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

Related articles

Back to school during Covid-19
Teachers to benefit the most from inflation-busting pay rise
Lockdown leaves pupils three months behind with curriculum

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.

Related articles
How to be a first-class supply teacher
Why teachers are great role models

TLTP Education is always on the lookout for new and innovative methods to attract talented teachers, support staff and leaders to support them with their career ambitions. 

So, when we came across Jooble; a new and popular jobs site with a difference we decided to give it a try, and we glad we did!

Jooble is a search engine, just like Google and Yahoo, the difference with Jooble’s search engine is it's designed to search only jobs. Their search engine enables you to look for jobs on the major job boards and career sites across the United Kingdom all in one place.

Jooble automatically filters out duplicated jobs, so similar jobs, posted on several career sites, are shown as a single one.

Since we began to feature our vacancies on Jooble we have attracted a high calibre of Education professionals whom we have supported in finding them find their dream job and helping them flourish in their career.
Jooble is constantly updating their features to make it easy for employers to attract potential candidates to their jobs and vice versa. Their overall aim is to help candidates finds relevant jobs in a few seconds and save time.

Throughout the year TLTP Education attend university recruitment fairs meeting enthusiastic students who are studying for their PGCE and BA Education degree and will soon be looking for their first teaching role as a Newly Qualified Teacher.

Each year we help hundreds of NQTs start their teaching career in all divisions of education, including: Early Years, Primary, Secondary and SEN.

We have an extensive network of schools all of which we work closely with on a regular basis. As a result, we are able to gain valuable insight into their school’s requirements, needs and ethos. Which, in return we are able to closely match with suitable candidates.

Over the past four months TLTP Education have been very busy visiting universities including:

• University of East London
• St. Mary’s University
• Roehampton University
• Cambridge University
• University College London – Institute of Education
• Bedfordshire University

It’s been a pleasure meeting bright and talented graduates and we are looking forward to meeting many more. 

We are continuing our tour and will be visiting Goldsmiths University on Thursday 13th February 2020 and Greenwich University Friday 14th February 2020.

On a daily basis we are liaising with schools across all of London and the Home Counties to understand their NQT vacancies, therefore we are receiving new roles constantly. Schools are keen to get ahead of the game to secure talented graduates, and, as a result interviews are now being scheduled.

If you would like to be informed as soon as a new job opportunity is available, please Register and subscribe to job alerts to ensure you never miss our latest roles. Alternatively, contact us on 020 8709 6540 and a consultant can talk through your individual requirements.

If you prefer for us to call you, no problem. Simply, click here to fill in a few details and a member of the recruitment team will be in touch.

We can help ease the stress of finding your ideal NQT role, give you maximum exposure to the job market, and more importantly leave you to focus on completing your PGCE!

England’s schools are facing its major challenge in recruiting and retaining teachers and senior leaders, MPS from the Education Select Committee have warned. Key subject areas such as Maths, Physics and Computing were the hardest hit. For the fifth year in a row the government has failed to deal with the problem resulting in missing recruitment targets. In a highly critical new report by the education select committee it calls for urgent action, including more focus on retaining teachers once they are in the classroom. It was revealed a third of teachers who began teaching in 2015 quit the profession within the first five years. One of the suggestions put forward is capping on the number of hours teachers work as high workload was one of reasons why so many are leaving the profession.    

MPs have pointed out while ministers have recognised there are issues, there is no long-term plan to address the recruitment crisis. They suggest there should be greater efforts to keep teachers from leaving the profession and moving to other jobs. It is more cost effective than recruiting new teachers and would strengthen the pool of future leadership candidates. Workload is not the only reason teachers are leaving the profession. It is a combination of factors including constant curriculum and policy changes, pay cuts, lack of support and finally government pressure which then led to poor health and feeling undervalued. In order to raise the status of the teaching profession, and improve retention, teachers must be entitled to high-quality, relevant continuing professional development throughout their careers. This must include a focus on subject-specific knowledge and skills to allow teachers to continually develop their practice and to create future leaders.  

Teaching is becoming a young person’s game
Pupils are in danger of losing valuable, highly experienced teachers as schools begin to recruit more and more NQTs over older teachers. Schools are reluctant to employ experienced teachers because they have to pay higher salaries compared to NQTs. Even though there are many excellent NQTs, pupils often end-up losing out through inexperienced teachers. Many have great skills but will lack the knowledge and competence that comes only with years of teaching.  

The concern here is teaching is beginning to be seen as something you can really do when you are free of life’s other commitments – not surprising based on the current demands of the role. Many teachers work late into the evening and weekend working has become the norm. Young, energetic teachers with fresh ideas are highly welcomed in schools however they need guidance, support and advice which only comes from those who have devoted ten plus years in the classroom, taught hundreds of children, encountered all abilities of learning and have learnt from endless mistakes. With no one there to mentor the new generation of teachers it’s no surprise that NQTs are not lasting in the profession. Being in the middle of a recruitment and retention crisis schools do not have the luxury to be a young domain and the highly experienced older teachers are a luxury to them.  

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said "This report should act as a wake-up call to ministers that falling back on sticking plaster solutions such as the failed National Teaching Service will do nothing to address the systemic causes of the teacher supply crisis." A Department for Education spokesman said “There are more teachers in England’s schools than ever before with secondary postgraduate recruitment at it’s highest since 2011." He said more than £1.3 billion would be invested in recruitment over this parliament, and that more trainees in physics and maths were recruited this year than last year. “The secretary of state has set out her ambition to continue driving up standards through investment in professional development so the best teachers stay in the profession,” he added. Labour's shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said the government was "failing to deliver on its most basic of tasks." "Recruitment targets are being missed, school budgets are being cut for the first time in decades and we have thousands more unqualified teachers teaching in our schools," she said, adding that "children deserve better."  

Education recruitment specialist TLTP Education (The London Teaching Pool) has been awarded Gold Audited status by industry body The Recruitment & Employers Confederation (REC), making it among less than ten per cent of educational recruiters in the UK to be awarded the status.

REC Audited status ensures that agencies are undertaking all relevant checks when recruiting teachers. It enables schools and education providers to be confident that they are using an accredited supplier, which puts standards at the centre of their business. But it goes beyond simple compliance, requiring agencies to demonstrate that they operate best practice in areas such as customer service, staff development, diversity and client management. 

“We are delighted to have been recognised with REC audited status,” says Darryl Mydat, Managing Director, TLTP Education. “It provides independent assurance and verification that we operate to the highest industry standards and put the needs of both our clients and candidates front and centre in our business. Not many education recruitment agencies can say that.”

This scheme run by the REC, the professional body for the UK’s £25 billion private recruitment industry, is the most comprehensive audit of its kind. It provides successful recruiters with an accreditation that is recognised by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), confirming that TLTP is conducting its business both ethically and in accordance with industry standards.   

REC Chief Executive, Kevin Green congratulated TLTP Education on its recognition:

“TLTP Education has joined an elite group of recruitment agencies across the UK that has achieved this high standard. This accreditation recognises that we have rigorously audited the company and found that it is performing to the highest professional standards and represents best practice in our sector.”

Headteachers say they are struggling to recruit professionals to teach core subjects likes English, maths and science.

This is according to a new survey by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), which noted that 44 per cent of school leaders have vacancies in English posts, 52 per cent in maths and 50 per cent in science.

Further compounding this shortage of teachers is a fall in the number of youngsters going to university - principally because of high tuition fees - and a rise in the number of children entering secondary school.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the ASCL, called on the next government to make sure “schools and colleges can recruit and retain the highest calibre of staff”.

“The existing teacher supply model does not work,” he continued. “Schools all over the country are experiencing unprecedented difficulties recruiting trainees, qualified teachers, middle and senior leaders.

“The next government must act urgently to ensure that effective processes are put in place to model numbers of teachers needed in each sector and region and then promote the status and value of teaching as a profession.”

The ASCL has developed a ten-point plan to help alleviate the “teacher supply crisis”, which it says both the government and the profession can work to deliver.

Some of the recommendations include reviewing and adapting the current teacher supply model, expanding the number of schools that are capable of delivering initial teacher training and launching a “profession-led” campaign to get more people into teaching.

“Teaching remains a great job which continues to offer people a rewarding and fulfilling career,” Mr Lightman went on to say.

“It is vital that the profession and government work together to emphasise this positive message. Teaching must be promoted as a high-status profession and a proposed Royal College of Teaching, to set standards and encourage professional learning, would help to do this.”