Victorian public school teachers want a 4-day week trial. What could this mean for schools?

When we think about jobs you can do from home, you may not immediately picture a school teacher. But as Victoria debates a new right to work from home, the state’s teachers are asking what this might mean for them.

The Victorian teachers’ union wants the state government to trial a four-day work week for teachers and work-from-home provisions. Last week, Australian Education Union Victoria branch president Justin Mullaly told 9 News:

[a trial] would provide some real flexibility for staff in our public schools so that they might attend on site for less and be able to have access to some work from home.

So how would this work?

What’s the current situation?

Teachers obviously need to spend a lot of time face-to-face with students. Currently, Victorian teachers spend about 55% of their 38-hour working week on face-to-face teaching activities, with slight variations across different school contexts.

However, their job also involves a significant amount of work away from the classroom. This is called “non-contact time” when teachers do administration tasks. This could include planning lessons, assessing student work, communicating with parents/carers, and meeting with colleagues. Many of these tasks could be done from home.

Victorian government school teachers are generally required to be at school for the whole 38-hour work week, even during non-contact time.

In high schools, non-contact time is allocated through timetabling. For example, a teacher may have third period on Tuesdays off for administration work. In primary schools, non-contact time typically occurs when their students attend specialist classes such as physical education, art and music with other teachers. These could be combined into a whole day, to give teachers an entire day away from the classroom.

In both primary and high schools, non-contact time can be scheduled, so different teachers are off at different times during the week.

What does a 4-day week look like?

A four-day week for teachers could involve timetabling non-contact time, so that on one day of the week teachers are not required to be on-site at the school.

The current suggestion is for a trial, so there might be several ways this could be tested. It might be that on the fifth day, teachers work from home for all or part of the usual working hours. Or it could be that they work extended hours on other days and then have all or part of the fifth day off.

This is not unprecedented. In the United States, a reported 2,100 schools across 26 states were running some form of a four-day program in 2025. There are already schools running four-day programs here in Australia, including a NSW private school where some students do four days of face-to-face learning, and one day remotely.

What could this mean for teachers?

Research shows teachers face increasing workloads and stress. We know there are significant challenges in attracting and retaining teachers.

But research suggests access to flexible work options can help retention and recruitment and improve staff wellbeing.

There has been little research into the impacts of a four-day week on teachers. But one US district claimed a strong improvement in attracting teachers with applications for positions increasing by 360% after the introduction of a four-day teaching week.

What might be the impact on students?

Research on four-day weeks is largely based on US studies, where students usually attend the school for four days. However, some studies suggest student achievement (or academic results) remains stable when overall teaching time is maintained, which appears to be what is proposed for Victoria.

If teachers were working from home, students would still attend school for five days and teachers would still engage with families in similar ways.

In 2024, we surveyed more than 8,000 members of the Victorian teachers’ union. We found 65% believed a four-day working week would support them to better deliver high-quality education.

But in our survey comments, some teachers expressed caution around how a four-day week would be implemented. Their concerns included logistical issues (including timetabling), and the potential of further pressure on students and staff, if current curriculum requirements were compressed into four days. This shows why a trial of flexible arrangements is needed.

As all workplaces modernise, more flexibility could work for teachers – and symbolise greater trust in the profession. But we need more work and research to inform how it can work best in Australian schools.