INSIGHT Not all recruiters are


certified equal In her latest column for Education Today NAOMI HOWELLS, Managing Director at recruitment specialists Class People, warns of the dangers of using non-certified recruitment companies.


In an age of largely unprecedented recruitment and staffing challenges for schools, the educator recruitment sector is also experiencing a shift. Recruiters and recruitment firms are capitalising


on the current marketplace challenges to launch new divisions or freelance agencies to service the ever-increasing demand from schools. Schools, faced with an urgent need for supply candidates, are opting to augment their longstanding supplier contracts, to ensure a steady supply of candidates. The problem is, not all agencies or freelancers are certified equal, and while appealing, the non-certified approach is leaving schools vulnerable.


Our sector is self-regulated, i.e. not subject to mandatory regulation, which means that any recruiter can become operational in the sector with few barriers to entry. Put simply, they don’t have to be certified or compliant to work in education; a concern when the education sector itself is subject to so many safeguarding regulations. In the last six months we, as a recruitment business, have supported an unprecedented number of new school clients with corrective action and alternative candidates, after an increase in frequency in safeguarding issues. It has been our job to replace candidates supplied by generalist recruiters, with credible, compliant candidates from our own dedicated pool. In fact, in our entire operating history, we have never seen such a frequency of avoidable safeguarding issues in schools: challenges that are easily overcome through good due diligence and compliance. The question is, why the shift?


The post-pandemic employment market for teachers has been, and continues to be, a turbulent one. Mass exodus of teachers; a preference for less pressurised roles; and a fall in the number of teaching students; are all having an impact on the labour market. It is hard. It is hard to find good candidates, and it is equally challenging to find supplementary staff that meet the necessary levels of compliance. Ultimately, it is schools and pupils that are paying the price, taking the risk of an untested and unverified supply candidate.


The better approach is to utilise compliant candidates from a certified recruiter. There are two routes for schools to take to minimise risk, and ensure proper recourse if needed. For Trusts, the “Master Vendor” approach assures a roster of pre-certified recruiters to approach for candidates, while for other schools, use of an agency certified by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) offers the same assurance. As well as providing surety on the quality of candidates and the pathway for recourse, the CCS framework also provides schools with better cost control and lower overheads. Agencies certified through the CCS have to set out their costs up-front for the framework, and must commit to and demonstrate rigorous checks on their agency workers. They must also clearly demonstrate their ability to deliver the required services. The CCS agency selection tool is freely available to schools through the Department of Education portal. While the CCS Framework only applies to temporary, agency, or supply teachers, it follows that the approximately 120 agencies certified on the framework are committed to core compliance and checks, and that these standards will extend to full-time candidate placement too.


May 2024


Grasp the opportunity to change professional learning


As we head towards the end of the academic year teachers and leaders should make the case for breaking with tradition in professional learning, says BlueSky Education’s CEO DENISE INWOOD.


“The mood of change is in the air. Seizing this opportunity – well, that takes boldness and bravery.”


Outgoing ASCL general secretary Geoff Barton’s closing words at the association’s annual conference struck a chord with me. There is certainly a yearning for change; a desire for better times after years of upheaval and strife.


I think change can and will come, but it needs to stem from us all individually as well as from policy makers.


And professional learning is one area which I believe is ripe for further change.


With the end of another tough academic year coming into view many schools and trusts will be holding final performance management meetings, reviewing the progress of staff against objectives and working with them to plan professional learning for the new academic year.


As I said in my last column, the case is now building for a new way of doing things that will lead to the traditional rigid performance review calendar being replaced with an altogether more manageable – and relevant – approach: ongoing dialogue.


That means wholesale changes for professional learning too. There are great examples of that already happening across many trusts and


schools.


Advance Learning Partnership in County Durham is a great example. At ALP, learning is taking on a dynamic new character that is very much focused on meeting development needs rather than ticking off numerical targets – and draws a fair bit of inspiration from Google.


As Director of Learning Quality Catherine Taylor says: “We’re very much focused on development. We do development drop-ins rather than lesson observations. It’s about capturing that regular classroom practice in a way that’s supportive and promotes development.


“When there’s a development drop-in, there’s a professional coaching conversation that follows that, with a focus on something that could be implemented to improve practice, and then that teacher has something tangible to work on.”


She adds: “Our online platform supports professional conversations and fosters a collaborative approach to improvement. We believe that continuous development is achieved through a programme of bespoke professional development opportunities. We have consistency in our priorities and this helps us to have a sharp focus on key priorities across all of our schools. “CPD is really at the heart of everything we do. It’s that ethos of continuous development and improvement and ensuring that every member of staff has a core entitlement, but also opportunities to really engage with things that they’re interested in.”


As part of their approach to professional development ALP is trialling ‘Genius Time’. It’s a concept that originated with Google which gave employees time to spend on projects and topics that really interest them. Some of the best ideas used across the company came from giving staff time to actually focus on things that mattered to them.


Genius Time involves giving each colleague a five- or six-hours’ time off a year to focus on something that they are really interested in. This could involve research and building a case study of innovative teaching practice so that it can be shared across the school, or it may be a highly academic piece of research about an aspect of education practice that fascinates them and which could then be adapted for use in the classroom.


ALP believes there are no limits to learning for its students and they want to instil the same philosophy in their staff. “We want to really infuse and engage and motivate our teachers because that’s how we’ll get the best teaching and learning in our classrooms,” says Catherine. “I think it is important to give colleagues free range on their enthusiasms because they’ll come across innovative ideas that ordinarily might not have been acquired if we’d been more prescriptive.”


That’s one example of moving towards a much more dynamic form of professional learning and development. There are plenty more out there. The key, as I said, is to capitalise on the mood for change and grasp the opportunity.


www.education-today.co.uk 15


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