In this insightful guest blog, inspirational Head Teacher and Educational Consultant Paul Mundy-Castle shares his views on how to create a welcoming and supportive environment for new recruits in your school. The most important component of any school, I believe, is the staff body -- especially the teachers, who play such a pivotal role [...]
We know how challenging homeschooling can be. That's why we are providing parents with access to our community of qualified teachers for homeschooling support, ensuring children continue to be motivated by, and engaged with, their studies. After speaking with hundreds of parents over the last few weeks we realise even more now how [...]
Since March the education sector, like many others, has faced a once in a generation challenge due to the coronavirus pandemic. Whilst schools have done a fantastic job in tackling the situation head on, we can anticipate that a new set of challenges, particularly around recruitment and workforce, will emerge when the school year [...]
We’re currently helping supply teachers to earn up to 25% more than via a typical agency/umbrella company arrangement at no extra cost to their regular school(s). We have found that Employer’s NI contributions, admin fees and other deductions are routinely being taken from supply teachers’ agreed rate of pay. Those teachers thought they had [...]
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 [...]
Our recent exposé on agency fees charged to schools generated much heated debate from schools, agencies and teachers. Now it's the teachers' turn. Here we’ll shine a light on the other side of the coin -- agency supply teacher pay, and the often indecipherable fees, deductions and accruals that appear each week on the payslips of agency [...]
How a London Primary school now saves thousands on agency fees The Background Primary School in Inner London, 420 pupils Since October 2018, the school has engaged a KS2 teacher, Claire*, via a traditional supply agency. Claire was speculatively marketed to the school via an email. Coincidentally the school had a sudden need [...]
The Retention Crisis is seldom spoken about, especially compared to its more prominent twin, The Recruitment Crisis. Nonetheless, the figures associated with Retention Crisis are deeply unsettling. Eager to understand the story behind these figures and the optimal response strategies, we were fortunate enough to attend an eclectic smattering of talks on the subject at the [...]
Introduction The DfE’s long-awaited ‘Recruitment and Retention Strategy’ was released today and, as you might expect, there is plenty to discuss and dissect. Broadly, we echo the enthusiasm of other pundits and industry leaders. The Recruitment and Retention Strategy (RRS) is bold, well-informed and could rewrite the fundamentals of how the teaching workforce is organised. [...]
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 [...]
