The new, extended edition of my Emergency Lesson Plans book will not make you a better supply teacher. It will not make the children you meet on supply treat you with more respect than they would have done otherwise. However, it will give you a certain amount of confidence on walking into the classroom, which should lead to the above happening!

This book contains one-off lesson plans to see you through the whole of Key Stage 2. Apart from MFL (far too daunting a task!) These one-liner lesson plans require no resources other than pencils and paper. No need to photocopy the worksheets, no need to use a whiteboard, no need for the children to each have a junior hacksaw and a watercolour palette!

Faced with no planning (it shouldn’t happen, but it does), you will be able to deliver a day of stimulating lessons using just this book and your own professionalism. Please do not use the lesson plans in this book if there has been work left for you. They are emergency lesson plans only. Every effort should be made to cover the learning objectives that the children have for that day.

All 289 lesson plans contained on this website are in the book (listed at the foot of this page) but in this extended edition you will find more than 50 extra lesson plans to cover RE, PE, ICT, Music, PSHE & Citizenship, and Art & Design. These extra lessons are not available on the internet.

£3.50 – Upon payment, please click on ‘Return to Merchant’, which will redirect you to the PDF to save to your device.

A shorter version of the book is available here.

Where next? There’s a great quick read here on support from your supply teacher agency. Check out our resources area here too.

Our education system, which was based upon the principle of a good and universal educational system led by highly qualified teachers, is now being consigned to an uncertain future. A future based upon the market ideology of the Secretary of State for Education. Michael Gove, one in which those who can afford to go to Eton or are able to gain entry into a grammar school will succeed and those who do not, will be at the mercy of the academies to fund the employment of qualified teachers for the education they deserve. One of Mr Gove’s latest objectives is, 'to ensure that every student has a high class teacher in front of them all the time'. He also wants to raise the entry requirement for any person wishing to enter the teacher training programme, and that any trainee teacher needs to pass new literacy and numeracy tests, yet examples of the new questions have been exposed to be absurd. He wants Headteachers to have the power to the remove poor performing teachers from the classroom, by ending the employment rights of teachers and so leaving the teachers at the whim of the Headteacher. Many would say the reforms have merit, but why is he at the same time, announcing that academies can recruit anyone to teach, even if they have no teacher training or qualifications of any kind. How can he say a teacher needs a good degree, but then allows a school to use someone without a GCSE in maths to teach permanent GCSE maths lessons?

Is it any wonder that with the increasing use of untrained staff, 50% of children leave school without any qualifications or poor core skills? The CBI has warned that ‘British business will not be competitive if nearly half of each year group is being failed by the system’. Yet the government finds it is acceptable for academies to replace teachers with unqualified staff to save money and embed the continuing failure of the system for generations to come. This has led teachers to say enough is enough, it is about time the government adopted a principle that only qualified teachers could be in charge of a class. This is to ensure that we have a system in which high quality teachers provide the craftsman and designers of the future, a system that will provide the well trained scientists, doctors, engineers and business leaders that the country needs to prosper in the future.

Unfortunately Mr. Gove’s approach appears to be based upon that of the Victorian

mill owner, who believes that a good level of education with highly qualified teachers is for the select few and not for the masses. This is why a group of teachers have established an E-petition to allow people to raise their objections to this, an attack on the teaching profession and the education system.

Where next? There's a great quick read here on supply teaching ideas.
Check out our resources area here too.

Pitfalls of supply teaching

I never really longed for my own class, not when dreaming of becoming a teacher aged 10, not when going through the teacher training process, and not even when applying for a job as an NQT.

This could be because I had a lot of respect for our ‘regular’ supply teachers in junior school myself.

It could be because I played instruments as a kid, and loved the idea of being a peripatetic teacher, going from one school to the other, ‘playing’ viola or piano all day!

More probable, it’s because I’m not very sociable. I always found it hard to build relationships, and to be honest, wasn’t interested in forming relationships with a bunch of kids, and a room full of staff, I had my flat, my pets and my chocolate! So supply work always appealed to me.

Having said that, once I got my own class, I did love them one and all, and my Teaching Assistant / Special Needs Assistant, and my classroom. Despite being the old cookery room, and having at least 4 cookers in there, and all the cupboards filled with crockery, it was mine. I wasn’t allowed in the cupboards, I wasn’t allowed to touch the ovens, and I had to ask the school caretaker to put up display boards for me. I lovingly hand-wrote and illustrated a few children’s poems, pre-Microsoft Publisher days, and was promptly asked to take them down as ‘it isn’t the sort of thing we advocate in this school’ (? this still confuses me!) Nevertheless, I made the classroom my own, in the same way I had made my bedroom my own as a teenager, with pretty much the same art posters.

One thing I enjoyed about having my own class was the air freshener. What? Yes. You’ll soon learn. I like vanilla-based air fresheners, and don’t like heavy floral fragrances. The classroom next door to mine had the most abundant bouquets of roses and azaleas lurking somewhere, I just never found them. It was overwhelming, and I hated teaching in there!

I ought to mention watching the children grow. Yes, it’s nice. It’s very special, and as a teacher you’re in a very privileged position. But fear not. Supply teachers see this too. I still see the ‘Eureka!’ moments, I still see self-doubt overcome, and when you’re fortunate enough to be the regular supply teacher for a school, you see it the school over rather than one class. You could do regular supply work in one school for years, and see younger siblings coming through, reminding you of their older brothers and sisters with their little idiosyncrasies.

It is lovely to have your own class. It is yearned for by some, I know. But I do believe that supply teaching can offer the same job satisfaction. And I wholly believe that it would be better for all NQTs to spend a year or two as a supply teacher before having their own class. Teaching practices are limiting. See other schools. Explore other methods of teaching. Hone your behaviour management skills. Increase your confidence. Just make sure that when you do apply for jobs, that you display all these qualities learned on supply to the full, make the selection panel believe that you have grown during your time of supply.

Where next? There’s a great quick read here on the value of a supply teacher’s ‘one-off’ lesson plans.
Check out our resources area here too.

My nerves started in August. I'd feel nauseous upon waking. The feeling of dread began to haunt me and wouldn't leave. Preparing for the start of the school year can be an ominous task. A daunting prospect. Get the excitement of buying a new Academic Diary, new pens and pencils and any other item of stationery that you can quite easily convince yourself is absolutely necessary out of the way, and then reality bites.

Will there be enough work?
Will I be able to survive financially?
Will the children be well behaved?
Will the staff be friendly / helpful?
What if I'm not able to teach well?
If I'm ill, there's no sick pay.

I had this for the first couple of years, despite being a supply teacher by choice, and having a good selection of schools to work with. It did go though. I think it may have been the remnants from the dread I felt every year whilst I was working full-time. I loved my job, but found it very hard to switch off and enjoy a holiday. I would be in school for the majority of the holidays, prepping, in the hope of avoiding working Sundays (it didn't help!) Part of the reason I chose to be a supply teacher.

• At the beginning of the holidays, if not before, set a date with yourself. A day / week when you will focus your attentions on the start of term. This should help you focus the rest of the holidays on enjoyment and relaxation.
• State your budget for 'essentials', and stick to it! All those 'Back to School' aisles in the supermarket tempt us in, clever marketing it's called, not essential stationery!
• Have something really special, daring even, planned for the weekend before term starts. Do something exhilarating, such as a bungee jump. After that, what happened in a classroom two days later will seem like a walk in the park! It could give you an air of confidence about you, and a buzz of excitement, that schools would love to see, and children will sense in the classroom.
• Sort out your wardrobe. Mine's easy, if boring: one pair black leather shoes (not unlike Dr Martens) to see me through the year, one pair black leather sandals for that day when it seems unfeasibly hot. One PE kit. Two pairs black trousers, two coloured strappy vests, and two coloured shirts to wear over the top of them, all mix 'n' match muted colours. I wear the shirts open or closed. Giving me a total of a million different outfits! I don't accessorize, I'd lose the stuff. Put your 'teaching clothes' to one side of your wardrobe, ever-ready for that early morning call.
• Decide what essentials will be in your packed lunch each day, and make sure you have a supply of the non-perishables.
• Sort out your supply tool kit. This is the big one for many, but needn't be. You will not be expected to have a full day's planning for each year group in each term on each topic up your sleeve 'just in case', but it wouldn't be a bad idea to take a look through my emergency lesson plans for supply teachers, just to get a feel for micro-planning (I just made that up, quite like it!) and see if mentally you can expand my ideas in five minutes into a lesson that could keep, for example, a Year 5 class occupied in a meaningful fashion for just under an hour.
• Take time to read more articles on here in preparation…

Where next? There's a great quick read here on the possible pitfalls of being a supply teacher. 
Check out our resources area here too.