NAHT– Written evidence (HBW0120)

About NAHT

1. NAHT is pleased to submit evidence to the House of Lords Committee enquiry on remote / hybrid working.
2. NAHT is the UK’s largest professional trade union for school leaders. We represent more than 38,000 serving head teachers, executive heads, CEOs, deputy and assistant heads, vice principals and school business leaders. Our members work across: the early years, primary, special and secondary schools; independent schools; sixth form and FE colleges; outdoor education centres; pupil referral units, social services establishments and other educational settings.
3. In addition to the representation, advice and training that we provide for existing school leaders, we also support, develop and represent the school leaders of the future, through the middle leadership section of our association. We use our voice at the highest levels of government to influence policy for the benefit of leaders and learners everywhere.

NAHT responses to the Committee’s questions

How do schools experience remote and hybrid working, and how does this vary? Which tasks or roles can be performed from home, and to what extent?

4. The majority of a teacher’s working week is timetabled as ‘contact time’ during which they are responsible for teaching groups of children face-to-face in classrooms in a school setting.[1]  A full supporting leadership structure, and sufficient staff flexibility, must be in place at all times to ensure that safeguarding requirements are met, and that children are fully supervised.  Necessarily, this makes opportunities more limited for leadership teams to operate hybrid, remote or home-based working models than in, for example, office-based occupations.
5. Middle leaders, assistant head teachers, and deputy head teachers typically also have a timetabled teaching commitment, which is performed alongside their leadership role.  Some head teachers, particularly in small primary schools have very significant timetabled teaching commitments.  Most of a leader’s non-teaching time is typically spent in the workplace conducting on-site leadership functions, although some limited and usually planned locational flexibility may be possible for some tasks.  Leaders must also plan, prepare, and assess the work of children they teach.  Every school must have a head teacher, or a deputy head teacher onsite and responsible for the school when it is operating. 
6. It is worth noting that schools are exceptionally dynamic environments.  Teachers and leaders have hundreds of different interactions during a normal working day, requiring great flexibility and adaptability on their part.  Much of their work has a degree of unpredictably in that they must respond to and manage live situations.  Some of these demands mean that being present and available on site is required, particularly for leadership responsibilities.
7. Teachers are not normally able to fulfil their teaching commitments remotely.  However, The School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) specifies that all teachers are entitled to reasonable periods of planning preparation and assessment (PPA) which must amount to not less than 10% of a teacher’s timetabled teaching time, in units of not less than half an hour.  This can offer limited remote or hybrid working opportunities. 
8. The STPCD states that ‘Where reasonably appropriate and agreed by both the individual teacher and the headteacher, PPA can be taken in one weekly unit and it can be taken away from the school site.’[2]  
9. PPA time offers the most usual opportunity for remote and hybrid working for teachers.  In primary schools PPA time for an individual teacher is often timetabled together in a single morning or afternoon, which can make it possible for a teacher to plan and prepare lessons, or assess pupils’ work remotely – many will take advantage of this opportunity to work at home.
10. It should be noted that minimum staffing levels must be maintained in a school, so that there are adequate resources in an emergency.  This can mean that staff may need to be on site during PPA time as a precautionary measure.
11. Of course, pupils remain in school, fully tasked and supervised, while their class teacher is undertaking PPA time, meaning that the teacher remains responsible for setting work to be completed during that time, which is often overseen by a school leader or a teaching assistant.
12. In secondary schools timetabling is much more complex.  Many schools operate a two-week timetable, meaning that staff teaching commitments are set out over a fortnight, rather than their timetable being consistent from week to week. 
13. Teachers often teach across the whole age range, making it more difficult to create a single block of PPA time for an individual teacher.  Typically, PPA time is likely to be distributed across a fortnight, meaning that opportunities for remote or home working may be fewer that for the primary counterparts.
14. Some teachers may however prefer this distribution of PPA time across their timetable – spreading PPA time across a timetable can help to relieve the intensity of ‘back-to-back’ lesson delivery, particularly given the range and breadth of secondary school teaching, the need for intellectual flexibility, and the requirement to teach in a variety of locations across a school.
15. However, staff are likely to be permitted to work offsite where this is possible, and some schools may permit later arrival and earlier departure as a form of flexibility.  The larger scale of secondary schools can make maintaining minimum staffing levels less challenging.  As in primary schools, most secondary assistant and deputy head teachers have significant teaching commitments.  Some head teachers also continue to have timetabled teaching duties.
16. The Committee will note how the requirements of teaching contrast strongly with the flexibilities available in many other graduate professions.  Combined with lower rates of pay, high stakes punitive accountability, high workloads and long working hours, this serves to limit the attractiveness of teaching as a graduate career.
17. Support staff work in a variety of full and part time roles in schools.  These include those working with children under the supervision of teachers, such as teaching assistants, and those employed in a range of administrative, clerical, catering and site management roles.
18. Some of these roles are suitable for home and hybrid working, while others that are mainly pupil and parent facing such as receptionists and those delivering student support are less flexible.

Who is responsible for setting school policies on remote and hybrid working, and what policies are you aware of across your membership base?

19.       Generally, a head teacher’s and a school’s leadership team are responsible for the operational functions of a school, including remote and hybrid working policies.  A school’s policies and procedures in relation to hybrid or remote working will be approved by the appropriate authority for a school (the governing board or trust).
20.       Typically, staff will be consulted on remote or hybrid working policies – this may be through a school’s mechanisms for staff engagement and / or through discussion and negotiation with recognised trade unions (often through a joint negotiating committee).

Does access to remote or hybrid working vary by occupation or income level within or between schools, and if so, how is this handled? Are there risks of creating a ‘two-tier’ workforce?

21.       As noted above, school phase may influence the extent to which it is possible to deliver genuinely meaningful hybrid or remote working – in primary schools delivering PPA as a block of time that allows most teachers to work remotely for part of the time may be more achievable than in the secondary phase.
22.       School leaders roles do have the potential to include some regular element of remote working.  However, this is dependent on a number of variables, not least the overall workload and demands on leaders’ time that can make it very difficult to work away from the school site.  Another leader must also be available to assume responsibility for the operation of the school, which presupposes that leadership time is protected, which is not usually the case.
23.       The insufficiency of school budgets often mean that schools are running on minimum staff levels with little room for flexibility.  Often the size of leadership teams have been reduced, or leaders have taken on significant classroom teaching commitments, which in turn creates additional time pressure on leadership functions.

Does the ability to offer remote or hybrid working affect recruitment and retention for schools, and how can this be measured?

24.       There is plentiful evidence to indicate that those embarking on a graduate career seek both good starting pay and pay progression, alongside opportunities for a healthy work life balance which includes opportunities for remote, hybrid or other forms of working flexibility. 
25.       The teaching profession struggles to compete on all counts.  Starting salaries are low by comparison to other graduate careers, pay progression is poor (see the School Teachers’ Review Body latest report for salary benchmarking for teachers and leaders[3]), working hours are routinely dangerously excessive particularly for leaders[4], and terrible health and well-being outcomes driven by a low trust, high stakes punitive accountability and inspection system that is a driver of terrible attrition rates for both teachers[5] and leaders [6].
26.       Taken together, these constitute major disincentives for those looking for a sustainable and well-rewarded graduate career.  School leaders are keen to offer as much flexibility as possible, but realistically the opportunities for remote and hybrid working will remain limited in comparison to other graduate professions.  DfE data indicates that 82% of school leaders agreed that flexible working helped to retain teachers and leaders who might otherwise leave.[7]
27.       NAHT’s view is that offering at least some opportunity for remote working is essential, but this one part of a broader set of measures that are required, rather than a panacea. What’s needed is to make teaching a compelling and sustainable graduate career option for both recent graduates and career changers.  To retain teachers, build leadership aspiration and maintain the leadership pipeline very significant improvements are needed to overall conditions of service, particularly workload reduction and a change to the high stakes accountability measures which drive committed professionals out of the profession.

What is the impact of remote and hybrid working on collaboration between employees?

28.       In the school context remote or hybrid working is quite limited, so the potential and sometimes observed negative impacts of lone working are mitigated.  Within teachers’ contracts time for staff meetings and professional development days are specified – which provides opportunities to work collaboratively.  It is unlikely that there would be undesirable consequences for individuals that result from the option to use PPA time remotely.  In all schools staff would have the choice to work on site if preferred.

To what extent do remote and hybrid working affect use of the school estate?

29.       NAHT does not see any implications from the use of the school estate from remote or hybrid working.

How will the Employment Rights Bill affect flexible working requests within your sector, particularly the new requirement for employers who reject requests to explain why it was reasonable for them to do so?

30.       School leaders are favourably disposed to remote and hybrid working to the extent that this is operable and can be resourced in the current educational environment.  It is reasonable for school leaders to explain their decisions.  However, it is important to guard against unnecessary additional workload and bureaucracy in an environment where working hours are routinely excessive.

If you could make one recommendation to the Government about remote and hybrid working, what would it be?

31.       Better resourced schools would enable the delivery of more sustainable employment in teaching.  A simple sounding solution would be to reduce contact hours for teachers – increasing PPA time from 10% to, say, 20% would deliver immediate workload reduction, reduce stress and burnout, and improve the health and well-being of the workforce.  It would allow much greater timetable flexibility, with the potential for remote and hybrid working that would support retention and attract new entrants.  Such a move might even make some forms of condensed or compressed hours working realisable.
32.       This would of course require sustained investment.  Similar investment in school leadership roles would be required, through the creation of protected leadership time, and ensuring that leadership teams are large enough to practice distributed management, enabling hybrid and remote working opportunities for these roles too.

1 July 2025