UK education secretary asks pay review body how teachers could work their hours over fewer days

As of 4:10 p.m. ET, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026

England's education secretary, Lucy Powell, has asked the School Teachers' Review Body to recommend how rules requiring full-time teachers to be available for work on 195 days a year could be changed, so that schools can let teachers complete their directed hours over up to 195 days, Tes reported.

The Department for Education published Powell's letter to the review body's chair, Dr. Mike Aldred, on Oct. 22 as its remit letter on teachers' working conditions for 2027 to 2028, according to the government's publication page.

What the letter asks

The change would not raise the existing limit of 1,265 directed hours a year or allow schools to require teachers to work more than 195 days, Powell wrote, according to Tes. It also would not affect the time pupils spend in school, Tes reported.

Powell said the current framework is ambiguous about schools' ability to offer flexible working, and that the change would let schools respond to changing workforce needs, Tes reported. The review body has been asked for recommendations by April 2027, with changes taking effect in September 2027, according to Tes.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders' union, criticized the remit. "The focus appears to be on a handful of marginal changes which do little to address the fundamental challenges facing education employers," he said, according to Tes.

Farage's reaction

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage criticized the idea in a video posted to Reform's X account, according to a transcript published by The New World. "How can you ask kids to turn up on time, smartly dressed, work hard, not use their mobile phones, get on with their schoolwork, if their teachers are only gonna be there four days a week?" he said.

"It provides lack of continuity, lack of example, lack of leadership – it is a truly dreadful idea," Farage said, according to the transcript.