Teachers will be allowed to work from home in Labour plan to boost recruitment

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Teachers will be allowed to work from home to do marking and lesson planning under a Labour plan to boost recruitment to the profession.

Under reported plans, headteachers will be told to make it easier for teachers to work from home during free periods.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson hopes the increased flexibility will stop women from leaving the profession when they have children, according to reports.

Schools would be encouraged to give teachers blocks of free periods for marking or other prep work at the beginning or end of the day. This would allow people to juggle work while looking after children or completing the school run.

A government source told The Telegraph: “Unlike its predecessor, this government is taking the recruitment and retention of teachers seriously, which is why we’re making common-sense changes that enable great teachers to say in our classrooms.

“These changes are part of a wider reset of the relationship between government and teaching staff to ensure we drive high and rising standards across our schools and deliver better life chances for our children.”

The plans come after Labour pledged to end “the culture of presenteeism” in Britain’s workplaces by giving employees the right to switch off after hours.

Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said this week that giving employees the right to work from home or to ignore work emails or calls out of hours will make them more “motivated and resilient”.

He slammed former Conservative minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg for “declaring war on people working from home”.

Mr Reynolds told The Times: “Good employers understand that their workforce, to keep them motivated and resilient, they do need to judge people on outcomes and not a culture of presenteeism.”

The Labour government will publish an employment rights bill next month that would make flexible working a default right.

The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.