Can schools do flexible work? A Conversation with Neil Renton & Julie Wellacott

Most schools still expect teachers to be in the building from bell to bell, but what if there's another way? Today we're looking at how flexible working is changing, how schools actually keep their teachers. Hey everyone, I'm Shane Leaning. Welcome to Education Leaders, the chat-topping leadership podcast for school leaders like you. I'm an organizational coach and in this show

I get to know the teacher's leaders and innovators, making a difference in education across the world. Before we jump in today, I'm delighted that this episode is supported by the International Curriculum Association. Stay tuned to learn more. Okay, so I'm really excited. My guests today are Julie Wellicott and Neil Renton

from Harrogate Grammar School in the UK. Neil's the head of this large school over 2,000 students. It's in the north of England. He's also the author of New School Leader What Now. Now you may recognize his name. If you do, well done.

You've been around a while. He was actually on in episode 15 where we talked a lot about what it's like to be a new school leader and all about humility. That was back in 2023. Go check that out. I've put that link in the show notes. Julie is

massively experienced within HR. She's HR director for Red Kite Learning Trust. She's been there for nearly nine years. She's also flexible working ambassador for the Power for Education's Culture of Change program. So she's helping a lot of

schools with HR advisory and people strategy and together they've been working on this nationwide strategy in the UK about flexible working, especially in trusts and schools. They've written about this and they've really transformed their approach to staff flex in the schools that they work with. In fact, in Harrogate Grammar School, they now have 50 teachers working part-time. That to me is unheard of. They really give great insights on culture and flex

and it's gonna challenge your thinking for sure. So I started by asking them how they would define flexible learning. Let's jump right in. So I think it's giving teachers greater control about how much when and where they work and then that splits off into different dimensions of flexing. So I

would define it. I like that. How much, when and where. So how much? Talk me through

that. What do you mean? Is this just in terms of how much work they're expected to do? Yeah, so then you think about the various examples of that and the types of flexible working. So it might be that it just fits into one of those

categories or actually all three. So some examples would be about part-time. That's the most obvious one, isn't it? So that's a reduction. That's how much

you work. But then we have such a range of roles in our schools that there are roles that could access even those things around working from home. In the UK we've just recently got our heads around the fact that we're encouraged through government actually around having some time at home for teachers. So they're designated planning preparation and assessment time, the PPA time. Actually

that is encouraged to be off-site now. Well that's a big change. So that's just one example of location. And then there's other things around actually condensing your hours as well. So some roles, including leadership roles, have some

designated time that isn't teaching. So perhaps some of that time could be worked elsewhere. And that happens all the time actually where there are particularly pinch points in the air where really focused time could really help with the role. So they're just a few examples. It really makes sense to

me. And what's so funny is literally just an hour ago I was on a call with a leader at a school who we're going to design a course together. And I was like, hang on a sec, that looks like a home in the background. And she says, oh yeah, my school lets me come home on a Wednesday afternoon because that's time. And she

said this would have never happened a year ago. So I think there's been some quite fast thinking changes going on here right with schools. Like this is quite new territory. It is and it reminds me about our moment, the moment in this school and Neil as a head teacher and me as a HR person working with a head teacher and actually the previous head teacher actually looking at staff leaving perhaps on the bell at the end of the day and being concerned about that to a really different mindset now of positively thinking and proactively thinking about how can we make that work for people?

How can we, you know, have the balance of a safe school with plenty of people in it, but actually letting some people go and do perhaps, you know, other things and then pick up professional duties later. It's a different mindset. Yeah. And you said it was a moment.

It was a moment. Yeah. So we were actually in this office and picture it half past three, you're looking out of the window and thinking, why is that teacher leaving? Surely there's parents to call, there's work to be done. And I think

there's been a culture in schools for many years of staying. You stay in schools, you work late, you work full time and actually then thinking, you know, maybe is there a different way? Can it be that teacher working at different points and having greater control in their life? And when you start to look at it and you get into things like the gender pay gap as well, you start to think, well, are there some practices in the organisation that might mean that certain groups are not getting potentially what they need to keep them in the profession?

And you think there's something here and that the more we read about flexible working, the actual mindset of the head teacher is the most significant factor in whether this happens in schools or not. Their approach to flex will determine whether it happens in an organisation or not. And that's been a shift in our school. So we talk often about part-timeness as the first step in flexible working, or one of the first steps.

And in our school, 115 teachers, we now have our 115 full-time equivalents. We now have 50 teachers with some kind of part-timeness in the organisation. Well, that's quite a significant change. Really high-performing school, great outcomes, strong retention and strong recruitment, but a lot of flexible working.

Fifty, did you say? Five zero. Five zero. And paint the picture for me, like what is the spectrum here of part-timeness?

Yes, it's interesting. So I think a few things will be running through your mind, which is who's doing that, why are they doing that and what does it mean for the timetable? So I think the key thing to think with flexible working is there are three groups in the UK that there are real retention issues around. So that is young teachers, women who've just had children and then teachers coming towards the end of their career, retiring potentially too early than where they could have got in their life.

So teachers leaving after a couple of years of training, all that investment, all that training, but then they leave from the profession. Women who are maybe in leadership roles in schools who are saying, well, I can't come back to that now, because I've had children and then teachers coming towards the end of their career thinking I just need something a little bit different. So we are seeing around those three groups different types of flex. So that's kind of the demographic that we're seeing.

The other dimension is, yes, we do have split classes. Now, we've always had split classes at A level, but we've had to move them down low in the school to make the timetable work and picture it saying we've got 2,100 children in the school. Imagine what it's like for that timetabler to then put in that level of flex. But it's possible.

And we also have 40 different level choices post 16 with 650 students. So we have a timetabler who is just a genius to make it work. And it's a puzzle and it's a real complex thing to make it work. And you're still on talk in terms with this timetabler.

It's the best. But the benefits, of course, are that we have maintained subject specialism in Neil's school. So that's a tangible benefit of the effort gone into solving this puzzle. Yeah, I'm loving this.

So let's take a step back then, because I know your work has been thinking around. It's called the Flexible Working Ambassador Program, I think. This is a Department for Education initiative. And I think this is where some of the thinking has either come from or has been inspired by, like, could you kind of talk a little bit through about that?

Because I think this has been a program that's been pretty impactful. Yeah, let me help with that. So we applied to this and it was actually after that moment. So I'm glad that we've mentioned that and that realisation that we could do more and we could look at our systems and perhaps we have things in place that were limiting our progress in this area.

So we did apply to the DFE to become a flexible working ambassador mat. And that would be for Yorkshire and Humberside. And that is what we became. But actually, we also have some presence in the northwest area of the UK as well.

So as part of that, we were really privileged actually to influence and create some of the resources. So that included going for an induction with DFE and Capita, who were their delivery partner. And so we've really shaped the material, that initial material, which included a toolkit for schools. And then we were tasked to recruit a number of participant schools.

So we've had the performance indicators to deliver as an ambassador. But that's the sort of technical side. What we've really enjoyed is meeting people, you know, like-minded people who wanted to talk about this. So we've got our official participant schools.

But as ambassadors, we've been doing various activities, presentations, etc. Just to really raise awareness and influence automatically. It's interesting you mention community there, Julie, because I'm thinking a lot of the leaders who are going to be listening to this from international schools around the world. So not necessarily haven't really got access to this kind of programme.

But it sounds like what you're saying is actually the community, you know, kind of connecting with others who were along the same path was very useful. And I'm kind of wondering now, like in international schools, whether groups of leaders could start to organise discussions on these so that they could start to explore some of these ideas together. Absolutely. I think that's the power in this, in that collaboration and community has been absolutely fundamental to this.

And the professional generosity, actually. So when we have come together with groups of schools and trusts, the openness and honesty about actually some very difficult stories that we've heard from individuals who had a poorer experience throughout their career, actually seeing this as something that they can be champions of so that that helps the culture within their own schools and others following their career path. So absolutely. And being honest and sharing challenges, opportunities and ideas together, that's been fundamental.

And it's not an easy conversation to have. So it starts for me with a spectacularly specific issue that we've got, which is it's really difficult to recruit and retain great teachers. And then when you start talking about flexing, it's a real challenging concept. And staff and colleagues present to us when we talk about it with their own real personal story about how not having the opportunity to flex really affected them in some way in their career development.

And when you speak with other leaders about it, it doesn't necessarily start in an easy place. You bring all the kind of traditions and history and roles and routines that you learn as a head teacher, that you think this is how a school should run. And you're really challenged to think differently about it. And actually to have some empathy and step into different shoes of different groups, of colleagues of Gen Z, of different demographics and think, what is actually going to work for my school?

And then when you start connecting with these different partners, you start hearing great different solutions to the problems that you've heard and throwing around those issues and working together to solve them. So it's been a really interesting piece of work for us to learn about cultural change, not just in our own school, but across a range of different organisations. This episode is supported by the International Curriculum Association. Now, I've been working with the ICA for quite a few years, but they've been around for 30 years and they've been around championing quality, unlocking potential and improving learning in international schools right around the world.

I really, really love that at their core is a model for improving learning. And this model is focused on the learning experience and they have tons of great curriculum materials, PD resources and even an accreditation pathway for schools just like yours. So if you're interested and I really do recommend you check them out, head over to internationalcurriculum.com.

In my position, I would love to still do some work with schools, like actually like to work in a school for a part of my time. I'm, funnily enough, restricted because of the work I do outside of schools. You know, I'm doing this podcast, I speak to a lot of people doing coaching work that I've approached many schools to say, hey, is there any opportunity for some kind of flexible arrangement where I might be able to support you, you know, and utilise my skills as a teacher? And the answer has been a flat out no in most of the time because I think it's just, well, no shame, that's not the way schools work.

You know, people come to school from 7.30 to 4 o'clock or whatever it is, Monday to Friday, and that's how schools operate. There's no way outside of that. So this is kind of exciting to me because I think not just kind of those big groups, you mentioned a young or women or end of Korea, but there'll also be kind of little stories here and there of people who've got their own individual reasons.

For FLEX being needed, and this hopefully will start to open up a conversation. And of course, this is one that's happened in many other sectors already. Education is catching up, right? Yeah, you mentioned that small opportunities in FLEX, and we hear and see that quite a lot.

So we're not talking about big changes in many examples. For whatever reason, we haven't mentioned the term that we've got our heads around, which is around reason neutral. So although we've mentioned some demographics there and perhaps think about, you know, life stages, actually what we should be thinking is it doesn't really matter what the reason is. So having this reason neutral approach means that we're open minded about whatever the reason is and whatever the scale of FLEX that somebody would want.

And it often is that small thing. So it could be that it is on a fortnightly timetable, just one later start or earlier finish, can make that world of difference to that individual. So we're open to that discussion. I think we should also make it really clear that this doesn't mean that we're saying yes to everything.

But we're having that conversation. And again, you've just mentioned that to have a conversation about this might mean that we can come to some agreement that suits both and then it's win-win. So having that opportunity, and it might be even one thing a year. It might be very ad hoc.

Whatever it is means something to that individual to talk to us about it. I just love that phrase you just used, reason neutral. That's the first time I've heard that. And you've just made me have a bit of a light bulb moment, because I guess, yeah, we get hung up on the reasons.

And the reasons really are irrelevant if it can happen. And if it does make a difference to that person, if it's realistic, I guess. And there's a flip side to reason neutrality, which is a real issue, which is where bias can come in. So do you allow flex because it fits into your values of what you think is appropriate for a teacher to do?

Or are you adopting an approach of reason neutrality because this is recognising that teachers can be potentially more engaged, more likely to be retained and happy in their work if they've got greater control in how much, when and where they work. So someone asking, can I flex because I want to do a podcast and write a book about education? Is that more valid a reason for allowing flex than someone who has got another separate issue or something that they want to do, which you might think, well, that's not really much to do with education. So I'm not going to let that happen.

So I think it's really interesting when you try and get underneath in how often we easily have prejudice and bias in our own values about how we approach schools. Gosh, actually, this is a minefield, isn't it, when you start to think about that? Because, yeah, one person might be having a child and that might seem legitimate or not legitimate, depending on the person. And another person might want to write a book.

But then you can imagine the comparisons being made between staff if you start making those value judgments. That's going to cause a challenge. So a leader's kind of presented with flexible working. And let's assume people are going to be presented with this a lot.

But many leaders are probably going to be a little bit resistant at first. Are there any places you think are good to start in kind of starting to shift those mindsets? What we've been doing with this project, which I think is a really good place to start wherever you are in any kind of school, is the toolkit, which has been designed through the project. And the toolkit, as we were looking to be involved in this, it's got a number of different categories.

And you go through and you just assess where you are as a school in terms of your approach to flex. And the thing about flexible working is it's got so many different dimensions to it in terms of how do you communicate with people, how do you look after wellbeing, all of those different things. It allows you to have a really good, honest reflection. So I remember I sat at home Sunday afternoon with a coffee thinker.

Come on, just have a look at it and think about it for your school. So I did it with a highlighter pen. I've then done that with my senior team. They've had a go at it.

And we've had this honest conversation about, well, what is our approach to flexible working? So I think that's a good place to start because we think that mindsets change quite gradually. And I think sudden introduction of flexible working, particularly in contexts where it's not occurred and it's not necessary to the same extent because of different cultural practices and the way recruitment and retention works in that organisation. I think that's a more gradual way.

Ben, would you agree, really? Yeah, and I was just thinking about what leaders want to hear in terms of the why. So yes, a great thing to think about the audit of what your current practice is and what you might want to look at going forward. But going back to the why, and we're absolutely convinced that this does help with recruitment and retention.

So how do you explain that? And we appreciate that leaders have a different mindset around, well, how are we going to convince them? Some want to talk about stories, some want to talk about, well, what's the impact on the reception teacher and ultimately the young children in that class? Whilst others just want to see hard data, prove it to me.

Tell me why this is worth looking at and everything in between. So luckily for us, there's quite a lot of research evidence around this that we can use for those that are interested in it. But also we can perhaps challenge the thinking around those stories and actually reflect back a slightly different story. So the one about the reception teacher being the most important person in that child's life.

Well, imagine if that teacher is absolutely on their knees, their role is unsustainable, their wellbeing is absolutely poor. So let's look at it that way and see what we can do about it. And actually for that child who doesn't perhaps connect with that one adult, important adult in school, actually is it better to have two? So that's the sort of story that we perhaps flip and challenge the thinking but use a range of information.

I think that's really powerful that you've talked about using stories and using the research depending on who you're talking about. So say someone's listening now and going, okay, have you got any high level benefits that they could kind of use if they're discussing with someone on flexi-working? Yeah, well, I think a good starting position is that we've seen research in the UK that one fifth, a fifth of teachers in the UK who've left teaching have gone into some kind of part-time working, not in teaching. Well, what a loss to the teaching profession of all that training and expertise that's just going out of the system.

So I think I always find that quite a sobering piece of information. Then I think in terms of benefit, I would go from the angle of, it's really easy to think about flexible working into part-timeness and that's one dimension of it. So we've seen a teacher who taught for 25 years, absolutely amazing teacher in the classroom, biology teacher, brilliant outcomes, engaged in school life, just feels that they need a break from teaching, came forward to say, would we be willing to consider a sabbatical in a school? And we've said, actually, yes, we will consider that because we're willing to have that level of flexibility.

So I think if that allows me as a head teacher to then have that teacher come back to us in a year's time, it will continue to make a difference to our school and young children. That's something that's important to me to try and retain that teacher. And when I go through the different types of flex of a similar story where a head teacher, 34 years of teaching and leading a school, but just actually going part-time in his hours, but keeping that wisdom in his school and passing on to the next generation of leader, I think, well, there's something in that. And then teachers who are benefiting from carrying out training remotely, which allows them to cope with their workload, those are all stories around having this slightly different approach that retains, looks after, and creates a culture that's just that little bit more nimble and able to adapt to the world that we're now living in in the UK.

What I'm hearing from that is you've really gotten to know the staff and their kind of journeys. And each of these decisions that you just described are very personal to their context and their needs. I guess what I'm thinking, that takes a hell of a lot of confidence as a leader to lean into that and must take a lot of processing time for a leader to do. I can understand why there would be a fear of just not going near this, right?

Was it just literally that moment that kind of flipped your thinking or has it been actually quite hard to start to shift some of those patterns of thinking when you were presented, like with some of the stories you just shared? I think if we think about the culture within schools, we've talked about the sort of wider culture around flexible working, but what we're referring to really is a culture of kindness within a school and developing an atmosphere around coaching conversations. So we're doing that anyway around our performance reviews, for example, and having a more holistic approach and quality conversations with colleagues. So this fits with that.

So if we're already talking to colleagues in this way and having an open and quality conversation, we can include elements of wellbeing and this part of flexible working. So just simply some questions around how can we support you in next year's, but what does next year look like for you? Is there anything that you'd like to talk about now? And that's really important for us from a cultural point of view, but also a planning and preparation point of view, because in the UK legislation, new legislation this year means that everyone has a day one right.

So a new colleague starting in school from the first day of employment can request, formally request flexible working. We can't leave it to that point. And for existing staff, we don't want to risk losing staff who may be thinking that something could benefit them. So much, much, much earlier in the year, and actually at any point, we can have that conversation.

Again, going back to my statement that we're not going to say yes to everything, but there might be something in that that either next year or the year after, or some smaller change, rather than the bigger change that would be ideal for them, we can consider and try and plan ahead and manage that so much better. Win, win again. I like that. You're making a statement, aren't you?

That direction, Shane, that you went with it in terms of what does it create in the school where staff can speak openly and make these requests? Well, that's a special culture, isn't it? If you can achieve that in your school where people know one another and people are open with each other. And I don't know if you saw, there's an article in the summer, I was on holiday, sat looking over a beautiful swimming pool, really sunny weather, and there's an article that came up in The Economist.

It was the 7th of July, and the article was called, the rich world's teachers are increasingly morose. And I thought, what does that mean? So I looked up the word morose, and the word morose, it says sullen and ill-tempered. What an article to think.

Why are there teachers across the world sullen and ill-tempered? What a thing to say. And I was thinking, well, why is that? You could go down routes of workload, behavior in schools, the pressures that teachers are under.

And if that is an issue that we faced for our teachers, what can we do as leaders to do something about that? And if teachers can have that little bit more control and have that openness to say, this is what I feel I need at this particular point in my career, well, surely that is a good thing to have that conversation. And that's where I got to in my mind with it, which is, yes, it may be easier to run a school if you've got all full-time teachers and you've got great staff walking through the door that are constantly available. But for us, the world's different to that here, and it's much more challenging.

So what can we do to respond to that and look after, fundamentally, our teachers? And that's why I think that this is a really exciting way to think about the modern working world and the future of work for teachers. And from a HR point of view, I can give some basics. As we're talking about culture within the school, it takes time to nurture and build that, doesn't it?

But there's some basics to do. So stay surveys or stay meetings. If you know that typically colleagues are leaving after two years, five years, whatever it is, talk to those individuals, focusing on those risk groups, perhaps, and start to think about your attention strategies. I think most organizations do exit surveys, but how well are they done?

And does it focus really on what could we have done better? What could have kept you here? So, you know, there's some basics to start with that give some formality and structure to conversations, perhaps before the cultural stuff comes later where people feel comfortable just to raise it. I like that.

It's like small actionable strategies can work up to that culture point. You can't just leap into, hey, we do things different here, and that's the way things are. Like it takes steps and culture takes time to build, right? You just made me smile there then when you speak in Julie, because we talk about this and it's really powerful stuff, isn't it?

Neutrality, culture change. And when you try to do these projects, you're trying to make a difference and we're trying to work with other schools and colleagues. And we went to speak in a school and we stayed in a hotel and we were sat working on our presentation late into the evening. And in the hotel, there was this group of people, a mixture of men and women, young and old, and all of a sudden they burst into a song and they were singing these amazing sea shanties, these Cornish sea shanties.

We don't get to travel much, but we were in this hotel thinking, where have we come with this trash hank? What are we doing? And you just think, well, yeah, it's good that we're doing this and isn't life interesting in the way. Now, didn't I tell you this conversation is gonna make you rethink those school operations in a way.

It really did get me thinking about how those small intentional changes in Flex can have really massive impact on teacher wellbeing, but also teacher attention. I really liked how Julie and Neil talked about that flexible working. It's not just part time, but it's about creating that culture where teachers have more control over how much, when, and where they work. I really, really love that concept of reason neutrality on how you focus to make arrangements work rather than judging the validity of someone's reason for wanting flexibility.

I think for school leaders, there are many practical takeaways from that episode. I think you could consider auditing your school's approach to Flex. Maybe start having stay interviews if you don't have them already, not just exit interviews. Think about retention benefits, especially for early career teachers, parents returning to work and late career teachers.

And I think overall just remembering that sometimes even the smallest adjustments can make a huge difference to staff while being in retention. You can find a bit more about some of the work Neil and Julie are up to using the links in the show notes. And if you are in the UK, do check out that Flexible Working Ambassador Program toolkit from the Department for Education. Education Leaders is hosted by me, Shane Leaning, thanks to my show editor, Pete McGill, and for the original music by Guillermo Silva.

I am so thankful that you tuned in today. If we don't speak before, I'll see you here next week. If you wanna learn more about the brilliant work from the International Curriculum Association, head to internationalcurriculum.com.