Plans for flexible four-day week in class for Scottish teachers

Teachers could work a "flexible" four-day teaching week under new proposals announced by the Scottish government.

Plans also include reduced classroom contact time with pupils and agreed national minimum standards for pupil learning hours.

It would leave a fifth day for "professional learning" activities outside of the classroom, including lesson preparation, marking and training.

Scotland's education secretary Jenny Gilruth said it demonstrated a "clear commitment" to teachers. But the EIS union said was "not aware" of how a four-day week would work.

The EIS and NASUWT unions are currently balloting members on strike action over a failure to reduce class contact time - periods when teachers are directly teaching pupils.

At the last Holyrood election, the SNP promised to cut contact time by 90 minutes a week to allow more time for other activities.

The new proposals could enable later start times, extended breaks, or restructured school days.

The teaching unions emphasised that any allocated time outside of the classroom should be used as teachers see fit.

This is not a proposal to put teachers onto a four-day working week. The discussion is about exactly how a teacher's five day week might be structured.

Any changes would come after negotiations involving the unions and councils. But there are clearly important practical issues which need to be looked at, not least in primary schools.

Having a different teacher one day a week is different to having a different teacher for an hour, perhaps for PE or another specific subject. But there is real frustration among some teachers over their workloads.

The unions want reduced contact time to help cut the amount of work teachers say they have to do in their own time in the evenings and at weekends.

Strike ballots over this issue continue.

Even if the proposals do not become the definitive long-term solution, will they be enough to avert the risk of a strike in the months before the Scottish election?