Parental support was a hot topic at the teaching unions’ annual conferences over Easter, with NASUWT general secretary Matt Wrack describing maternity pay as “a national scandal”. Women aged 30 to 39 are leaving the profession at the largest rates, so retaining parents, who often work part-time, should be at the top of the list for reducing issues around recruitment and retention. In 2015, the Conservative government promised to explore why “just one in four female teachers work part time, compared with nearly half of women in the workforce nationally”, calling this a “critical waste of talent”. Yet over a decade later, the protection offered to part-time teachers remains significantly below that of their full-time counterparts. Whilst the school teachers’ pay and conditions document states that directed time and pay for part-time teachers must be allocated on a pro-rata basis, it makes no mention of changes to part-time teachers’ days and hours of work. At the mercy of timetables In secondary schools in particular, this puts many part-time mothers’ careers at the mercy of the school’s timetable. It is common to issue timetables late in the summer term, with many schools insisting part-time teachers offer full-time availability to accommodate those timetables. This leaves part-time teachers with little time to make childcare arrangements (which any parent knows is about as likely as finding a unicorn). And with timetables issued long after the May 31 resignation deadline, part-time staff risk finding themselves unable to teach – and unable to resign. Despite ACAS’s clear guidance that flexibility clauses should be used “reasonably”, include staff consultation and consider the impact on their employees, changes are often imposed simply by schools issuing a timetable for the next academic year. The result? Many part-time teachers find themselves caught in an annual cycle whereby their employers insist that they must be available full-time to meet the demands of a short-notice timetable. Exclusivity clause The current position also creates a system in which many schools are essentially operating an exclusivity clause for part-time teachers. This makes it unfeasible to work in more than one school across the week without leaving themselves in potential breach of contract and unable to resign should working patterns change. And with many secondary schools operating a two-week timetable, the challenges worsen. Fortnightly timetabling can result in staff being directed to teach different hours or even different days on alternating weeks, an expensive prospect for parents needing childcare. The Department for Education is well aware of this issue. In December 2024, in its “evidence to the STRB”, the DfE noted “concerns around part-time teachers having inconsistent non-working days, or having their non-working days changed and the amount of notice they receive when this happens”. The department requested “the STRB’s views on whether the STPCD should clarify the arrangements for part-time teachers”. Yet, when the STRB released its report in May 2025, it made no mention of working patterns. Childcare roulette So, whilst the STRB is (hopefully) still mulling the problem over, there are a number of potential solutions on the table. Options include a deadline for ensuring schools propose changes to working patterns significantly in advance of resignation deadlines or ensuring the “right to resign” by allowing part-time teachers to waive their notice period following any proposed change to their working pattern. Clearly these options remain unworkable for part-time staff with caring responsibilities. Playing childcare roulette every academic year and the annual prospect of losing your teaching role over the school’s timetable hardly values part-time teachers’ contribution to the profession. So we return to the necessary solution: regulation within the STPCD to prevent schools from changing part-time teachers’ working patterns without their agreement. It begs the question: despite all the talk about flexible working, does the solution to teacher retention actually lie in clearer working conditions for part-time staff?