Women returners shunned
Training chief claims old-fashioned attitudes dominate recruitment
Heads are “out of date” and their old-fashioned attitudes are preventing thousands of talented women from working at the chalkface. This is the opinion of the civil servant responsible for ensuring a steady supply of highly qualified new entrants to the profession, who has attacked school leaders for their reluctance to offer part-time and flexible jobs to women.
Stephen Hillier has accused headteachers of wasting public money by preferring to employ newly trained graduates instead of experienced mothers wanting to return to work and also care for their families.
The chief executive of the Training and Development Agency for Schools said heads “can’t afford not to” bring back returners, particularly those trained in shortage subjects such as physics and chemistry. Mr Hillier supported his argument by pointing to Government data showing that 20 years ago some 15,000 teachers used to return to teaching each year. About half of those came back full-time, and half part-time. Today, the figure has dropped below 9,000.
“This now means that each year we are training, and schools are recruiting, 6,000 more newly qualified teachers than was previously necessary,” Mr Hillier said. “Schools are the employers of teachers and only they can judge who it is best to employ. No one from Government or national agencies should try to usurp that function. On the other hand, taxpayers are entitled to wonder why we are spending 25 per cent more than we need to on training NQTs.”
Mr Hillier said headteachers had told him they do not want part-time workers or job-sharers because it makes timetabling difficult, and because they do not trust these people to “maintain the necessary focus and intensity on driving up pupil standards of attainment”. Some told him, he said, that they preferred the “energy and up-to-dateness” of new teachers. Others said they employed NQTs because it was cheaper.
“In my view, some of these attitudes are 20 years out of date. Bluntly, some of our schools are a lot more willing than others to embrace the modern work patterns that are now common in other professions,” he said.
Mr Hillier, who was speaking at last month’s Women Working Together conference, organised by the NASUWT teaching union, said he wanted the profession to eventually “be in the vanguard of modern practice in terms of flexible working patterns”.
Certainly, female teachers seem to have a mixed experience. Julie Leoni, who works at the Marches School in Oswestry, Shropshire, went back to work part-time after taking maternity leave following the birth of each of her two children.
After her first child was born she returned as head of drama, working three days a week. After the second birth she started her current role of drama teacher, combined with teaching a master’s course and a degree course for the community.
Many of Ms Leoni’s friends work part-time. One feels “out of the loop” because she is not able to establish the same kind of relationships with her colleagues. Another had worked four days a week, but, after always finding herself marking at home on her day off, she decided to work full- time.
“My school looks at each case individually; it’s tough for managers as they’ve got to do what’s best for the children as well as the teacher,” said Ms Leoni.
Unsurprisingly, however, headteachers have disputed Mr Hillier’s claims. David Trace, head of Ramsey Grammar School on the Isle of Man, said he thought Mr Hillier was “out of touch”.
“My school, which is fairly typical, has seven part-time female teachers and four teaching assistants who have come back from maternity leave from full-time previously to part-time subsequently. I am pleased to accommodate them and have not yet turned anyone down,” he said. “In order to accommodate the needs of my seven we bend over backwards with the timetable at the expense of other important parameters. Four are heads of department on promoted posts.”
One explanation, according to Professor Merryn Hutchings of the Institute for Policy Studies in Education at London Metropolitan University, is that the hours of job-sharers often need to overlap to ensure continuity. “So that’s more expensive and for this reason many part-time workers tend to be floating around different classes,” she said. “That’s not such a nice job and could deter returners.”
Teachers’ leaders echoed Mr Hillier’s concerns. Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the pace of change in education, instigated by Government reforms, was deterring people from returning to the profession.
And Russell Hobby, general secretary of heads’ union the NAHT, said school leaders should not be blamed for their “conservative employment practices”. “They are more traditional than other organisations, but won’t be against flexible working for flippant reasons,” he added.
However, Mary Bousted, general secretary of education union the ATL, said there was a “bias against” flexible working in schools. “Employment processes are unnecessarily outdated, especially when you consider the proportion of women who are teachers and the fact most of them will go on to have children,” she added.
The NASUWT agrees. “These are not working practices of the 21st century; this is taking us back to the Victorian attitude towards employment,” said general secretary Chris Keates. “This is a dreadful indictment of the way schools are run. Headteachers clearly view flexible workers as people who are not going to be efficient or committed. Yet all the evidence shows employers benefit enormously. Stephen has exposed something which is scandalous.”
How to work flexibly
Parents of children aged up to 16, parents of disabled children aged up to 18 and carers of a disabled adult are legally entitled to request a flexible working pattern.
You might be able to come to an informal agreement with your school leader. If not, apply in writing.
Once your application has been received, your employer has 28 days to arrange a meeting to discuss your request. They also have a statutory duty to give your request serious consideration.
Employers can only reject a statutory request for specific reasons set out in the legislation, rather than object in principle to flexible working.
Acceptable reasons include the burden of additional costs or an inability to recruit additional staff.
If your request has been rejected, you have 14 days in which to appeal to a panel drawn from the governing body.
If the governing body turns down your request you can take it to an industrial tribunal, but only on the grounds that the school has not complied with the regulations, or that you feel you have been discriminated against because of your sex.
PART-TIMERS LOSING OUT
74.6% of teachers in 2010 were female
Worked part time in 2000 - 33,300
Worked part time in 2010 - 58,700
Teaching workforce working part-time in 2000 - 7.9%
Teaching workforce working part time in 2010 - 12.7%
Number of entrants to the profession who were returning teachers
1989/90 - 47%
1999/00 - 27%
2007/08 - 18%
Department for Education figures show far fewer male and female teachers are returning to the workforce.
Original headline: Talent goes to waste as sexist heads shun women returners
Comment (7)
To quote from the "good book" a (wo)man cannot serve two masters. If I were a head I would certainly prefer to employ someone full-time, and someone who was totally focused on their job, without the distraction of bringing up young children.
Sorting out part-time timetables is almost always going to be suboptimal. Do you squeeze that teacher's classes into just a few days, instead of spreading them evenly across the week. Or have more than one teacher for the class. Neither of these policies are in the best interests of students. So it might be more a case of putting the interests of one's students first, rather than being sexist. Though, without doubt, there are plenty of sexist (and ageist) heads out there.
However, I suspect part of the problem may not be the fact that an applicant is a woman with children. Rather they are older and more expensive, and many, many jobs these days only go to the cheapest of the cheap - which means NQTs.
In case this government hasn't noticed, there is currently a glut of unemployed teachers. In these very austere times would it not make a lot of sense to have a moratorium on teacher training for a few years. Then, perhaps, not only women who want to return to teaching, but many other older teachers, and those who have yet to even find their first teaching position, would stand a far better chance of getting a job.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
10:50
11 November, 2011
David Getling
Even when working full-time I shared classes with my colleagues. My A level classes are better taught by two teachers, with differing teaching styles and approaches to the lesson. I went part-time after the birth of my first child and job shared with a colleague. We were constantly told we were making timetabling difficult - "Bl**dy part-timers" was said to my face. My colleague, like myself, is a teacher of 10 years experience, but she was taken from her subject at A level and given difficult low ability sets in a subject she had no experience of teaching. Her subject is now taught in shared classes by two (full-time) NQTs. I have been a little more lucky with my timetable, but I think schools that discriminate against working mothers are at risk of losing us from the profession altogether. We choose to combine work with looking after our children in the early years of their lives and I know how much my children have benefitted from having me at home two days a week. I am made to feel unwanted at work. The respect that is owed to me as a long-serving member of staff has not been present since I went part-time. Little comments in the staffroom don't pass over me like they ought to. I am putting more effort into my lesson planning - as if I need to prove myself. Recent observations have confirmed that my teaching is better than many full-time colleagues.
I plan to return to full-time work in 2013.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
8:58
13 November, 2011
kcmorton
''they do not trust these people to “maintain the necessary focus and intensity on driving up pupil standards of attainment”' Sign of the times - what heads want is NQTs who will work 50+ hour weeks to jump through their hoops, act unprofessionally (not their fault) and attempt to reach increasingly ambitious targets. What they don't want is experienced teachers who point out that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes and that these targets can only be met by cheating.
I was at an examiners meeting a couple of weeks ago - full of teachers angry that if they try to do coursework fairly they are attacked by parents who complain that they aren't preparing student properly - because of the number of schools that just get the kids to copy out the right answers. Employers would be right to refuse to take passes in non-examined subjects at any level seriously.
Of course, returning workers will probably have greater subject knowledge, more experience of the world, and will stay for longer and build up better relationships with the students - but if all that matters is the A-C percentage we are all doomed.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
17:14
13 November, 2011
pcsimon
Stephen Hillier is a pen pushing civil servant and total brown-noser to Gove, he has absolutely no experience of teaching or teachers; head teachers and teachers should simply ignore him as he is not relevant.
David, you post is borderline sexist saying: 'If I were a head I would certainly prefer to employ someone full-time, and someone who was totally focused on their job, without the distraction of bringing up young children.' Good job you aren't a head as you would be breaking employment law by direct and indirect discrimination against women. As a man I taught while bringing up two children, I would be insulted if people thought I was 'distracted'.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
17:35
13 November, 2011
Brooke Bond
I'm glad you said "borderline sexism", because my comment said someone (male or female), it didn't say woman.
Look at it like this. Many organisations, including schools, have contracts that prohibit employees taking on further work outside the organisation. Often the reason for this is that they feel that the extra burden would adversely affect their work. Of course, they are not allowed to prevent their employees having children - though I suspect many would, if they could get away with it. However, they are not required to provide part-time employment instead of full-time positions.
I have seen a teacher with a baby, take approximately one day in four off. This went on for the time I was at the school - more than a year - and can hardly have been good for the students.
And I would whole-hearty dispute kcmorton's contention that "it's better to be taught by two teachers".
My comments were certainly not prompted by sexism, but rather by what's best for the student. Sometimes in life it may be impossible to simultaneously do what's best for everybody. Because a good education is so vitally important, I tend to give this priority over almost everything else.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
10:50
14 November, 2011
David Getling
DavidGettling - so, because you've seen 1 person take time off to look after a child for presumably a short period of time, you feel you can label all parents the same way? I've worked with a large number of part-time teachers who work their days off despite having family commitments with the result that students get a fantastic experience. They are also much more loyal and committed to their employer that many full-time staff I know. Some other choose to work part-time beyond retirement age to pass on their experience - something that was extremely
The fact is that good teachers take time to produce and that during our lives we will all face times when we need support. If there was an infinite supply of good teachers who sprang fully-formed from their PGCEs then your attitude would be justified. In the real world, we need to realise that teachers are human and pull together.
Couple of other points - of course shared teachers are better as they provide different learning styles (and I have hard evidence to prove it); if we didn't have children then we wouldn't need teachers; and 'what is best for the student' is having a teacher who knows their stuff rather than someone who has been drafted in because the experienced teacher is now on another career.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
19:54
15 November, 2011
pcsimon
Hello, everybody, the good shoping place, the new season approaching, click in.
Welcome to http://www.proxy4biz.com
Air Jordan (1-24) shoes $35
UGG BOOT $50
Nike shox (R4, NZ, OZ, TL1, TL2, TL3) $35
Handbags ( Coach Lv fendi D&G) $35
T-shirts (polo, ed hardy, lacoste) $16
Jean (True Religion, ed hardy, coogi)$34
Sunglasses ( Oakey, coach, Gucci, Armaini)$15
New era cap $16
Bikini (Ed hardy, polo) $18
FREE SHIPPING
http://www.proxy4biz.com
http://www.proxy4biz.com
http://www.proxy4biz.com
http://www.proxy4biz.com
http://www.proxy4biz.com
http://www.proxy4biz.com
===( http://www.proxy4biz.com )
===( http://www.proxy4biz.com )===
===(http://www.proxy4biz.com)===
===( http://www.proxy4biz.com )===
===( http://www.proxy4biz.com)===
===(http://www.proxy4biz.com )===
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
13:57
17 November, 2011
zhangpp