Inside the 'pleasant' Grantham school offering its teachers fortnightly days off
Will Everett spoke to ITV News Central Education Correspondent about the new changes at West Grantham Secondary Academy.
Words by a teacher at West Grantham Secondary Academy
I’ve worked at WGSA since 2020, for the first 3 years I commuted from Leeds to Grantham and eventually moved closer to school. The school have always been very supportive and take time to listen to staff views on wellbeing.
Last academic year the school gave me a 1pm finish on a Friday so I could collect my children from school every week and avoid the Friday A1 traffic.
The school runs an electric car scheme to help employees with travel which was very useful to me when traveling 800 miles a week.
Staff work load is thought about by management and marking policies reflect that, which gives the staff more time to prepare for teaching than endless marking.
This year I’ve trialled the flexi-day scheme, this runs over a 2 week cycle and enables me to have a Friday off every other week.
It's been really good, it’s giving me a chance to catch up on things I usually wouldn’t be able to do throughout the week, like going out on my bike, picking up my kids from school.
It’s brilliant to look forward to a three day weekend every 2 weeks. It allows me to catch up on work if needed or just enjoy a day doing what I like.
I’ve worked in a number of schools and this by far the most pleasant one to work in.
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