This Saturday’s annual NUT Supply Teacher Conference will hear that employment prospects for supply teachers are getting tougher, as schools increasingly use unqualified staff in place of qualified supply teachers to cover teacher absence.



The NUT’s 2017 supply teacher survey, which received a record 1,300 responses, shows that 41% of agency supply teachers say that getting work is becoming increasingly hard – up from 35% last year. Less than one third of agency teachers (32%) say they can get work almost every day – down from just over half last year – while 39% can only get work about half the time, and more than one in ten are being offered no work for weeks at a time. (1)

More and more secondary schools are now using unqualified staff to supervise classes when teachers are absent, instead of employing professional supply teachers who are trained, qualified and experienced to teach the particular subject to secondary school students. This affects students’ education as well as denying work to supply teachers. Freedom of Information requests submitted to secondary schools in Sefton show that, in the week of 5 March 2017, 640 lessons (3.5% of all lessons) in the borough’s 17 secondary schools were supervised by unqualified staff rather than being taught by a qualified teacher. Just one of Sefton’s secondary schools had no lessons supervised by unqualified staff in the given week. (2)

Today’s conference will discuss the NUT’s ongoing campaign to secure better pay and pension rights for supply teachers, through a new employment model which removes the role of supply teacher agencies and the consequent cost to schools. The 2017 NUT survey shows that the majority of supply teachers continue to be paid less than £125 per day, giving them less than £25,000 a year before tax and other deductions even if they were able to get work every day.

Kevin Courtney, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union, said:

"The Government needs to take urgent action on supply teaching. Agencies have been ripping off schools for years and have no place in the education system. They pay supply teachers appallingly badly, but their charges are increasingly driving schools to turn to unqualified staff instead, harming students' education."



(1) The findings of the NUT’s 2017 supply teacher survey are attached.

(2) FOI request, as sent to 17 secondary schools in Sefton:

For the week beginning 20 March 2017 the total number of lessons taught in the school for those five school days.

The total number of lessons where a qualified teacher was not present and unqualified staff were there during the lesson i.e., cover supervisors, teaching assistants. Please note this should NOT include any lessons taken by students on a teacher training course.

Given that 83% of secondary teachers are Leftards, rotting the impressionable young minds in their care, perhaps it is a good thing that people with skills from industry and commerce are helping out with maths and other proper subjects? It's just about passing on knowledge and skills, after all, not rocket science. A PGCE has never been worth the paper it is printed on.

Originally Posted by dav

perhaps it is a good thing that people with skills from industry and commerce are helping out.

So is that where these unqualified teachers are from then?

Originally Posted by dav

Given that 83% of secondary teachers are Leftards, rotting the impressionable young minds in their care, perhaps it is a good thing that people with skills from industry and commerce are helping out with maths and other proper subjects? It's just about passing on knowledge and skills, after all, not rocket science. A PGCE has never been worth the paper it is printed on.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, what a k**b

Considering in many schools you get PE teachers teaching science and Geography teachers teaching maths etc due to staff shortages - i don't see what difference it makes if a temp is unqualified - especially if a lesson plan is pre-supplied !!

Most supply teachers in my experience are on a good thing. The pay is ample as there is no planning etc. Many come in last minute and rely on the knowledge of Teaching Assistants anyway. If cover work is left it is not difficult for a Teaching Assistant to explain to pupils what is to be done, especially at Primary level. Obviously it is different if the cover is for a long period.

So now only RIGHT WING teachers are capable are they? That'll be good for the young minds having a knuckle dragging half wit teaching them.

Originally Posted by dav

Given that 83% of secondary teachers are Leftards, rotting the impressionable young minds in their care, perhaps it is a good thing that people with skills from industry and commerce are helping out with maths and other proper subjects? It's just about passing on knowledge and skills, after all, not rocket science. A PGCE has never been worth the paper it is printed on.

Your information source please, or is it just your fevered imagination, to be fair I have found teachers to be more establishment/centre right than noticeably left wing, the growth in militancy has been created by government, a very human reaction if you keep getting kicked sooner or later you kick back.

Originally Posted by silver fox

Your information source please, or is it just your fevered imagination, to be fair I have found teachers to be more establishment/centre right than noticeably left wing, the growth in militancy has been created by government, a very human reaction if you keep getting kicked sooner or later you kick back.

A survey of teachers done by their house journal, the TES, in June. Reported here:

http://www.westmonster.com/education...wing-teachers/

Originally Posted by dav

A survey of teachers done by their house journal, the TES, in June. Reported here:

http://www.westmonster.com/education...wing-teachers/

It's not particularly surprising given the demographics of teachers. It is also completely irrelevant for most of the contact time with pupils which is structured and driven by the curriculum, even in those subjects where politics matters such a history, geography and economics. Do you think that the French teachers have their pupils translating Marx ?

Originally Posted by Albion102

Do you think that the French teachers have their pupils translating Marx ?

They probably have them constructing paens to Macron rather than Marine Le Pen.