Queensland schools will have the option of implementing four-day weeks for students next year after the state government finalised a policy for administrators to consider “flexible arrangements”.
The education department has written to schools this week to provide guidelines to change class hours from Term 1, 2024.
A small number of schools have been trialling the shorter week this year and the department has been consulting with “all schools in relation to school hours”, Education Minister Grace Grace said last month.
She said on Thursday the guidelines provide schools with the framework to apply for students to be allowed to have different class hours.
“There is now solid and consistent scrutiny that schools have to go through to implement any changes,” Grace told reporters.
“This is an updated policy, that if a school is looking at some flexible arrangements, like they did at Fortitude Valley (State Secondary College) where they started later and finish later, there is now a procedure and a policy they have to go through.
“They will have go through extensive community and school community consultation. There’s greater scrutiny on what is being done.”
It is hoped allowing schools to have flexible class hours can ease stress on teachers by allowing them more time to prepare lessons, as well as support students to undertake vocational education.
Grace stressed the policy update was “not a green light for a four-day week” across the state.
Mark Breckenridge, President at Queensland Secondary Principals’ Association, said schools will need to consult with staff, parents and other stakeholders such as transport and childcare providers.
“This policy is one that provides certainty to schools around the level of consultation that is required before schools think about a flexible arrangement,” he said.
“There is an opportunity to trial that for a period of time and have a look at the outcomes of the trial, if it’s something that the school community is keen to do in a full-time way.”
Breckenridge said “any conversation” by a school about student hours will “focus on improving student outcomes” and making “sure learning continues as it should do”.
More than 170 schools across South Australia will stay closed this morning as teachers take part in a second strike in two months over a pay increase dispute with the state government.
The AEU declined a 5 per cent increase in salaries on Monday as it would see educators “worse off” in the long term, the union said.
In a vote by union members last week, 83 per cent were in favour of industrial action.
“This offer is essentially the same as, if not worse than the last”, AEU South Australian branch president Andrew Gohl said in a statement.
“Since taking industrial action in September, we have been negotiating with the Government and expected today’s offer to reflect those discussions.
“Under these conditions, teachers in some schools still won’t see any real workload relief for seven years, and by that time, half will have already left the profession.”
