PETITIONRejectedPetition · petition.parliament.uk
Allow part-time teachers to have set working patterns
Change the part-time contracts/flexible working requests for teachers to allow for set day working requests. For example, 3 days as opposed to the current 0.6 offering.
Last fetched 03 May 2026 · petition.parliament.uk
Signatures
21
signatures
Government response threshold (10,000) · 21/10,000
Debate threshold (100,000) · 21/100,000
Background
Part-time contracts in teaching disproportionately affect women, specifically working mothers returning from maternity leave. Current part-time requests are for a reduction in hours as opposed to days. This means that teaching staff are being expected to work reduced hours but stretched over the full week, incurring extra costs for childcare and time travelling, without the pay. Allowing teachers to put in flexible working requests for a specific amount of days would improve retention.