On the 1st of September 2020 the new Department of Education’s Keeping Children Safe in Education came into force. The new guide contains several changes of which some directly impacts teaching agencies and supply staff for the first time.

Below is a highlight of the changes.

Safeguarding information has been widened to explicitly include supply staff and volunteers

Concerns about safeguarding or if an allegation is made about another member of staff will explicitly include supply staff and volunteers. Any concerns should be referred to the headteacher or principal.  Should the concern/allegation be about the headteacher or principal, this should be referred to the chair of governors, chair of the management committee or proprietor of an independent school; and in the event of concerns/allegations about the headteacher, where the headteacher is also the sole proprietor of an independent school, this should be reported directly to the designated officer(s) at the local authority.

The guidance has also made it clear that both mental and physical health are relevant to the safeguarding and the welfare of children.

Information on mental health has been updated to help staff make the link between mental health concerns and safeguarding issues.

The NSPCC has updated their ‘when to call the police guidance’ which is also included in the guidance.

Allegations made against teachers, and other staff, including supply teachers and volunteers

Allegations of abuse made against any member of school staff is the school’s responsibility to manage where the school is the employer. Further clarification has been noted in this guidance where allegations are made against supply teachers and volunteers where the school is not the direct employer (i.e. when the agency is the employer) the school must ensure the allegations are dealt with properly.

The guidance makes it clear that schools hold a responsibility to fully explore concerns about supply staff and in those instances, schools cannot simply cease to use the supply teacher. Processes should be developed to manage this and the school should advise agencies of its process for managing allegations. Agencies are required to be fully involved and co-operate with any enquiries from the local authority designated officer (LADO), police and/or children’s social services. Governing bodies and proprietors should discuss with the agency whether it is appropriate to suspend the supply teacher, or redeploy them to another part of the school, whilst they carry out their investigation. 

Our governing body the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) welcomes the inclusion of supply staff on how schools should handle abuse and allegations made against them. This is something the REC has been requesting for some time.

An additional point has been added under behaviours which poses a transferable risk from the way an individual has behaved or may have behaved in a way that indicates they may not be suitable to work with children. For example, a member of staff is involved in domestic violence at home. No children were involved, but schools need to consider what trigged these actions and could a child in the school trigger the same reaction, therefore being put at risk.

Information added about the Coronavirus pandemic

During the coronavirus outbreak the DFE issued a non-statutory interim guidance. This has now been removed as the governments expects all educational settings across the nation to reopen for new academic year in September 2020.

Click here to view and download the full Keeping Children Safe in Education (Sept 2020).

For the latest information from the Department of Education, click www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education

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As schools work towards filling their staffing plans for the next academic year, it’s a great time to consider how supply teachers can help bridge any gaps - - particularly given the current situation with COVID-19.

Over the year’s schools have relied on education recruitment agencies, like TLTP Education for their staffing needs and have become an integral part of most UK school recruitment strategies. We are proud to be on the Supply Teachers and Temporary Staff framework which is supported by DfE and recommended in current DfE guidance. It can help schools efficiently get best value when recruiting supply teachers, classroom assistants, tutors and other temporary staff.

Usually at the start of every academic year comes the inevitable press coverage about schools using education recruitment agencies; usually focused on the ‘cost’ to schools, these articles rarely highlight the benefits for a school of outsourcing its recruitment.

It is important to point out that, whilst agencies are typically described as ‘supply agencies’, many of these, including us, provide staff for a range of contract types. These include day-to-day and short-term supply to cover unplanned teacher absences, and also to fill longer term vacancies such as maternity cover, long-term illness, and permanent positions.
Just as there are a host of different reasons why organisations from most other industries use recruitment agencies as part of their overall hiring strategies, so too with schools.

How schools benefit from using recruitment agencies

Save time and resources
Schools often lack the time and/or experience to effectively screen candidates – failing to separate the top candidates from the wealth of applicants.
Some job applicants oversell their abilities, enthusiasm and dedication in their CVs, whilst other, very talented, teachers may submit weak applications, being inexperienced in writing a professional CV. Experienced recruiter are equipped to identify the worthwhile recruits – saving schools valuable time and resources. This also minimises a school’s risk of making a poor recruitment decision.Good agencies, therefore, help to improve education standards by ensuring the best possible candidates are placed in schools that best match them.

Compliance
Quality agencies – accredited by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) Audited in Education – have stringent registration and vetting procedures in place to ensure that all legal and contractual requirements are met before a candidate starts work. They should also ensure candidate compliance criteria are up-to-date, including the monitoring of key expiry dates such as Disclosure and Barring Service certificates and visas. This relieves schools of a huge administrative burden, thereby enabling them to focus on their core business of educating children. TLTP Education are proud to have continually retained the the REC Audited Award – the gold standard in safeguarding.

Flexibility and experience
Schools require staff to cover an absence under a variety of planned and unplanned circumstances including sickness, training days, maternity leave, and unfilled teaching posts. As such, supply contracts are flexible and can range from just a few hours to days and long-term placements. 

The diverse nature of supply teachers they have a large amount of experience working in a variety of schools in a short amount of time. This enables teachers to offer more skills and knowledge and have the ability to deliver across a range of age groups and subjects. 

Quality teachers often prefer to be recruited via agencies
A growing number of educators only seek work through recruitment agencies, rather than applying directly to a school. Job-seekers use agencies as it’s generally a far quicker way to find a position, and larger agencies typically have a wide variety of jobs to choose from. Professional education recruiters typically, such as TLTP Education, have extensive knowledge of schools in their area. The best agencies will consult meaningfully with job-seekers to ensure the best possible fit between school and jobseeker. Again, this reduces the risk of a bad recruitment decision, and helps ensure a better standard of education for students.

Temp-to-Perm Options
Many schools and jobseekers like to work on a temp-to-perm basis. In this situation a teacher is appointed on a temporary contract with a view to becoming a permanent member of staff. This reduces the risk, both for schools and teachers, of making the wrong recruitment choice. It enables both parties to trial working together before making a more permanent commitment.

Difficulties due to teacher shortages
The UK teacher shortage is well-known, as are the regional imbalances and deficits in specific subject areas. With soaring numbers of pupils entering the education system, particularly in secondary schools, and large numbers of teachers leaving the profession, the teacher shortage is projected to increase to over 13,000 by 2021. Fewer people are entering teacher training courses due to the wider career options available, compounding the shortage because there are insufficient graduates to replace retiring teachers.
How does this influence a school’s use of supply agencies? Schools that do their own recruiting say it is increasingly difficult to find suitable candidates – even after spending large amounts of money on job advertisements. It’s more efficient for schools to get an agency – which has a large, pre-vetted pool of agency candidates from which to choose – to do the recruiting for them, with no risk of it leaving them out of pocket.

Talk to one of our recruitment experts
If you are school interested in finding out more about how supply staff can help you with your recruitment needs, have a conversation with one of our recruitment experts to find out how we can help you ensure you are fully staffed and ready to return to school in September. Simply fill in a few details by following this link www.tltp.co.uk/fill-a-position and we will be in touch.

Latest Temporary Vacancies
If you are a teacher of support staff looking for supply work, have a look at the latest temorary vacancies and apply today.
If you cannot find what you are looking for, don’t worry. We receive new vacancies daily and as a result not all are advertised as they are filled straightaway. To ensure you don’t miss out please register your details by following this link and a recruitment consultant will be in touch to discuss your requirements. Alternatively, please give us a call on 020 8709 6540.

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