FGCS Staff Benefits

We do a lot to help our staff at Community Schools Trust. Listed below is an extensive list of benefits common to all of our schools. In addition to this, we allow our individual headteachers to:

  • Give teachers Friday afternoon off by removing 35 hours contact time
  • Implement an extra week off at Christmas by restructuring school day
  • Remove performance management and implement automatic pay progression for all
  • staff other than headteachers and the educational central team
  • Remove retrospective marking and replace with live marking

We also offer a number of benefits and initiatives which we hope distinguish us from other schools in supporting our staff in the workplace. To this end, we have:

  • Free gym membership at onsite gyms where available
  • If needed, advice and support from the HR team
  • Teachers’ pension contribution
  • Attendance prizes
  • Star of the half-term prizes
  • Employee counselling service (EAP)
  • Regular thank you cards for staff that go above and beyond
  • Half-termly staff breakfasts
  • Lunch offered every day to staff who complete only one duty. Staff are able to join the front of the queue
  • Half-termly social events
  • End of term social events
  • Breaktime cakes in the staff room occasionally
  • Cycle to work scheme
  • High quality training and excellent career progression opportunities within the Trust
  • Access to the fully funded suite of NPQs
  • Comment marking using T codes
  • Extra time off for main-scale teachers when middle leaders meet
  • No written school reports
  • Homework on DPR to streamline marking
  • Memory based HW that replaces starter tasks, which eases marking
  • Streamlined schemes of work (LTPs)
  • No expectation for individual lesson plans
  • No formal lesson observations
  • Training on time-management
  • Three extra half days holiday (end of term) disaggregated into twilight time
  • Google, to allow greater collaboration
  • High staffing ratios meaning that many classes are shared with a low pupil/teacher ratio
  • All meetings and after school events including parents’ evening on a Tuesday evening where possible to allow staff to plan their time and childcare
  • Built in flexibility into the interim assessment by giving a long window and the ability to complete it from anywhere - only three times per year
  • Restricted the number of duties that staff do to two out of a possible five break duties
  • Removed the need for all staff to be expected at school events such as open evening
  • Produced rotas in advance for detentions, duties and other school systems to allow staff to plan their time
  • Produced a comprehensive calendar at the beginning of the school year with key tasks to allow staff to plan in advance
  • Kept only one briefing per week. (Some schools have them everyday!)
  • Implemented a system for staff to be able to request admin support with tasks
  • Implemented a simple system for photocopying and displays to be completed by reprographics
  • Put in place email protocol to avoid unnecessary emails
  • Given at least one hour per week DPR time
  • Given 50 minutes per week for after school or extra curricular clubs in the time allowance
  • Used google for forms, surveys and workflows
  • Removed Year 11 References that form tutors need to fill in
  • Created a memory booklet to allow staff to set simple homework
  • Centralised detentions so that staff no longer have to do individual detentions