Now lecturers get an additional time off each fortnight – and say they could not now think about life with out it

With more than a dozen weeks of holiday each year, some might say teachers already get plenty of time off.

But a school in the West Midlands is now also giving teachers a day off each fortnight – and says the policy has instantly heralded a drop in sick days and attracted new recruits.

The headteacher of St Peter’s Catholic School says the nine-day fortnight has also improved staff morale as well as helping with staff retention, at a time when one-in-four new teachers quit within three years.

The new regime at the secondary school in Solihull follows a successful trial of a similar scheme at the Dixons Academies Trust, which runs 16 schools across northern England and says it is also working towards a nine-day fortnight for teachers.

St Peters’ new rota helped convince science teacher Abid Mustafa to fill a role which had previously attracted no applications, and the 25-year-old said he now ‘couldn’t imagine school life without it’.

Mr Mustafa, 25, described a teacher’s workload as ‘intense’ and said he used his day off to visit family and friends or go to the gym.

Head teacher Stuart Shelton said that last year, the school lost a number of ‘great teachers to other professions because of the workload’. But since the new regime was introduced at the start of the current academic year, he has received applications for roles that attracted no interest just months earlier.

Mr Shelton said no further staff had expressed a desire to leave and staff sickness levels at the school had gone down.

‘We’re seeing a far better attendance rate of teachers which ultimately means the pupils are getting the best possible lessons,’ he told the BBC.

The days off are staggered throughout the two weeks so the school can remain open.

Staff are not able to choose the day they get off and it is planned on a rota basis instead.

But Chris McGovern, Chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said he was not in favour of the policy. He said: ‘A nine-day fortnight comes from a place of good intentions, but if every school brought in such a policy then it would instantly nullify this school’s unique selling point.

‘It diminishes the status of teaching by telling prospective teachers that the good thing about this job is the fact you can get out of it one day a fortnight.

‘Teaching is a hard job but it’s also a vocation. There’s nothing unusual about teachers being tired, but they do get 13 weeks of holiday each year.’ He said headteachers should instead address factors which are causing teacher stress and burn out – such as the ‘woke curriculum’ and let teachers get on with teaching their subjects.

News of St Peters’ nine-day fortnight comes as Labour aims to boost recruitment and retainment in the profession by allowing teachers to do more work from home.

Teachers in England could be offered incentives such as two free periods a week to give them a lie-in and more planning time at home to help with work-life balance. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has said increased flexibility will prevent women from leaving the profession when they have children.

Department for Education figures show 39, 971 (8.8 per cent) teachers in England left in 2022-23, not including those who died or retired.

At St Peters – rated ‘Outstanding’ the last time Ofsted inspectors visited a decade ago – the policy has allowed English teacher Kelly Davis to spend more time with her parents and care for her dementia-suffering mother.

The 48-year-old said she spent most weekends doing marking but the day off allowed her to complete that work so she could spend the weekend with her parents.

In the six weeks since it was introduced, Ms Davis said it had already made a ‘huge difference’.

Colleague Stefanie Lakin the school’s director of learning for personal development, described the scheme as a ‘game-changer’.

The 43-year-old said: ‘We can’t keep talking about workload and problems and not do something about it. (But this) addresses the work-life balance’.

Describing the atmosphere in the staff room after it was announced, she said: ‘It was like someone had won the lottery. It was amazing.’ She said the day off allowed her to work full-time and still run her charity Madrina, which provides prom outfits for young people.

The Department for Education announced in July that teachers and school leaders will get a 5.5 per cent pay rise for 2024-25.

While limited to the same holiday periods as their pupils, teachers are generally off for six weeks in the summer, a fortnight each at Christmas and Easter and a week at each of the three half-term breaks, although some of those periods will also include teacher training days. Teachers also use holiday periods to plan lessons and catch up with marking.

A recent survey of 16-24-year-olds found the stress associated with teaching, as well as the pay, is putting off potential entrants.

The survey, in a report last month by the education charity Teach First, found that although 73 per cent of the 3,000 respondents considered teaching as a job with purpose, almost half (42 per cent) also perceived it as stressful. More than a third (36 per cent) considered it poorly paid.

The report called for every teacher to be given a ‘flexibility’ entitlement, including short-term secondments away from school to work in other sectors and career breaks offering unpaid leave.

Labour has pledged to end the recruitment crisis in schools by supplying 6,500 extra teachers and introducing a £2,400 early career retention bonus.