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Supply Teachers:
Symptom of the problem or part of the solution?
CONTENTS
Introduction 2
The Rise of Supply Teachers3
The problem of data collection. What is a supply teacher?3
A review of the current figures 4
Spending On Supply 5
Supply side factors. Why choose Supply Teaching?5
Demand side factors.8 Fixed impact factors 8
Non-fixed impact factors10
The Rise of the Supply Agency12
Information on supply agencies 13
Why was there such a large shift from public to private recruitment? 13
Concerns about supply agencies 14
Can supply teachers be returned to the public sector? 16
The future of supply agencies and LEAs: Working together? 17
Cutting out the middle men? 18
Are Supply Teachers Necessary? Exploring Alternatives 19
The Floating teacher 19
Internal teacher cover20
Staff without Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) 21
Using new technologies – towards supply technicians or
virtual supply teachers?24
The Status of the Supply Teacher 25
Dissatisfiers 25
Solutions 27
Conclusion 28
Never mind the status, feel the quality 28
Bibliography 29
About the Authors33
Supply Teachers:
Symptom of the problem or part of the solution?
Introduction
‘Substitute teachers have remained largely absent from educational agendas… [because of] a paucity of interest that is frequently couched in negative pedagogic or professional terms, but, until recently, was not seen as particularly threatening to the core work force of permanent teaching staff ‘ (Morrison, 1999a: 168)’.
The teaching profession may be undergoing a quiet revolution. In the face of what the Chief Inspector of Schools has called ‘the worst teacher shortages in three decades’, attention has focused on the decline in the number of people who want to become or remain teachers. Meanwhile, there has been a simultaneous, inconspicuous rise in the use of supply teachers.
This rise has provided an important tool to help schools cope with the growing demand for short term cover and long term vacancy-filling. Rather than sending children home, splitting single classes across several others, or taking away non-contact time, supply teachers have stepped into empty classrooms and continued, at least on the surface, the teaching and learning process.
Despite their now-crucial role, there is a dearth of data and research on the subject of supply teachers. Discussions about supply teaching remain marginal to policy debates. This is surprising for a number of reasons. First, although used throughout the system, supply teachers are most commonly employed in the schools which this government is rightly most worried about; namely, urban secondary schools.
Second, in recent debates over the role of the private sector in state education, a myth is often perpetuated that the private sector is only dealing with the peripheries of schools, and has yet to penetrate the core function of teaching and learning. The provision of supply teachers by private agencies refutes this. Investigating supply agencies could add clarity to the current, confused debates about the role of the private sector in the provision of public services.
Third, freed from certain constraints, practices around supply teaching may provide new solutions to dilemmas over teacher shortages and the long term future of the profession. In particular, it challenges schools to offer more flexibility to permanent staff.
This paper, which forms part of IPPR’s project on the future of the teaching profession, is an exploration into the role of supply teachers. Through a comprehensive international review of the literature, semi-structured interviews with key players including agency representatives, Local Education Authority (LEA) recruitment managers, supply teachers and policymakers, it evaluates the current state and potential future of supply teaching in England. Inevitably, questions about the exact purpose of supply teachers will lead to wider questions about the future roles of all teachers. Although the paper will discuss teachers employed on long term contracts by agencies, much of the focus will be on those employed for short term and emergency cover purposes.
The Rise of Supply Teachers
Figures on supply teachers are often inconsistent. The small amount of statistics that have been drawn together vary greatly in definition and scope. There has, however, been an irrefutable rise in both the number of available supply teachers and the demand for their services. This is a classic example of several education policies, economic circumstances and societal changes creating one unintended consequence. These include:
- the late 1980s’ and current teacher shortages
- the introduction of Local Management of Schools
- the budget squeeze in the early 1990s, increasing schools’ use of fixed term contracts
- the entry of private supply agencies into the market
- an increasing demand from employees for more flexible working conditions
- a rise in the number of staff absences due to training and sickness
This section aims to develop a clearer picture of previous, current and future trends in the supply of and demand for supply teachers.
The problem of data collection. What is a supply teacher?
Definitions
Terms such as occasional, temporary, floating, emergency cover, short-term supply, long-term supply, overseas, agency and non-agency, are often used interchangeably to describe supply teachers. Data gathering is therefore problematic. For instance, when the DfES discusses supply teachers, they are usually referring to the use of ‘occasional’ teachers, in other words, full-time teachers on contracts of less than a month. Supply agencies, however, include those on contract for more than a month, and sometimes more than a term.
Classifications
An additional difficulty in assessing the situation lies in the interpretation of how teachers should be classified. Short-term agency staff are often grouped together with non-agency supply teachers; long-term agency supply teachers lumped together with permanent full-time teachers and part-time teachers confused with regular supply teachers.
Decentralisation of information
The shift from LEA supply pools to supply agencies, discussed below, has made data collection more difficult. Our research has revealed little consistency in the ways different agencies compile data. This data is unlikely to be shared anyway, due to the competitive nature of the market.
It seems imperative that all parties with a vested interest have some means of centralising enough information to assess the current level of supply teacher participation. It is also essential that different institutions set standardised definitions of teachers so that terminology does not undermine the research process. This paper recommends a strategic partnership between all interested parties to develop a common language and measurable definitions. Further, there should be encouragement to develop means by which these institutions can share information. If the rapid increase of supply teachers continues without an accurate understanding of its size and impact, policymakers will have great difficulty in responding appropriately.
A review of the current figures.
Short term supply teachers
DfES data give no official definitions or estimates of supply teachers. As Figure 1 shows, however, since the mid-nineties there has been a rapid rise in the number of occasional teachers.
Table 1. Occasional teachers (by thousands) in England Source: DfEE (2001a)
Year / 1995 / 1996 / 1997 / 1998 / 1999 / 2000 / 2001Occasional
Teachers / 12.2 / 12.6 / 13.6 / 13.1 / 14.1 / 16.7 / 19.0
While the DfES estimates suggest that occasional teachers represent a little less than 4.5% of the overall Full-time Equivalent (FTE) workforce, they account for an increasing percentage of the teacher workforce. Occasional teachers account for two thousand three hundred of the eight thousand increase in the number of teachers between 2000 and 2001 (DfEE, 2001a). When the government proclaims that ‘there are more teachers than ever’, it does not admit that occasional teachers are partly responsible for this rise. If the most recent trends in occasional teacher recruitment were to continue, it would have major implications for the future composition of the teaching profession and for the culture of schools.
Short-term and long term supply
Several agencies suggest that when looking at both long-term and short-term, supply teachers already account for 10% of the teaching workforce in England. In this case, a long-term supply teacher may be defined as any teacher with a contract of more than one month, but who is not directly employed by the school. The use of supply teachers in long-term contracts to fill permanent vacancies has been a recent drive for success in the private sector. Some agencies have predicted that if the recent teacher shortages continue at the expected rates and the current practice of filling these vacancies with long-term supply staff continues, and if all other variables remain constant, by the year 2014 we could see a teacher workforce of which over 50% is supply staff.
It could be argued that though many of the long-term supply teachers are recruited via an agency, in effect they are acting as full-time permanent teachers, and it is therefore justifiable to characterise the two as the same. The only difference lying between the two would be in the way the teachers are recruited and who is responsible for the contract. The danger with this type of justification is that the motivations of long-term supply teachers may differ greatly from a teacher committed to spending a significant number of years in a particular school.
Unfortunately, because the data on long-term supply staff is scarce, there is very little trend analysis which may be helpful in predicting the behaviour of long-term supply staff. In addition, whether or not the recruitment of any type of supply staff will remain at very high rates or whether other variables in the equation will remain constant is also very difficult to predict. For this reason, this paper is mainly concerned with short term supply teachers. However, accurate data and further research are urgently needed on this growing constituency in the teaching workforce.
Spending On Supply
Spending figures on supply teachers vary according to sources. One recruitment analyst estimates schools are now spending more than £600m annually on supply teachers (Dean,2001) approximately two thirds of which is from the private sector. If this estimate is accurate, it would amount to 3.4% of the entire expenditure of LEA maintained schools in England, 5.3% of the entire expenditure on teachers and twice the amount spent by schools on ICT for teaching and learning in 2000 (DfES, 2001a, 2001b). One supply agency puts the figure at £650m. Both estimates includes long term supply teachers, which make up approximately half of supply teachers provided by agencies.
Another estimate was reported by the Value for Money Unit of the DfES. In the last financial year, they estimate that schools spent an average of £43.00 per pupil from their budget on supply teachers, £50.78 for primary schools and £32.80 for secondary schools (VfM,2001). This equals about 2.5% of pre-primary/primary expenditure, and 1.25% of the secondary expenditure on maintained schools in England. Schools giving information for this research appeared to include only short term supply teachers in their calculations.
Increased demand in a competitive market is having a significant impact on supply spending. In fact, prices have been driven up so quickly over the past year that Phil Willis, Liberal Democrat Shadow Education Secretary, has formally requested the Office of Fair Trading to investigate the possibility of uncompetitive practices operating within supply teacher markets, in order ‘to determine whether excess profits are being made in this privatised sector’ (Willis, 2001). Many agencies have responded by asserting that the prices are merely a function of the natural market.
It is difficult to predict the future supply and demand for supply teachers, considering there is yet to be consensus on the current figures. We do have some information on factors, however, that will definitely have an impact on supply teaching trends. Supply-side and demand-side trends need to be reviewed.
Supply side factors. Why choose Supply Teaching?
Supply teachers are most likely to be young overseas travellers, Newly Qualified Teachers or other inexperienced staff and mothers of young children. There is also evidence that ‘very experienced teaching staff who simply want the flexibility of temporary work and the better pay’ (Smithers, 2000) are moving sectors and quickly becoming a key source of supply teachers. These diverse groups share some common motivations.
Flexibility
While there is very little statistical data on why more and more people are choosing to become supply teachers, anecdotal evidence from supply teachers, LEA recruitment managers and chief executives of supply agencies all indicate that the primary reason is increased flexibility in hours and expectations.
In this regard, mothers are one of the primary beneficiaries of supply work. In a 1991 School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) survey 40% of former women teachers stated that flexible hours are the most important single measure which would encourage them to return to work (STRB 1992). Although some schools offer part time work to returning mothers, they can rarely offer the flexibility of supply work.
Supply teaching has become a more positive choice for both teachers and schools. As one recruitment manager put it, ‘It used to be that supply teachers were used as a last ditch resort for teachers … well, not anymore!’ More teachers are seeing supply teaching as a career option instead of a job to take ‘in between’ jobs. It is now seen as an active career choice and many view themselves as freelance teachers. Although part time working and job sharing have become more common in schools, the rigid pay and conditions structure for teachers combined with less than innovative management styles, have left most schools unable to meet demands for flexibility. Given the current state of the labour market for teachers, the insecurity typically associated with flexible, short term contracts is significantly reduced.
Status of the Teaching Profession
At a recent NQT supply teaching recruitment event, one recruitment consultant overheard several teachers agree that ‘we want to teach, but we don’t want to become teachers.’ This resounding statement typifies a growing desire to be on the fringes, rather than at the centre of the teaching profession. The current status of teaching profession is one of the major contributors to the deterrence of full-time permanent teaching applicants, and facilitates a more detached approach to the profession.
IPPR’s recent report cites many reasons for the poor current status of the teaching profession, including: public criticism, poor management, worsening pupil behaviour, increased workloads and bureaucracy, low pay and the depletion of intrinsic satisfiers such as creativity and autonomy (Johnson, 2001). Supply teachers are immune from none of these problems, yet may be more able to filter out their worst effects.
Job-picking
A increasingly common practice is for teachers to undertake a period of supply teaching in order to find a school that they feel they can commit themselves to on a more permanent basis. This is largely positive; in fact, schools use supply teachers in a similar way, as part of a recruitment process. Thus some of the mismatches between schools and teachers can be avoided.
Bureaucracy and non-teaching time
Relative to full-time permanent teachers, many supply teachers spend less of their time on the bureaucratic burdens associated with teaching. Their contact to non-contact time ratio is therefore improved and bureaucracy and working hours are reduced. This provides many individuals the opportunity to teach, without shouldering the heavy burdens associated with being a permanent teacher.
Accountability and expectations
There is an increasing acceptance that accountability mechanisms for teachers are blurred, overlapping and excessive, forming a blanket weed that hinders bottom-up innovation. These pressures do not apply as strongly to supply teachers. For short-term supply teachers, the lack of continuity with the same children renders irrelevant many accountability mechanisms. For long-term supply staff, the possibility of leaving when the fixed term contract has finished may help to subdue such pressures.
Pay differentials
The demand for supply teachers has driven up the prices for their services. The freedom not to pay to scale which is used by most agencies has historically driven down pay, but recently has led to increased pay for many supply teachers. Some agencies report paying inexperienced teachers up to £150 per day in London. This can be contrasted with permanent teacher salaries, where an NQT makes approximately £87 per day (£102.57 in London, or £107.40 including pension contribution and recruitment and retention allowance).[1] Some headteachers suggest they are annually paying £5000 more for an agency teacher than for a young permanent member of staff (Mansell, 2001). The high demand for supply teachers in concert with supply agencies’ freedom from national pay scales has escalated rates for supply teachers ‘in the know’.
According to most agencies, the supply teachers who benefit most from non-scale based pay are the youngest and the least experienced. Those who have qualifications and long-term experience would normally earn more in permanent positions. For this reason, the majority of agency teachers are under the age of thirty, usually with less than five years teaching experience.
As stated earlier, supply teachers often spend less time on non-teaching activities and are therefore working fewer hours than most permanent full-time teachers. This means that even if a teacher and a supply teacher are paid the exact same rate, when broken down to an hourly percentage the supply teacher will almost always be paid more, possibly even when holiday pay is taken into account.