Changes to West Grantham Secondary Academy timetables and chance for staff to work from home is ‘phenomenally successful’

Changes to class timetables and teachers working from home has had a positive impact at a school.

West Grantham Secondary Academy now offers staff a chance to work from home fortnightly for one set day to offer them more flexibility.

Classes also run for four 75-minute lessons instead of five one hour lessons, giving students more time to take in the knowledge they have learned.

The changes have come at no additional cost to the academy and “no detriment to the children’s education,” said principal Clare Barber.

She added: “It comes about because there is a recruitment crisis in education.

More stories like this delivered straight to your inbox every morning - sign up to The Briefing here

“If I am looking for or wanting to recruit the very best teachers, part of that struggle is to see how schools need to change like other areas of business where people have more flexibility over their working.

“It’s been phenomenally successful and it’s very much something we expected to be successful.

“All of our key markers are positive, our student voice is 100% positive, our staff voice is positive and our outcomes are improving.

“We are finding that students in those classes have more confidence in their acquisition of knowledge because they have longer to practice the retention of that knowledge.

“It feels very much like it did before, the students just have a greater chance to consolidate their learning.”

Not all teachers have decided to take up the chance to work from home, but the ones who have are able to organise the time how they want.

Mrs Barber said: “For those that do it, they are saving on travel costs and travel time or if they have children they can do the school pick up.

“My view is as long as every member of staff is completing the expectations of a teacher’s workload, how they organise the time is completely up to them.”

Before the changes were made, Mrs Barber visited other schools that carried out similar changes and the benefits it had.

This is set to be a long-term change for the school, with Mrs Barber already planning the working from home requests for next year.

Do you think more schools need to take this approach? Let us know in the comments below