The coming school year is shaping up to be one of the most unusual in living memory. As yet there is little guarantee that the usual form and structure of the school year will be in place -- prudent school leaders will now be preparing for the unexpected, and ensuring plans are in place [...]
This is how Local Authorities, Multi Academy Trusts and other school groups in England are running cost-effective and ethical supply pools, today. Over the last twenty years, the supply teaching sector has become a fragmented wild west where it’s all too common for schools to be fleeced and supply teachers exploited. It’s time [...]
Every year, over £0.5bn is spent on recruitment agency fees in public sector schools alone. That’s a staggering £30,000 per school! Whether it’s agency fees for temporary staff or permanent staff (including temporary to permanent fees), online job advertising or other indirect recruitment costs like admin and consultancy fees, this much-needed money is being diverted [...]
The Challenge Many schools use agency staff on a long-term basis. In fact, some agency staff can work in schools for years and still be 'on the agency's books'. This incurs a massive accumulation of cost that's crippling school budgets and hurting teachers – but it's been the price of having off-payroll staff for [...]
When it comes to hosting events, LKMco are known for two things: exciting salons of solutions-oriented thinking and stellar spreads of food and drink. Last night’s event, titled “Flexible Working: How can we take the force out of the teacher workforce?” was no exception. Teacher Booker were delighted to attend and participate in a wide-ranging [...]
The past year has been filled with several calls for schools to offer more opportunities for part-time and flexible work to teachers. The reasons are straightforward: Teaching is gripped by a recruitment and retention crisis, both at the national and local scale. More teachers are leaving the classroom – and often the education sector entirely – than [...]
"At a time when our schools have to ask parents to give extra money for books and classroom essentials, it’s crazy we’re spending half a billion pounds a year just on agency fees. That money should be spent on teachers and the badly needed resources our children need to get a world class education" [...]
With both pupil numbers and demand for teachers set to rise in the near future, it will become increasingly important for school leaders not just to recruit, but to retain good staff. New models for better retention are required. The number of teachers joining the profession has roughly counterbalanced the number leaving it in recent [...]
Over the weekend I was delighted to spy this brave blog post on Teacher Toolkit, the UK’s most followed education blog. Titled ‘Why Supply Agencies are the new ‘Del Boys’’, it is as forthright as it is faithful to the facts in summarising the current state of play in how agencies and schools interact. Numerous issues in this dynamic [...]
