Leaders Engagement in Mothers’ Matters

At The MTPT Project, we take our commitment to inclusion seriously.  As Founder, I love reviewing our data annually for our Diversity and Inclusion report, the way that this informs our strategies as a small charity and the impact this then goes on to have.

One of these strategies to come out of our 2023-24 report was to improve engagement tracking at events directed to leaders in our sector.  We are curious to know whether our work is perceived – in broad terms – as workforce and retention or diversity and mothers.

It makes sense that our programmes aimed at staff who are parents attract an overwhelmingly female audience.  Because of our national and sector parenting policies, mothers are still afforded more paid time on birthing maternity leave than fathers and non-birthing partners, and this is when gendered routines around parenting take root and influence the division of domestic and professional labour in the long term – particularly in heterosexual couples.

Our leadership work, however, is aimed at senior leaders and above.  Statistically, these are positions where men are over-represented at both primary and secondary level.  If our work is (correctly) seen as workforce and retention, then up to 60% of our audience at these events should be men.

At this mid-point in the year, then, how far do school leaders still consider the retention, progression and wellbeing of parent-teachers as a ‘mothers matter’?

We’ve tracked data over 15 events – most of which have been optional to attend – aimed at school and systems leaders, and this is what we’ve found:

• On average, just 17% of attendees at these events have been men

• On three occasions, there has not been a single male face in the room

• Three events have hit our starter target of 24% male representation (the proportion of men in the wider teacher workforce, not at leadership level) and these were events billed as retention, flexible working, or an obligatory meeting for local headteachers

We count a number of men within our professional network who show up regularly to champion the work that we do.  They sign off funding, make introductions, speak up on behalf of our community, work on research and data projects, platform our work on social media and speak at our events.

But men are not showing up enough as audience members to learn about the daily, and systems-wide practice that can be implemented to support working mothers for the overall health of our workforce and – ultimately – the schools they are leading.

An acute example of this disconnect: 22% of the speakers at The MTPT Project’s Missing Mothers conference are fathers and leaders from our community, but – two weeks ahead of the event – not one of the 135 ticket holders are men.

When organisations are considered who is “best placed” to attend MTPT events, the data suggests that they are still sending leaders with first-hand experience of motherhood.  Clearly, the view is that these mothers’ matters are best handled between mothers and by mothers.  

Statistically, however, these mothers, sorting things out between themselves, are less likely to be in leadership positions than men.  They are less likely to wield decision-making power and they are less able to role model effective allyship to other men.

If we really want to make a sustainable difference to the teacher retention crisis, our male leaders need to stop seeing mothers as a diversity group, and instead know that mothers are workforce.