A petition to cut a day of classes raised important issues, from pupil mental health to teacher workloads.
THIS WEEK MPs headed back to school in Westminster – all of us hoping we’d make the grade with constituents in 2026. My first assignment, as a member of the Petitions Committee, was to introduce a debate in Westminster Hall on a public petition to cut the length of the school week from five days to four.
Before I was elected to Parliament, I was a secondary-school teacher for almost a decade. Cutting the school week wouldn’t work – but this petition raised important issues, and I wanted them to get a fair hearing. After all, more than 126,000 people had signed it.
So, I did my homework. When introducing debates on public petitions, my first priority is to speak with the petitioner and hear the thinking behind their proposal. In this case he was a school pupil.
The more cynical among us adults might assume that this petition was motivated by a simple desire to avoid lessons. But young people deserve much more credit.
The petitioner’s main motivation was his mum – who is herself a teacher. He saw how busy her job made her and how that impacted the time they spent together as a family. And he had learned in school that around a third of teachers leave the profession within the first five years of qualifying.
He thought a four-day school week would give teachers an incentive to stay in the sector, by lightening their workload. To make up for the classes lost, he proposed adding an extra hour to the four remaining school days. He hoped that young people could use the day they weren’t in class to spend time with family, on their hobbies, or volunteering in their communities.
Teacher retention is a serious issue. I should know – I used to be a teacher. For far too many, crushing workloads lead to long hours and burnout. We want to do the best for our pupils – but it’s hard to keep it up. The situation in Britain is particularly bad: we have one of the youngest teaching workforces in the OECD, a group of rich countries, in large part because so many of us are leaving the sector.
This petition started with a young person – so I wanted to hear what others made of the idea. In December I met with secondary-school pupils who were visiting Parliament, to hear their views.
The vast majority – 88% of those surveyed – liked the sound of a four-day school week. As with the petitioner, their reasons were telling. Many said they wanted more time with their families, or for sports, music and creativity. Some thought the change would reduce school absences, which have been rising since the Covid-19 pandemic. And they spoke about the mental-health benefits of shortening the school week.
That is an issue we should take seriously. Cutting the school week may not be the answer – schools are often a place where young people’s mental-health problems are spotted, and where children can find trusted teachers who will listen to their concerns. But the mental-health crisis among our young people is stark. The latest NHS survey found that one in five children aged 8 to 16 has a probable mental health condition. Since the pandemic, isolation, climate anxiety, and economic uncertainty have left young people struggling.
But though many of the pupils I spoke with initially supported the petition, they quickly raised concerns, too. Some worried that longer school days would make it harder for them to concentrate – and older pupils were particularly concerned about how that would impact their exams.
Teachers share these doubts. The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) warns that longer days would exhaust pupils, especially younger ones who need frequent breaks. Those with additional support needs would also suffer. And the NAHT worries that later finishes would mean fewer clubs on offer after class – cutting down options for the sports and hobbies pupils said they wanted more time for.
The impact on working families would be obvious and striking. Parents would suddenly face a huge additional childcare burden – at significant expense. That alone is a huge argument against radical change to the school week.
This petition’s proposal would create more problems than it solves. It’s perhaps little surprise that the Government and all major opposition parties opposed it. But on pupil mental health and teacher retention we cannot and should not dismiss the underlying concerns.
A four-day school week wouldn’t work – but the debate matters
