Teachers for Supply

Often as a supply teacher you are called into a school that morning to start teaching the lesson at the start of the school day. Often the teacher will have left a lesson plan for you to follow or another teacher at the school will have drafted one for you that morning. As a supply teacher this can be very challenging, coming into a school where you don’t know the children and trying to follow plans, of varying degrees of detail, to produce an effect lesson for all the students.

The first thing to do when you arrive in the classroom is to familiarise yourself with the lesson plan and where things are in the classroom, this is much easier if you have a TA (teaching assistant) on hand to help out. If there are any bits of the lesson plan that don’t make sense to you then you could ask the TA or another teacher or work around it using your own ideas if needs be.

It’s always good practise to take along your own lesson plan as well so that you are prepared if the children complete their tasks quicker than expected or if the lesson plan isn’t working.

Do you have a passion for teaching? Then maybe a career in education is the perfect choice for you. But there are so many different options if you are looking for teaching jobs in Nottingham that before choosing the right path for you, take a look at what career options are available.

Early Years Teacher
If you enjoy working with small children ages 3-5, then this is the ideal choice for you. You could be working at a nursery or pre-school, as well as conduct in-home visits. To become an early years teacher you will need to obtain a Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). In order to do so, you will need to obtain a degree first and then pass the initial teacher training course (ITT). Salaries for this profession start at £21,588 per year. Continue reading

As a supply teacher you always want to make a good impression at a new school. It’s important to make a good name for yourself in the area where you’re based as this will encourage schools to offer you more work. A bad reputation among teaching staff for things like poor time keeping could negatively affect your chance of getting work.
Try to arrive at school nice and early so you can get up to speed with school day routines. Teaching assistants are invaluable in keeping things running smoothly and helping you get to know the pupils. If you are working to planning provided by the regular class teacher, try to stick to it as it can be frustrating to have to re-work planning later to include what was missed. Make sure all work is marked properly and in line with the schools marking policy. Teachers don’t like to face criticism for improper marking during a book scrutiny when its not their marking! Finally, you should leave the classroom as tidy as you (hopefully) found it.

When you are doing supply work in a new school it can be difficult to know their praise and sanction policy well enough to give out the correct level of praise when a child’s behaviour is good. Often as a supply teacher good behaviour can be over looked as you don’t know the children well enough to know what to expect from them and you main focus tends to be on keeping control of a new class and watching out for disruptive behaviour. And this is the reason for the praise cards, these work like awarding a child a sticker, however they are more suitable for older children (a little bit cooler than a sticker at age 13!). The cards are the size of a business card and have phrases on them such as ‘Hey I caught you being kind, well done!’ on them or ‘What great work’.

The tone of the cards is very conversational and so most students find them fun and a positive influence for working well. In all they are a great tool to carry around with you to get over the hurdle of acknowledging good behaviour in an unfamiliar school.

As the very nature of the job dictates as a supply teacher you need to be pretty organised as often you will get a phone call in the morning to teach a class that day. Usually once you arrive at the school there will be a lesson plan either left by the teacher or one very quickly cobbled together by another member of staff if the absence is unexpected. This can be very difficult as in both scenarios it can be quite difficult to follow someone else’s lesson plan successfully.

That’s why as a supply teacher it’s always best to have a plan B, when accepting the job if you can find out what age group you will be teaching and which subjects you can then take along your own lesson plan as a back up if the work is finished too early or if your not getting on with the plan left for you.

It’s always useful to have a back catalogue of activities and work sheets to hand in a folder for this purpose organised by age level and subject with varying degrees of difficulty to suit all levels in the class.

These lesson plans are actually available online and you can print of work sheets and activities as well as buy topic books that have lesson plans to work from.

It takes a bit of work to put this together but you certainly will be glad that you have it.