Public Servant Lifestyle

New book says the culture of working long hours in schools & colleges could have a detrimental effect not only on teachers & senior leaders, but also on students.

Work-life Balance: Myth or Possibility? by Deborah Duncan

The long hours that school and college leaders are working could be promoting a harmful role model for students, suggests a new book from the Association of School and College Leaders.

Entitled Work-life Balance: Myth or Possibility?, the book states that the culture of working long hours in schools and colleges could have a detrimental effect not only on teachers and senior leaders, but also on students.

Written by a practising headteacher, the book lists strategies that school and college leaders can adopt to reduce workload and stress for staff, for themselves and for students.

?Students too are possible victims of stress and work overload, particularly in examination years such as years 9, 11, 12 and 13," says the book's author, Deborah Duncan, head of Horbury School in Wakefield,West Yorkshire.

"If they are in regular contact with staff and a management team who are daily fractious and tired, who stay behind for long hours after school, or arrive at the crack of dawn, and they admire and have these staff as role models, they will begin to mimic this behaviour, believing that it is normal working practice.?

?We have a generation of students who are inadvertently being taught that working 50 to 60 hours a week, without a break during the day, is the norm. They will develop the habits of workaholics very early in life. Such behaviour will be extremely difficult to change as they progress through their working lives.?

?I believe we have a moral obligation to send these young people the correct messages about work and leisure and make managing work-life balance a core part of school life, if not part of the curriculum.?

The book looks at ways that school leaders can create a culture that encourages a good work-life balance and how they can reduce their own workload.

Some of the more innovative solutions which some schools are trying include arrangements for pick-up services, such as dry cleaning and car maintenance, at the school or college, and well-being activities such as massage and yoga offered on the premises.

In the book, Deborah Duncan says:?For many years, managers and executives in industry have enjoyed free gym membership or dry cleaning services and many have personal assistants to make appointments or buy train tickets for them. If schools and colleges can do the same, they can start to reduce the stress and anxiety caused by having too much to do and not enough time.?

ASCL president Sue Kirkham, also head of Walton High School in Stafford, says:?Work-life balance is becoming a critical issue that must be addressed. We know that the pressure of workload placed on senior leaders is one reason that fewer people are choosing to become deputies and heads. The national workforce agreement helped to improve conditions for teachers, but heads and other school leaders are still working over 60 hours a week.?

?School and college leaders have a duty to protect the work-life balance of staff, but who looks after the leaders? In theory it is governors, but in practice senior leaders are still the ones held accountable when things do not go right.?

?The school workforce agreement has begun to have a positive effect on teachers' workload, but the pace of change in schools during the last two years has given no let-up for heads and other leaders. We need to see the benefits of workforce reform too.?

?We are urging the government, in the forthcoming review of school leadership, to address these issues.?

Deborah Duncan will be speaking in conference session F4: Work-Life Balance: What Next? at the 2006 Public Service People Management Expo.