Deputy head Vickie Johnson asked for a switch to part-time employment to balance work with parenthood but hit a brick wall that is causing problems in many schools

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Vickie Johnson was a deputy headteacher at a small primary school in Greater Manchester working exhausting 60-hour weeks when she became pregnant with her son. “I had been leaving the house so early and getting back late, as well as working weekends and evenings at home,” she says. “I realised I wouldn’t ever see my baby and that wasn’t OK.”

Negotiating her return to school after maternity leave when her son was four months old, Johnson tried asking for a switch to two-and-a-half days a week. Instead, she hit the brick wall that is still standard in many schools. “I was offered the option to come back full-time, which would have meant doing the same long hours I was before – or nothing.” With great regret, she felt she had to choose the latter, leaving what she describes as “an amazing 15-year teaching career” and a job she loved and was good at.