Adam Caller – founder of leading global tutoring company Tutors International – released a statement this week proposing top three reasons why part-time teaching can have a detrimental effect on pupils
OXFORD, UK: Tutors International founder Adam Caller has today expressed his concern that part-time school teaching does not benefit pupils. Caller’s statement comes in response to a recent exclusive article published by the Times Educational Supplement, in which Now Teach founder and former Financial Times journalist Lucy Kellaway describes full-time teaching as “unendurably hard work”.
According to the article, written by Will Hazell, Kellaway worked full-time in her training year – describing the experience as “hell” – but since becoming a newly qualified teacher she now works a “manageable” three days a week.
Adam Caller said, “Although Lucy Kellaway posits that schools are stuck ‘in the dark ages’ when it comes to part-time working, I believe that there are many valid reasons why it is problematic to accommodate flexible working in schools. At Tutors International we also rarely come across part-time roles within the private tutoring industry, with full-time albeit flexible roles as the norm. Teaching is not unendurable for people who are teachers at heart, rather than those who are in it for the job only; it is no more unendurable than any other challenging but rewarding career.”
Mr Caller, an educational consultant with over thirty years of experience in the industry, added, “Since October 2017 the UK Department for Education has been promoting flexible working as a solution to overcome the existing teacher shortage by attracting new blood into the profession. However, employing part-time teachers does not put the children’s needs first.“
Mr Caller presented his top three points on why part-time teaching can be detrimental to schools and pupils:
- Reduction in quality of teaching
“This is very much a case of a teacher’s needs being put before a pupil’s needs, and irregular or changeable teaching patterns can be disorientating for children. Based on my experience in the teaching industry, part-time work can lead to inconsistent lesson planning; unclear communication channels between pupils, parents, and staff; this therefore serves to undermine the educational experience for children compared to having one teacher per subject.
- Risk of making teacher shortage worse
“If every full-time teacher who says they would prefer part-time work reduced their hours, it would exacerbate the existing staffing gap that already needs to be filled. As Laura McInerney wrote in The Guardian earlier this year, data has shown that 40% of teachers would choose to reduce their hours, which would require another 40,000 extra staff to replace them.
- Difficulty in managing the remaining workload
“It can lead to difficulty in recruiting additional staff, and an inability to reorganise work amongst existing teachers. This places a burden on management and other teaching staff, and these are therefore grounds upon which schools can legally refuse to grant flexible working requests.”
To find out more about Tutors International and the services it provides, including full-time private tutors, visit www.tutors-international.com. For career opportunities with Tutors International, visit www.tutors-international.net.
[caption id="attachment_18409" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Full-time versus part-time teaching?[/caption]
