Flexible Working

At the point that I stepped down from my first headteacher role, I had a three year old son (in addition to two daughters – age five and seven) – and my wife was keen to return to full time work.

It was definitely ‘my turn’ to explore some career flexibilities. As a result, I moved to a 4 day working week model – for about a year – to enable me to support my son in terms of his part-time attendance at nursery. A year later, he went into reception full time – which meant that I was able to go back to full time work – albeit with some flexibility provided by my employer to enable me to play a full role. My wife and I have danced to fairly intricate music for the last 15 years in order to balance childcare and family responsibilities with our careers, and our children seem relatively well adjusted – they have certainly survived the experience and maybe, just maybe, have thrived along the way.

I was an Assistant Principal at Ipswich Academy when my second daughter was born.

Whilst on maternity leave I applied for flexible working and I returned to a four day working week. This enabled me to return to a role that I loved whilst also spending more time with my young family.

When I took on the project manager role for Woodbridge Road Academy I had the flexibility to fit this around my work and home life. For a while it worked perfectly for me to do a couple of hours of work in the middle of the day whilst my daughter napped.

I had flexible working arrangements in place for 2.5 years. I found this invaluable for spending time with both my children including settling my eldest daughter into school. I was also able to use this time and flexibility to support my parents at a time when that was needed.

When Woodbridge Road Academy opened and I started as Principal I returned to full time work as this fitted both personally and professionally. However, I think it is important for both me and my team to attend key events in our children’s lives, for example all of us with young children went to their nativity plays in December.

Whilst I was an Assistant Principal I had various FWA.

When I returned from maternity leave on both occasions I had an agreed start time of 08.30 to allow me to take my children to nursery. When my children started school, I was able to take my children to school and collect them 1 day per week (with a later start to my day and earlier finish time).  I also worked 1 day from home (post covid school closure time to attend Safeguarding meetings). Currently I take my children to school and pick them up 1 day per week. All members of my LT have children and they all are able to either take/collect their children 1 day per week from school/nursery.

The various arrangements I had, enabled me to be involved in my children’s schooling. I have not been able to attend all school events, however, my children and their school know that either parent will be able to attend an event but we do not compromise on parents evening!