ERA 2025 in Education: What Schools Should Be Thinking About Now

Invicta Law have explored some of the key reforms introduced by the Employment Rights Act 2025 throughout this series. Drawing on her experience advising schools and MATs, Atlanta Burgon highlights the areas likely to have the greatest practical impact on employers in the education sector.

Probation: making decisions sooner

Concerns about suitability for a role often emerge during the early stages of employment. In a school environment, these concerns may relate to classroom management, professional standards, safeguarding responsibilities, working relationships or a more general assessment of whether the individual is the right fit for the role.

Changes to unfair dismissal rights mean schools may have less time to assess performance and address concerns before greater employment protections apply. This places increased importance on effective probation management and communication with employees who are not performing as expected in the early stages.

Schools will need to identify concerns early, communicate them clearly and ensure appropriate support is in place during probation.

Where concerns remain unresolved, records showing what issues were identified, how they were communicated and what support was offered are likely to become increasingly important. For more information on this topic, you can refer to our earlier article on unfair dismissal.

Family-friendly rights and workforce planning

Schools are significant employers of working parents and carers. Changes introduced by ERA 2025 are expected to increase the importance of family-friendly rights from the beginning of employment, including greater protections for employees during pregnancy, maternity leave and other periods of family-related absence.

For schools, this might create additional challenges when planning staffing arrangements across the academic year. Long-term cover, timetable changes and recruitment decisions often need to be made well in advance, particularly where specialist teaching roles are involved.

Schools should review how requests for family-related leave are managed, whether managers understand the protections available to employees and whether decisions affecting employees who are pregnant or taking family leave are appropriately documented.

Managing difficult situations involving parents and visitors

Schools do not just manage relationships between employees. Staff interact with other members of the school community every day, including parents, carers and visitors, and concerns can sometimes arise from those interactions rather than from within the workforce itself.

Repeated hostile emails, aggressive behaviour at meetings, complaints that become increasingly personal, or conduct that leaves staff feeling intimidated can have a significant impact on employees. Schools are often required to make decisions about when intervention is necessary and what action is appropriate.

Changes introduced by ERA 2025 place greater emphasis on employers taking active steps to prevent harassment. Schools may therefore wish to consider how concerns raised by staff are reported, escalated and addressed, particularly where behaviour from parents, carers or visitors is having an impact on employees.

Flexible staffing arrangements

Schools often rely on flexible staffing arrangements to meet operational needs. Exam invigilators, lunchtime supervisors, wraparound staff and other support roles can provide valuable flexibility for both schools and workers.

Someone who originally worked on an occasional basis may now work a regular pattern. Availability may be assumed rather than expressly agreed. Expectations may be understood by everyone involved but not reflected clearly in the paperwork.

Problems often arise only when circumstances change and the school and employee have different expectations about availability, hours or the nature of the arrangement.

The practical question for schools is whether employment documentation reflects what is actually happening. Reviewing flexible staffing arrangements now may help identify areas where contractual documentation and working practices have drifted apart over time.

School support staff: a new national framework

While much of the focus surrounding the ERA 2025 has centred on individual employment rights, schools and MATs should also be aware of the wider workforce implications arising from section 38 and Schedule 4 of the Act.

Schedule 4 establishes the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB), a new statutory body with responsibility for negotiating matters relating to remuneration, terms and conditions of employment, training and career progression of school support staff in England.

Importantly, the framework applies not only to maintained schools but also extends to academy staff who fall within the statutory definition of school support staff.

School support staff represent a substantial proportion of the workforce across schools and MATs, encompassing roles such as teaching assistants, administrators, pastoral staff, technicians, catering staff, caretakers and other operational support functions. The reintroduction of a national negotiating framework signals a significant shift in how pay and employment conditions may be determined in the future.

Although many of the practical details will be developed through secondary legislation and the work of the SSSNB itself, schools should begin considering the implications now. MATs in particular may need to assess how future nationally negotiated terms could interact with existing local arrangements, harmonisation projects and workforce strategies.

The immediate impact may be limited, but the longer-term implications for workforce planning, budgeting and employee relations could be significant.

Training managers and governors

Many employment decisions within schools involve individuals whose primary expertise lies in education rather than employment law. Headteachers, senior leaders, governors and trustees are frequently required to make decisions that have significant employment implications while balancing educational, safeguarding and operational considerations.

As ERA 2025 increases the potential scrutiny of employment decisions, training may become increasingly important. Schools may benefit from ensuring that managers understand not only the relevant policies but also the practical importance of documenting concerns, following procedures consistently and recognising when specialist advice may be required.

Employee wellbeing and workplace culture

Although much of the discussion around the ERA 2025 focuses on legal compliance, schools should not overlook the broader cultural implications of the reforms. Employment disputes often arise not from a single decision but from a breakdown in communication, expectations or trust over time.

Creating an environment where staff feel able to raise concerns early, seek support and access clear reporting mechanisms can help reduce the likelihood of issues escalating. In education, workload pressures, safeguarding responsibilities and interactions with parents and pupils can place significant demands on staff.

Schools that focus on both compliance and workplace culture may be better placed to manage employment risks while supporting staff wellbeing, recruitment and retention.

Looking ahead

ERA 2025 does not fundamentally change the challenges schools face as employers. Schools will still need to manage performance concerns, staff absence, competing operational pressures and difficult situations involving members of the wider school community.

What is changing is the legal framework within which those issues are addressed.

Schools and MATs should use the coming months to review their existing practices, ensure managers understand their responsibilities and keep a close eye on developments relating to the School Support Staff Negotiating Body. Those organisations that already prioritise clear communication, early intervention and good people management are likely to be best placed to adapt to the changes ahead.

Taking that opportunity now will help schools respond more confidently to future changes and reduce the risk of problems arising in the future. 

The next article in this series will look at new rights for zero or low-hours staff and how these will affect contracts, rotas and operational planning. 

Atlanta Burgon is a Solicitor in Invicta Law's Employment, Pensions and Education team.

This article does not constitute legal advice and is provided for general information purposes only. For advice on the Employment Rights Act 2025 and its implications for schools and multi-academy trusts, please contact our This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..