How you can buy yourself a life

A school in Oxfordshire has been praised for allowing its teachers to work flexitime. It even has a deputy head working as an unpaid vicar. Is this the beginning of a trend, asks Neil Merrick

When Bob Edy was appointed vicar in the Oxfordshire parish of Ducklington three years ago, he expected to have to give up his job as deputy head of the Henry Box School. Edy wrote to the school suggesting that he might go back to teaching history part-time, but headteacher Rod Walker was having none of it.

After consulting his governors, Walker offered Edy the chance to remain as the school's sole deputy but to combine it with his new job in the church. Edy continues to work five days a week but on two of them leaves at 11.30am (having started at 7.30am). Edy, who is not paid as a vicar but gets a rent-free home, was pleased to remain on the school's senior management team even though his salary was cut by £12,000. As Ducklington is two miles from Witney, there are few problems in doing both jobs. "All the undertakers know my hours," he says. "People know that they can only have funerals on Tuesday and Friday."

It is not unusual for schools to employ part-time staff but Henry Box, an 11-18 comprehensive with 1,300 pupils, has gone further than most by encouraging many senior teachers to juggle their working hours around home and other commitments.

Some work three or four days a week, while others leave early on certain days. In other cases, staff decline to take some of the pay they are entitled to as managers and cash it in for extra non-contact periods when they catch up on marking and other paperwork rather than take it home with them.

According to the head, the school gains because experienced staff are less stressed and, in some cases, are dissuaded from leaving teaching altogether. Staff, meanwhile, are buying themselves a life outside school.

Henry Box became a specialist language college in September 2001, at the same time as Jacqueline Mainwaring returned from maternity leave having had a baby. She was appointed language college director but is paid £8,000 less because she does not work on Fridays

"It's quite a lot of money but I don't think I can put a price on a day spent with my daughter," she says. "I could have stepped off the career ladder but teaching is not like nursing it's more difficult to get back on at the same scale after a five-year break."

Rod Walker believes that the option of working part-time or on flexible hours should not simply be taken up by women. Bob Edy was the second man to adjust his hours when he became a vicar.

Earlier the same year, Paul Ingram asked to step down as head of science because it was consuming too much time. He is now head of chemistry, which carries less responsibility and means that he can take Friday off along with Wednesday mornings.

Some of Ingram's colleagues had taken early retirement at 50 and received generous pay-offs, but he was slightly too young to qualify before the government tightened up the scheme. "This works just as well as taking early retirement," he says. "I enjoy teaching and the school wanted my experience as a chemistry teacher."

Henry Box employs a total of 82 teachers – 22 of whom work part-time. Of these, 16 are former full-timers who negotiated days off or flexible hours in return for sacrificing part of their salary.

According to Bob Edy, the fact that so many senior staff work part-time has taken away any stigma attached to it. "Whenever you go into a school where most people are full-time, there is almost a prejudice against part-timers."

Henry Box's flexible employment policies were praised earlier this year by Ofsted. It said that they enabled the school to retain some of its best and most experienced staff. From next April, new regulations will mean that all employers have to consider seriously requests to work flexibly from parents of children under five or disabled children under 18.

Rod Walker is pleased to negotiate individual packages with his staff, especially when it helps retention, but he stresses that a reduction in hours would not be allowed if it meant that the school would struggle to deliver a particular subject. In most cases, the reduction in hours is temporary, with teachers able to return to a full timetable the following year if they choose. In reality, however, many teachers on reduced hours still end up working more hours than they are supposed to – just like their full-time colleagues.

"It seems to be a choice between working 100 per cent or 150 per cent," says Walker. "Conscientious teachers shouldn't have to choose between having a reasonable salary or a reasonable workload, but at least that choice is available to them here wherever possible."

Janet Currah, who works four days a week, admits she often spends her day off on Monday catching up with school work. "It means I don't have to spend so much time doing it at the weekend," she says.

In addition, Currah has cashed in the £3,000 management allowance she should receive for co-ordinating primary school liaison so that she can have two more non-contact periods a week. Currah believes she is far healthier than when she worked full-time. "Being a teacher is emotionally draining with the long hours," she says.

In spite of the fact that a healthy staff room should mean fewer supply teachers to cover for absent staff, Rod Walker says the growth in the number of part-time contracts does not cost the school any more. "The main benefit is to people's well-being," he says. "If people have more control over their lives they are less likely to feel stretched."

Art teacher Aidan Mellor, who works Monday to Wednesday, is better off spending the rest of the week as an artist because he is able to sell paintings and recoup more than the £8,000 that he loses for not teaching full-time.

Mellor believes his painting stimulates him in the classroom. And he does not want to give up teaching completely. "In the summer I'm a full-time artist, but if I did that all year I would simply dry up," he says.

education@independent.co.uk