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Teachers may be granted permission to work from home under Labour plans to tackle the recruitment crisis in schools.
Headteachers will be told they can let their staff do marking and lesson preparation from the comfort of their own home.
Teaching staff already have time set aside for marking homework and planning lessons and Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, intends to put measures in place to make it more convenient for them to work from home during these periods.
Phillipson hopes the move will help women stay in the profession after having children as from 2022 to 2023 a staggering 32,000 stopped working in the industry.
Teachers may be granted permission to work from home under Labour plans to tackle the recruitment crisis in schools. Headteachers will be told they can let their staff do marking and lesson preparation from the comfort of their own home
The plan would give teachers the option to take their free periods in blocks at the end or the beginning of the day, enabling them to work from home while looking after children, or to complete the school run.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told MailOnline today: ‘We support anything which helps to make teaching more flexible and improves the attractiveness of the profession as a career choice amidst an ongoing recruitment and retention crisis.
‘There will be a lot of detail that needs working out on this proposal and we look forward to discussing this with the government.
‘This initiative may help to a certain extent but it is important to understand that it will not be enough to solve the problem of teacher shortages.
‘The only way to do that is to improve pay and conditions.’
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders union the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) also supported the plan.
‘Many schools already allow their teachers to undertake lesson planning and preparation time at home, and these proposals would simply firm up what has been in place for years.
‘Crucially, this won’t impact pupils at all, as it only applies to the 10% of a teacher’s teaching week that is specifically set aside for planning, preparation, and assessment.
‘We are currently working through the most severe recruitment and retention crisis in living memory.
‘Given the opportunities for flexible working in other professions, teaching needs to find ways to compete if it is to solve the recruitment and retention crisis,’ he told MailOnline.
The new plan follows a successful trial of the scheme in an academy chain, the Dixons Academies Trust, which runs a number of schools in northern England and says it is working towards a nine-day fortnight for teachers.
A government spokesperson said it is taking the recruitment and retention of teachers ‘seriously’ and is implementing changes that keep staff in the teaching profession longer, reported The Telegraph.
‘Unlike its predecessor, this Government is taking the recruitment and retention of teachers seriously, which is why we’re making common-sense changes that enable great teachers to stay in our classrooms.
‘These changes are part of a wider reset of the relationship between government and teaching staff to ensure we drive high and rising standards across our schools and deliver better life chances for our children,’ they said.
It comes as Labour has defended plans to give British workers French-style rights including thee right to ‘switch off’ and ignore their bosses while working from home, claiming the reforms will boost productivity.
Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds will publish an employment rights bill next month which, if passed, will give British workers more protections from day one, ban ‘exploitative’ zero-hours contracts and make flexible working a default right.
While businesses up and down the country have raised serious concerns over the proposals, Reynolds insisted they would be a net benefit.
He told The Times: ‘It does contribute to productivity, it does contribute to [staff] resilience, their ability to stay working for an employer.
‘Good employers understand that their workforce, to keep them motivated and resilient, they do need to judge people on outcomes and not a culture of presenteeism.’
He claimed that businesses had responded well to the proposals.
‘These are popular changes, both with the public and actually with businesses themselves.
‘Every time we have a session with business where we are able to talk candidly, they are reassured by what we are saying and actually they support it,’ he said.
Meanwhile Amazon is cracking down on hybrid working and has told all its staff to return to the office five days a week next year.
In a memo to employees, chief executive Andy Jassy said the company expected people to be in the office full time outside of extenuating circumstances from January 2.
The plan would give teachers the option to take their free periods in blocks at the end or the beginning of the day, enabling them to work from home while looking after children, or to complete the school run
Amazon made it mandatory in 2023 for corporate staff to be in the office three days a week, a significant change after the Covid pandemic engendered a shift towards remote and hybrid working.
Other businesses are also trying to discourage staff from working from home as Spanish-owned Santander told its 10,000 UK office workers that they must be in the office at least 12 days a month by the end of 2024.
Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, intends to put measures in place to make it more convenient for teachers to work from home. She hopes this will keep them in the profession longer
Tesco also told its admin staff in July that from September they would be required to work from the office a minimum of three days a week.
And prestigious big city firms are tracking the location of their staff to make sure they’re not logging in from abroad.
Consulting giant Deloitte has been accessing the data of some Work From Home (WFH) staff to see if they are actually doing their jobs from abroad without permission – and it’s not the only one.
Deloitte doesn’t track its employees but is notified when the firm’s data is accessed outside of the UK.
Their location can then be pinpointed using their IP address – a string of numbers assigned to devices such as work phones and laptops connected to the internet.
It is thought that more than six million plan to use flexible working to do their jobs while on holiday – with some shamelessly boasting about it on TikTok.
However, people grasping the opportunity to travel abroad and do their job at the same time could find themselves in hot water.
One Deloitte consultant told The Telegraph the policy is not ‘unreasonable’.
They said the company is ‘hugely accommodating’ when it comes to flexible working but if staff are ‘abroad without permission, I think that is a breach of the trust’.