Teachers say they are more productive, save time spent commuting and enjoy a better work-life balance now they work from home each Wednesday.
St Charles Catholic Sixth Form College in West London is trialling a timetable that compresses classes into four days to give teaching staff one dedicated day a week for planning, preparation and assessment.
Most of the 80 teaching staff have praised the change, saying the opportunity to work from home mid-week reduced exhaustion and gave them more time to focus on their subject knowledge.
Meanwhile, the college’s 1,100 students participate in volunteering, work experience and cultural visits when their teachers are away.
One-year pilot
Principal Martin Twist told FE Week leaders first discussed the four-day teaching week 18 months ago to make the sixth form a more attractive place to work and a more competitive place to study.
Leaders tested the water with a small trial in May, and after a review the switch was extended across the college this academic year as a “one-year extended pilot”.
The college claims the initiative is at the “most radical end” of changes in the sector.
Twist said: “We know some schools and colleges are trying to go to a nine-day timetable over 10 days, so having a day off every other week. We haven’t seen or heard of anyone who’s doing it like this.”
To maintain teaching hours across four days, classes have been stretched from 55 minutes to 100 minutes.
Staff teach three lessons per day, with a 30-minute morning break, a 45-minute lunch and a further 45 minutes at the end for directed time or student interventions.
Teachers have also been taken off additional duties such as tutoring so they are solely subject experts delivering their curriculum on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
“It does mean the other four days are busy, but we’ve consulted with them all throughout,” Twist said.
Though teachers are asked to come into college to do their PPA one Wednesday per month for “quality assurance”, the principal said leaders did not audit their time, and staff are free to cater to family needs such as doing their own school run.
St Charles initially made cost savings by not needing agency staff on Wednesdays.
Twist said the college is now looking into alleviating resourcing issues that have arisen for the small team of staff who deliver trips and organise work experience on Wednesdays.
Energy boost
Based on initial feedback from 39 teachers, seen by FE Week, 58 per cent said they were more productive due to the dedicated PPA day.
Staff members told the college they had ample, uninterrupted time to plan good lessons from home, resulting in better classroom delivery.
One teacher said: “There is an enormous improvement in teaching impact for pupils, removing the midweek to end of week low points in energy.
“I am able to teach up to the bell on Friday afternoons with no complaining about tiredness.”
Another teacher said they had time to work on subject knowledge, “which is the biggest hurdle to teaching GCSE retake classes”. It also let them “rest and recover between days to burn out less quickly”.
Some staff were also saving up to three hours of commuting on their work-from-home day and one hailed the “slower start to the day”.
Another said: “I would not want to return to five days, and this would affect my choice of workplace.”
‘Race to the canteen’
However, a small number of teachers who gave feedback were less enthusiastic.
One said having a day dedicated to PPA made “little difference” to them, and three teachers also complained the 45-minute lunch break was too rushed.
“It isn’t a break, it’s a race to get to the canteen, breakroom and back to the classroom,” one noted.
Another teacher said: “The condensed delivery has left little time (and energy!) at the end of the college day to deal with department business.
“This is compounded further for part-time staff; in my case, I don’t work in college on Fridays, which means I only have face-to-face contact with the whole team three days a week.”
Positive attitude
Parents were generally positive about the sixth form’s Wednesday activities for students, which include volunteering at charity shops and soup kitchens, and doing work experience in hairdressers and nurseries.
Some said their children had a more positive attitude to studying and were more refreshed and active.
Most agreed that allocating Wednesdays for home study in the lead-up to mock exams was effective for Year 13s.
Twist said it was too early to say student attendance had been impacted by the four-day teaching week but leaders said they expected improvements since an absence meant students missed more learning given that classes are now twice as long.
While four-day weeks aren’t common in education, St Charles Catholic Sixth Form College isn’t the only one to trial the concept. South Essex College closed classrooms on Fridays two years ago to save energy costs, encouraging students to do independent learning and teachers to complete marking and admin.
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