SUPPLY TEACHING


Would you deal with poor behaviour and all the other challenges of being a teacher for less than £50 a day? Norma Hart on life as a supply teacher


qualified teacher and having spent 10 years delivering CPD to teachers, I felt I had more than the necessary qualifications to become a supply teacher. I searched the internet for agencies and found that


W


the “going rate” appeared to be between a minimum of £80 per day and a maximum of £140. Working on the conservative assumption that £80 times say, four days per week, plus the odd privately delivered training event, I could just about manage to survive until I retired without having to sell my home. I put my CV “out there” and was soon contacted by two agencies “desperate for people with my skills...” A great deal of palaver followed including paying for


two CRB checks (£73), travel expenses (£75) to attend interviews, and registration with the General Teaching Council for England (£36.50). By now, however, almost two months had passed and I had not earned a penny. Undaunted, I kept in regular touch with both of


my “recruitment consultants” and I remained cheerful. Finally, after almost three months, I got my first assignment and breathed a sigh of relief. Relief which was short-lived. The first school I was sent to was an hour away. Travel expenses were then 40p per mile (they


Union address: NASUWT Time for another ‘pause’


While the Health Bill is being openly attacked,


the Education Bill is sailing through Parliament vitually unnoticed and unremarked. Chris Keates explains


TURN ON any news channel, open a newspaper and one of the hottest topics for debate is the reform of the NHS. The Lib Dems are in open rebellion. The prime minister has been forced to make a personal, public commitment to protect the NHS from his own government’s policies. So fierce has been the debate, that even BBC news commentators appear to have rediscovered the art of critical analysis. The press, public and politicians are, quite rightly,


united in their deep concern about the implications of the provisions of the Health Bill on the values and ethos of the NHS and its potential to compromise universal access to quality health care according to need. A major concern expressed about the Health


Bill is that it will create a market in the NHS giving access to a range of private providers. However, another Bill, which will have similar consequences for another major public service, is winding its way through the Parliamentary process virtually unnoticed, unremarked and unimpeded. The Education Bill is set to put in place the final


piece of the jigsaw of the marketisation of state education, handing ownership and control of schools to any willing private sector provider. Appropriate safeguards are completely absent, enabling the programme of academisation to sever links with democratically accountable local authorities and sweep aside parents’ rights and entitlements. The secretary of state’s academisation project is being rolled out with the same undue and unnecessary haste which has generated such an outcry over the Health Bill. Without providing a scrap of evidence that


academy conversion raises standards of education, the privatisation process, from which the prime minister has declared he will protect the NHS, is being rail-roaded through the state education system and will have an equally damaging impact on the values and ethos of state education as the NHS reforms will on health provision. The Department for Education’s (DfE) obsessive


pursuit of academy conversion is resulting in public and employment law being flouted as schools, working without challenge from the DfE and in some cases encouraged by it, make covert decisions to apply for an academy order, fail to provide information to parents, local communities and staff, provide misleading and inaccurate information on the amount of money schools will receive, and ignore relevant employment law provisions. As a result, schools are being distracted from


focusing on teaching and learning; relationships between parents, local communities and staff are being fractured; and schools are being threatened, pressurised and financially incentivised into becoming academies. At a time of savage cuts to education budgets


which are causing the closure of vital services and massive job loss, schools are spending thousands of pounds of public money on engaging consultants and seeking legal advice to drive through conversion. The Education Bill provisions will complete


the ideological assault on state education. They undermine the rights and entitlements of parents, remove the duties on schools to co-operate with local authorities, and extend the ability for academy schools to charge for education, thereby compromising the right of children to free state education at the point of access. Concern for our own and our families’ health


understandably provokes an emotional attachment to the NHS and a desire to protect it, but the same principled stand is required on the Education Bill. A delay to the passage of the Education Bill


through Parliament and a temporary halt to the granting of any further academy orders to enable a rigorous examination to be conducted on the potential implications on state education and on the processes being used currently to convert schools into academies, is required urgently. If it is not acceptable to “sell” off the nation’s


health to privateers, why is it acceptable to sell off our children’s education?


• Chris Keates is general secretary of the NASUWT. Visit www.nasuwt.org.uk


HEN THIS coalition government was elected, the organisation I provided training for had its funding withdrawn. My income was decimated. So, having a mortgage to pay and being a


Are you just a sub, miss?


increased in April to 45p). Tolerable, but only just, given the cost of fuel. There is a lunch allowance of £7.50 which I think is pretty generous. However, what I had not understood, because it was never explained by either agency, is that there is a significant financial difference between supply teaching and cover supervision rates. My first assignment was cover supervision. Daily


rate – £50 less tax, less National Insurance and less the £8 charge the intermediary agency makes for managing the pay roll. A small amount is also put aside for holiday pay which is something I suppose. Also, there are no pension rights for supply teachers working through agencies. The following day I was asked to do a four-hour


assignment for £30 at a school also an hour’s drive away and without a lunch allowance. My take home pay that week was £49.56p. I have just received my P60 and earned a grand total of £473.56. I will soon need to put my house on the market. Only twice have I been asked to work as a supply


teacher. On both occasions it was because the schools needed a qualified teacher to stay in the classroom with student teachers who cannot be left unsupervised. “Supply rates” were thus reduced and one agency paid £80 for the day and the other £60 because I “was not actually doing any teaching”. When questioned about this apparent discrepancy both agencies prevaricated and I never have had a proper explanation about pay rates. One agency, on three separate occasions, paid me


for half a day when I actually worked full days and will only reimburse me by adding additional hours to the next three assignments. They currently owe me £50. I would do other work but at nearly 60-years-old


and with no real recent full-time classroom experience, my choices are limited. But what of the work itself? The first school I was sent to did have work which


had been set by the absent teacher. However, and this is often the case, there was not enough of it and so the bag of tricks which most supply teachers have with them was brought to life and I taught. I do this at least twice a day when I’m actually employed “only” to cover. I use the word “taught” relatively loosely as “are


you just a sub, miss?” is subtext for “we can muck about because ‘subs’ aren’t real teachers and can’t do anything about our bad behaviour”. To some extent this is true. We do not have any


immediate authority in the sense of being able to arrange detentions. Teaching and of course learning, can and does suffer. If the “sub” cannot get sufficient control there is always the option of calling for help which I have had to do from time to time. On such occasions one feels completely disempowered and it only serves to reinforce the idea among pupils that “subs can’t do anything”. These kinds of challenges are of course, part and parcel of teaching, and as professionals we just get on with it but to deal with it all for a lot less than £50 per day is soul destroying. These kinds of problems become more manageable


when a school uses the same supply or cover staff on a regular basis. I have worked at one particular school on


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and off for a number of weeks and pupils are beginning to know that although I am “just a sub”, I am a good teacher who will help them and will not put up with too much. And, because I had built up a good relationship with the school who gave my agency very positive feedback about my work, the agency subsequently told me that based on that feedback “they didn’t want to lose me”. So, I decided to ask for more money and/or an


assurance that I could get at least three days work each week. Surprise, surprise, the work has almost dried up. Since the start of the new term I have worked only one day. Quite how and when I am going to get the £50 they owe me is anyone’s guess. I know that the member of school staff who organises cover wants me to work but his hands are tied because he is committed to working through the agency concerned. I am not sure what schools can do in this situation but I do know it causes problems. First, pupils are losing out because good teaching


and learning is often disrupted by poor behaviour. Second, and I have seen this happen on numerous occasions, some cover staff simply make no attempt to control poor behaviour or have pupils work, but just let “the kids get on with it”. “Why,” they reason, “should I bother when I may


never set eyes on these kids again and I’m being paid peanuts for putting up with being ignored, abused, whatever.” I have even, though fortunately rarely, met


permanent members of staff who do not expect supply or cover staff to do anything more than stay in the classroom. Finally, decent teachers will become harder to find and pupils will pay the price of schools having to employ underqualified and disinterested staff. The second agency I signed up with, also “desperate


for people with my skills”, is proving to be useless. I won’t bore readers with the details of how they managed to lose a lot of my paperwork which cost several potential days’ earnings; have asked me for my CV at least three times; and promised numerous times “we are selling you into schools” – they have only ever given me one day’s work. Emails and phone calls are rarely returned and because I live in a very rural area the number of agencies wanting staff here is limited. Finally, what did the NASUWT have to say at its


annual conference this year? One motion called for greater protection for supply teachers, It read: “Conference deplores the passing of the


provision of supply cover to agencies whose rates of pay are below national salary levels and which make no pension provision for supply teachers.” The union has agreed to investigate, campaign


for better treatment for supply teachers, and enter into discussions with government, local authorities and other teacher trade unions to find a better way of providing cover in schools. It may be too late for me as the day draws nearer when I will have to sell my home.


SecEd


• Norma Hart is a qualified teacher who has spent the last year working as a supply teacher. Email her at normahart1@btinternet.com


SecEd • June 16 2011


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