Length of the School Week

Beccy Cooper Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Beccy Cooper (Worthing West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I have to declare an interest: my children asked me to do so. I think one of them actually signed the petition; I am not sure what the age limit is, but he is certainly very interested in the debate.

I will leave the education questions to my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), who has just spoken so eloquently, and to other people who know so much about education. My background is in health, so I come at the debate from that point of view, and I absolutely hear and reiterate the points about mental health conditions for young people, particularly post pandemic. That is a serious issue, and I know that the schools in my constituency have serious concerns about absenteeism and providing the best support that they can for pupils.

In terms of health issues, I want to draw some parallels with research that has been done on a four-day working week. My hon. Friend mentioned that if we did go to a four-day school week, that would obviously have implications for parents, who would need to be able to ensure that their children were safe and cared for on the fifth day. Some good research has been done on four-day working weeks, and it showed—this is within my remit—that in companies that offered one, there was a significant improvement in mental and physical health for workers. The before-and-after data shows that 39% of employees were less stressed and 71% had reduced levels of burnout at the end of the trial, which is very significant and a serious consideration given what we have heard about the enormous number of teachers who are leaving with burnout.

Of the 61 companies participating in the research, 56—that is 92%—are continuing with the four-day week, with 18 confirming that the policy is a permanent change. I wonder whether this debate, specific as it is to a four-day week for schools, is part of a wider consideration, and perhaps a wider cultural change, as to how we reorientate the work-life balance, which I think most of us would say is not optimal for a good number of people in this country and perhaps globally.

I would like the Minister to consider a couple of things and I am sure he will. The petition says that the teaching time per week would stay the same. I know that there has already been a conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield about the curriculum’s shape and size and the exam stresses that our children face. Again, I will leave that to people who know much more about education, but does this need to be the case? If the teaching time remained the same on the four days and, as has been said, the fifth day was for teachers to plan, would we be able to right-size and right-shape the curriculum to allow our children to be ready, post 18, to do whatever they wanted to in this world? I do not know the answer, and I would be interested to hear others’ thoughts.

This question has also been talked about: if we did move to a four-day week, should that be for all ages? I am a mum of two children who are now in high school, having been through pre-school and primary school. Pre-school—nursery—was mornings. There was no way my two little boys would have been able to cope for longer than that in pre-school. Similarly, having watched them coming out of primary school, I think a longer day there would have been a lot to deal with. But as they get older, I take the point about starting later—getting my 14-year-old out of bed is increasingly difficult. Is a longer day more viable for older children than for younger children? Should this be looked at more flexibly? I understand that in some schools around the country it is already happening—not just a four-day working week, but perhaps four and a half days or a nine-day fortnight. I understand that the Government have good reasons for not planning to introduce such a policy right now, but I do think this is part of a broader conversation. I welcome young people coming into the conversation and I look forward to the conversation continuing.