A recent report has been published questioning whether supply teachers are fulfilling their roles and educating our children to the level they need to be. This report comes after Ofsted has found that supply teachers in secondary schools are four times more likely than permanent teachers to give sub-standard lessons. Only one third of schools in the UK has a reliable pool of staff that they can call on to come in and cover lessons should they need to. Other schools have to hire staff that they may never have met before and that may be substandard.
These statistics are worrying but we do need to remember that this does not apply to all supply teachers as there are some great ones out there who go the extra mile to ensure their lessons are taught to an exceptional standard.
Teaching agencies can offer a great service to schools, finding staff very quickly for them but schools need to check with the agency as to how they evaluate the supply teachers abilities.
