Academy trust offers teachers choice: either accept possibility of large class sizes, or lose chance of nine-day working fortnight

News of development at two schools within Dixons Academies Trust, which launched innovative nine-day fortnight 18 months ago, comes after the trust denied that there was a link between the policy and larger classes.

 

Teachers at two schools which are at the centre of a looming industrial dispute over proposed redundancies have this week been given a choice by the academy trust running it: support large class sizes or lose your right to extra non-contact time.

Staff at Dixons Allerton Academy, in Bradford, West Yorkshire, have been asked to support “flexible” class groups, which could be larger than 34 pupils, or lose their access to a nine-day fortnight, the distinctive approach to working conditions for which the Dixons trust has garnered national headlines.

The choice was set out in a message and document sent to teaching staff at the school on Wednesday by its headteacher, Richard Wilson, which gives each person until June 1^st to vote. The message also describes the nine-day fortnight as only a “pilot”.

However, the National Education Union has described the choice as “unfair and underhand,” and that the trust putting it forward was a “hostile move”. It told members they should feel under no obligation to engage with the process.

At a second school, Dixons Fazakerley Academy in Liverpool, teachers have been presented with the same choice.

Dixons did not respond directly when told of the existence of the communications, instead referring Education Uncovered back to a statement sent earlier this week, which had said that “we cannot guarantee increased flexibility for staff without some limited flexibility in how teaching is organised”.