We round up the latest employment news.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-25
On Tuesday 17 December 2024, the UK government introduced the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-25 to parliament. This Bill aims to significantly reform education law in England, focusing on children not in school, school places and admissions, and the employment of children.
The Bill mandates that parents must obtain local authority consent to withdraw a child from school for home education, and local authorities must maintain a register of children who are not in school. Additionally, local authorities can issue School Attendance Orders if a child is not receiving suitable education.
In terms of school places and admissions, the Bill requires schools and local authorities to cooperate on admissions, and local authorities can direct Academy schools to admit children. Local authorities can also invite proposals for new schools without the requirement to establish an academy.
Academy schools will be required to teach the National Curriculum, and Academy trusts can teach children off-site if their behaviour is causing problems.
The Bill also introduces new restrictions on the employment of children below the compulsory school leaving age, including when they are allowed to work, but the overall number of hours they can work won’t change. The Bill also allows the government to introduce Regulations to permit employing children aged 13 and over and requiring child employment permits.
Furthermore, the Bill limits the number of branded uniform items schools can insist pupils wear and requires schools to provide free breakfast clubs for junior pupils.
Sixth form college trials year-long four-day week
Following a successful short trial last year, St Charles Catholic Sixth Form College in West London has embarked on a year-long four-day teaching week. This change aims to enhance work-life balance for teachers and improve educational outcomes for students.
The college has compressed its classes into four days, allowing teachers to dedicate Wednesdays to planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) from home. While teachers focus on PPA, the college's 1,100 students can engage in volunteering, work experience and cultural visits.
Initial feedback from teachers indicates significant benefits. The majority of the 80 teaching staff self-report that this change has increased their productivity and reduced exhaustion. Many appreciate the uninterrupted time for lesson planning, which has improved teaching.
Despite the overall positive response, some teachers have noted challenges, such as the shorter lunch break, condensed schedule, and longer lessons. The college is addressing these concerns and exploring solutions to ensure the initiative's success.
Government retains key vocational courses
The UK government has announced that it will retain 70% of the vocational qualifications that the previous government had said it would defund.
Qualifications in critical sectors such as manufacturing, engineering, agriculture, and health & social care will continue to receive funding. This will give learners access to a broad range of options, supporting their career development and contributing to the economy.
The rollout of T Levels will continue with a new qualification in marketing set to be introduced in 2025. Recent additions include T Levels in animal care & management, craft & design, and media, broadcasting & production.
The government has also announced £140 million in funding for homebuilding skills hubs, with the aim of creating thousands of apprenticeships in construction. This initiative is designed to support the goal of building 1.5 million homes in the next parliament.
Four in ten overqualified for their job
A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) claims that nearly four-in-ten employees in England are overqualified for their jobs, the highest rate among OECD countries. However, this figure may be misleading due to methodological quirks specific to the English data:
- The OECD's findings are based on a survey of adult skills, but qualifications are difficult to standardize internationally. England's reported 37% overqualification rate contrasts with other data showing a modest drop in overqualification rates between 2006 and 2017.
- Changes to the OECD's survey design for England, such as a simplified classification of qualifications, may also have skewed the responses. This issue isn't unique to England, as similar methodological shifts have affected data in other countries.
The problem of overqualification in England is more likely driven by a lack of middle-skill jobs and robust vocational pathways outside universities, rather than an oversupply of graduates. Graduates still face lower risks of overqualification compared to non-graduates.
High levels of student misbehaviour and wellbeing concerns
A recent government survey has highlighted significant challenges faced by teachers and school leaders in managing student behaviour and maintaining their own wellbeing. The Department for Education's school and college voice omnibus surveys, conducted in May, April and March 2024, provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of behaviour in English schools.
Key findings:
- Four-in- ten teachers reported that pupil misbehaviour disrupted all or most of their lessons in the previous week. On average, teachers lost seven minutes per half hour of lesson time because of disruptive behaviour.
- Over three-quarters of teachers (78%) and 58% of leaders indicated that misbehaviour had negatively affected their wellbeing to a significant extent.
- While about half of primary school teachers rated pupil behaviour as good or very good, only 40% of secondary school teachers and 47% of special school teachers shared this view. Leaders generally had a more positive outlook on behaviour compared to teachers.
- More than a quarter (27%) of secondary school leaders said they knew of incidents where students had brought knives into school.
- A majority of teachers said that they felt confident in identifying behaviour linked to mental health issues and knew how to help pupils access support. This confidence has increased compared to previous surveys.
- Following the end of the National Tutoring Programme, 44% of school leaders plan to continue offering tutoring as an academic intervention, with many using pupil premium funds to support this initiative.
These findings underscore the ongoing challenges in managing student behaviour and the critical need for support systems to ensure the wellbeing of both students and educators.
Proposal to sanction parents over their children's behaviour
In a recent report the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change suggested that teachers should have the power to sanction parents who don’t help address their children's disruptive and dangerous behaviour in schools. The think tank says there is an urgent need to tackle the "rising epidemic" which it describes as a "burgeoning crisis of behaviour and safety" in English schools.
Key recommendations:
- Giving teachers the right to compel parents to engage with them when a student's behaviour becomes severely disruptive. If parents fail to cooperate, schools should be able to escalate concerns to other agencies on safeguarding grounds.
- Giving schools a stronger role in driving multi-agency working, with a statutory partner role in safeguarding. This would allow schools to initiate and convene multi-agency meetings to address the root causes of poor behaviour.
- Introducing a "national behaviour challenge" aimed at boosting wellbeing, raising attendance, and halving classroom disruption by the end of the current parliament.
- Improving data-collection to provide an accurate, real-time picture of behaviour and wellbeing in schools. This data would inform a revamped peer-led support system and help schools, more effectively, tackle similar challenges.
- Introducing a national data infrastructure centred on a digital learner ID to collect regular surveys from teachers, learners, and parents to spot performance trends and feed into Ofsted's national report card system.
Work-related stress, depression, and anxiety on the rise in Great Britain
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has released its annual statistics for 2023/24, revealing a concerning increase in work-related stress, depression, and anxiety among workers in Great Britain. The report highlights the significant impact of these mental health issues on the workforce and the economy.
Key findings:
- An estimated 776,000 workers reported suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2023/24, equating to a prevalence rate of 2,290 per 100,000 workers.
- These mental health issues resulted in the loss of 16.4 million working days, with an average of 21.1 days lost per employee.
- The highest rates of work-related stress, depression or anxiety were found in public administration and defence, education, and human health & social work activities.
- Professional and associate professional occupations reported higher than average rates of these mental health issues.
- The primary factors contributing to work-related stress, depression or anxiety were workload pressures, including tight deadlines, excessive responsibilities and a lack of managerial support.
New TUC report highlights black women's experience of racialised sexual harassment at work
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has published a new report detailing the experiences of Black women facing racialised sexual harassment in the workplace. The research, conducted by Queen Mary University of London and the University of Surrey, reveals alarming statistics and personal accounts from surveys and focus groups.
Key findings include:
- 65% of respondents experienced sexual harassment at work
- Over a third faced negative, gender-based attitudes, specifically targeted at women and Black women
- 51% said that their mental health and suffered because of harassment
- 73% had been bullied or harassed
- 53% encountered racist remarks or comments
- 58% did not report harassment, with 38% believing their complaints would not be taken seriously
The TUC recommends that organisations adopt a zero-tolerance approach to racialised sexual harassment, implement ethnicity monitoring systems, and provide training on racialised and sex-based harassment. It also calls for the government to extend legal protections through dual discrimination provisions in the Equality Act 2010 and urges trade unions to create dedicated spaces for Black women to share their experiences.
'Charter for Fair Pay' to address income inequality
The High Pay Centre, in collaboration with academic experts, has published a comprehensive 'Charter for Fair Pay' aimed at reducing income inequality and enhancing the rights of workers in the UK. The charter outlines ten key measures across four areas: employment rights, corporate governance, investment and stewardship, and transparency.
Key recommendations highlight the need to effectively implement the upcoming Employment Rights Bill, introduce elected worker directors on company boards, revise the legal duties of company directors, and expand pay ratio reporting.
These proposals aim to empower workers, encourage dialogue and enhance transparency. The report argues that this will enable employers and employees to negotiate fairer pay outcomes without the need to ask the government to directly intervene.
Read more – January 2025
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