we can be saying ‘might it be possible to have a part-time option instead to help keep you in the profession’.
“All these things we need to work on so that we have those flexible working options to reflect the lives that people live today.”
Mr Hinds also told the audience that workload is at the heart of improving teacher retention, and said he made teacher workload his top priority when he became education secretary last year.
However, he acknowledged that reducing teacher workload was “a much tougher nut to crack than a lot of people imagine”.
He added: “Teachers are working too many hours, and that is making them leave the profession, and we can’t afford for that to be happening.”
