Category Archives: Featured Articles

Teaching Unions

As a supply teacher working in England, you do not have to belong to a teaching union or association. However, we highly recommend that you are a member of one. A teaching union or association can be like an invisible safety net. They offer support, information and guidance. They also can provide legal assistance. If you do not have membership, then please look into Professional Indemnity Insurance and make sure you have legal expense cover.

Some teachers unions and teaching associations have variable membership fees depending on how much you are expecting to work as a supply teacher and on part-time contracts. For example, the NUT for one, has one price for supply teachers (paid daily/hourly) and a pricing structure based on you working up to 30% of a week, 30% to 60%, or 60%+. I used to update my details once a term as contracts began and ended to make sure I wasn’t paying too much or too little.

Teaching Unions - Information for Supply Teachers

Please find below links to the main Teaching Unions in the UK:

Where next? There’s a great quick read here on Teaching your own child. Check out our resources area here too.

Sample Cover Letter to Schools

by Sharon Wood

Sample cover letter to schools for supply teachersThis sample cover letter is loosely based on one I wrote in, ooh, many moons ago, and sent off to schools in the hope of winning some supply teaching work. It proved successful, and as you can see here, others have found it has helped too.

 

Letter Template

Dear Mrs Headteacher,

Re: Supply Teaching

May I take this opportunity to indicate my wish to undertake some supply work at Nitsville Junior School. Though I am self-employed, I am able to carry out a small amount of teaching. I have compiled a brief history of my experience, below, for your perusal and have also enclosed my curriculum vitae.

In 1900 I completed a P.G.C.E. (Key Stage II) at Smallville University before working with a full-time, permanent contract at ABC Junior School, County. I taught Year 45 and was given the role of First-Aid box Co-ordinator upon appointment. I left due to ***** in July 1904 despite having been offered the position of Head of Year 45 for the forthcoming September. However, I continued to teach as much as possible whilst in recovery, on a supply basis at ABC, and at St Kayleigh’s CofE Junior School, County, where I had previously completed my first teaching practice obtaining the highest grades awarded by that school in 330 years.

In May 1914 I secured a full-time permanent contract at Thebest Junior School, County where I taught consecutively in Years 3, 4 and 6, and again, was appointed First-Aid box Co-ordinator. I left Thebest in July 1917 to relocate and join my partner in Nicecounty. Both ABC and Thebest were three-form entry schools.

I have since experienced two very different, exciting, yet steep learning curves: the first improving my Design & Technology skills during the complete full-time renovation of a house with my partner; and the second, the daunting task of holding the position of Manager at Fawlty Hotel Ltd, Crumpold, for a year.

I currently have three clients for whom I perform consultancy and accountancy work, research projects, administrations and bookkeeping duties, mainly on an ad hoc basis. This work enables me to employ the skills gained in my first degree at Scrummy University, BA (Hons) The Disney Economics.

I appreciate your consideration and time, and very much hope I am given the opportunity to work with you in due course.

Yours Sincerely,
Nutty

Where next? There’s a great quick read here on sample curriculum vitae.  Check out our resources area here too.

An Introduction to Supply Teacher Agencies

An Introduction to Supply Teacher Agencies

by Sharon Wood

What does a supply teacher agency do?
Supply teaching agencies provide daily, short, medium and long term/permanent staff to schools. They offer schools a flexible workforce. Agencies have in place processes which ensure they are providing schools with good quality teaching staff committed to maintaining and indeed helping to raise standards.

Supply teachers should be provided with a professional, friendly and efficient service from their agency. The agency should offer support and advice in respect to a supply teacher's continuing professional development. An agency will ensure that supply teachers have DBS Certificates and will probably charge them personally for this.

Agencies should as far as possible match the personal strengths and experience of supply teachers with the requirements of their schools. Agencies should monitor placements in order to maintain compatibility and to offer support to both the schools and the supply staff alike.

Should I start doing supply work through a supply teacher agency?
The answer to this question often depends on which area of the country you live in. Some Local Authorities have outsourced their 'supply list' to one or more supply teaching agencies, and have made it a requirement that schools recruit supply staff through these agencies. Many teachers however, have gained work going to schools or Local Authorities directly. See here for more information and advice on taking this route.

Information about Supply Teacher Agencies

Supply teacher recruitment agencies. I'd want mine to come with free chocolate cup cakes each Friday!

Working through an agency provides teachers with a number of benefits. In no particular order:
You are not the main point of contact for schools. This is great for if you, like I, sound grotty at 7am, it is a member of staff at the agency a supply co-ordinator will be speaking to, not you!

More frequent payment of wages. Many agencies pay weekly for the work carried out and direct into your account, as opposed to, for example, my Local Authority who pay a month in arrears. This is often invaluable with regards to the many queries that are made over time sheets, disputes over days worked should not be taking place six weeks after the event!

Support and feedback. As said earlier, agencies monitor placements, making calls to the schools regularly to ask for feedback on the staff they supplied. They will then contact you to provide a morale boost! Many agencies also offer support with aspects of your work such as professional relationship problems and continuing professional development. In the forum, Minnie wrote:

What is good about them?

They find me work.
They are friendly and chatty when I've had a great day.
They are sympathetic and listen when I've had a bad day.
They don't mind if I don't want to go back to a school.
They pass on any compliments/good reports about me they get, sometimes even phoning just to tell me.

The other side of the coin:
Some schools do not use agency staff. Of the schools you would like to work in, which of them use agencies, and can you find out which agencies they prefer to work with?

As agencies are often private limited companies, they have to make their profit from somewhere. It is often through a cut of the teacher's wage. Fair enough, they found you the work, you didn't spend another day watching Richard and Judy repeats, but be careful, rates of pay from agencies vary considerably. Some pay to scale (they charge the school above scale), but then I've heard of teachers on M6 being paid an unqualified rate.

You have to be a pest sometimes! Calling your agency frequently helps to maintain a positive working relationship with them, and helps to make sure you are in the forefront of their mind when your favourite school calls.

Less favourable quotes from the forum (to balance out Minnie's!):

They said they had enough supply to keep me working virtually full-time, and I've had 3 days this term!
They sent me to a school 45 minutes away, and when I got there, I'd been doubly booked!
I worked for £x through my agency, but had a wage from one school of considerably less. The school said that it was agreed with my agency, but it was never agreed with myself!

Click here to find a list of questions to ask any potential agency

Where next? There's a great quick read here on Working with your agency. Check out our resources area here too.