Teachers to be given one day off a fortnight

Teachers at a school in Solihull are to be given one day off a fortnight in a bid to motivate staff and attract new people to the profession.

A trial of the scheme is being run for a year, starting in September, for full-time teaching staff at St Peter’s Catholic School.

It is thought to be the only school in the West Midlands, and the only Catholic school in the country, to introduce the scheme.

There will be no impact on the length of teachers’ days, salaries or planning time, bosses said.

Head teacher Stuart Shelton said over recent years he had seen a decline in applications for teacher roles.

He said he started to think about different ways to motivate staff.

“Something that comes up all the time is workloads, and talking about wellbeing and thinking about how we can sustain our workforce for a longer period of time,” he said.

Full-time members of staff can opt to work nine days per fortnight, rather than 10, he said.

Staff are not able to choose which day they get off, this will be planned on a rota basis instead, to ensure there is no reduction in teaching levels in the classroom.

Mr Shelton said it had traditionally been the case that teachers were incentivised by greater pay or additional responsibilities – but he believed this was not sustainable.

Since introducing the policy, he has seen an uptick in interest for roles currently being advertised, he added.

In addition to the reduction in working days, there will also be changes made to pupils' timetables – with lessons increasing from one hour to 75 minutes.

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