North West Regional Supply Teachers Conference
“Giving Supply Teachers a Voice”
Holiday Inn, Bolton
Saturday 11 October 2014
Report
Julia Simpkins Local Association Secretary for Bolton and a supply
teacher herself until her election opened the Conference and
welcomed supply teachers from 9 different associations/divisions
from across the whole North West region. She also welcomed and
introduced guest speakers: Kevin Courtney Deputy General Secretary
of the NUT, Jay Barry and Nick Wigmore National Executive members
for Greater Manchester, Richard Knight a Sefton supply teacher who
has instigated much of the NUT’s recent activity involving supply
teachers and Chris McMullen a local NUT member who has been very
active in the supply teachers’ group established in Bolton.
Delegates introduced themselves and talked about how long they
have been supply teachers and the issues they face including varying
pay rates. Some colleagues were forced into supply work by
redundancy or because they were unable to get a first permanent
post. For others it is a lifestyle choice as it enables them to maintain
a work-life balance.
Pay rates varied greatly not just between agencies but also between
sectors and schools, with the latter negotiating with agencies to force
pay rates down.
There are only a couple of local authorities in the North West with
functioning supply pools: Sefton and Bury.
Jay Barry NEC member did 4 years on supply albeit on 1/195th of a
salary pensionable with a contract with an LA. What he had heard
today was, he said, disgraceful.
Nick Wigmore was an NEC member and also Divisional Secretary in
Rochdale, where there were also questions about the sustainability of
Rochdale’s supply provision. Nick is also Deputy Chair of the
committee which oversees teachers’ terms and conditions including
supply teachers and leads campaigns in their defence.
Julia Simpkins said she was currently in the fortunate position of fulltime union facility time. She recently heard on the radio that two
signs of poverty were if you couldn’t afford to pay for school trips for
your own children and couldn’t replace domestic white goods. Julia
said that’s us supply teachers! Julia said that the plight of supply
teachers is becoming more important within the national union.
Julia was proud that the NUT stands up for the rights of groups who
are discriminated against: women, black, disabled and LGBT
members. Julia thinks that supply teachers now deserve to be
treated as a special case too.
Kevin Courtney introduced himself as Christine Blower’s deputy and
said that this was the 2nd time he’d been in Bolton in the last two
weeks. He felt the conference was useful and interesting and sure
Nick and Jay would report back on it to the NEC.
Although it hadn’t been mentioned by anybody yet, Kevin was also
aware of the current habit of schools/agencies offering only cover
supervisor rate. The reaction of delegates confirmed that this was
indeed the case. The lack of entitlements “enjoyed” by teachers
employed directly by schools and authorities was recognised and
getting worse. Even private school teachers are in the national
Teachers Pension Scheme so why can’t agency employees be?
The worst development for supply teachers was through the
introduction of the cover supervisor rate, which undercuts even
agency rates. The law had also been changed to remove portability of
the salary scale point so there was no obligation on even LAs to pay
the correct rate.
Some divisions had supply teacher groups and even dedicated supply
teacher officers.
The union wants to encourage supply teachers to organise and
empower supply teachers.
There will be another lobby of Parliament on 28th October to
challenge what is going on. The whole purpose of the privatisation of
supply teaching is to weaken us and drive costs down. Kevin listed
suggestions that lobbyists could ask their MPs to push for.
The NUT’s Manifesto for Education is getting a very positive response
from influential people. It is not a supply teachers’ manifesto but
contains 2 direct references to supply teachers on privatisation and
pay for supply teachers. Members could use the manifesto as a tool
when lobbying their MP.
Julia said that when lobbied, Julie Hilling MP for Bolton West had said
that the Labour Party isn’t campaigning against zero hours contracts
because they think it’s good for supply teachers!
Questions and Answers
Richard asked about the supply teacher kite mark which was raised
at the 2nd supply teachers conference in London. The kite mark calls
for a minimum salary for supply teachers. An unelected official had
informed them that it wasn’t discussed at NEC but still rejected by
national officers.
Nick Wigmore said that the kite mark proposal had been discussed at
an NEC subcommittee at length, longer than any other issue. There
had been strong concern that the union didn’t want to in effect
promote the work of what could be large multinational private
companies. A kite mark would in effect promote private companies.
With tongue very much in cheek he said that perhaps what was
needed was a list of the bad agencies or what he termed a “shite
mark”! He said we should be naming and shaming rather than
promoting. Richard in reply said that it was a problem that there
were no supply teachers on the NEC.
Mike Whitman spoke about the next lobby. It will be the 6th one he’s
been on. He asked whether there will be a lobby pack as normal?
Kevin confirmed there will be. Mike then asked if Hamilton House
can collate the responses from MPs and circulate who responded
positively? What happens to feedback that is sent to Hamilton
House? Kevin confirmed that all parliamentary candidates will be
contacted and lobbied and informed that members in their
constituencies will be informed about their responses.
Our workshop today will be considered in drafting the official NUT
lobby pack. There should be NUT officials at Parliament collecting
feedback from lobbyists.
Will a register be kept of which supply teachers are lobbying which
MPs? KC – Yes, not just at Parliament but also if members lobby at a
local surgery. Members were encouraged to inform their division
secretary.
What if an MP has said they won’t be there on the day of the lobby, is
it better to go anyway or lobby in the constituency? KC said it might
still be possible to speak to their secretary but probably better to get
the MP in the constituency.
NW- If members are struggling to get a supply teachers group
together push for supply issues to be a standing item on the agenda
at general meetings.
Julia said that Richard had raised the profile of supply teachers at
national conference including a fringe meeting at this year’s
conference.
Julia offered to circulate Bolton’s “top trumps” list of supply agencies.
Steve mentioned that the supply teacher section in Bolton is bigger
than the membership in any single school.
KC suggested setting up internet forums for supply teachers within a
division.
RK said he had asked for a supply teacher network along the lines of
the 6th form network but is still waiting.
Bolton member Chris McMullen talked about the supply teacher
group that had been set up by the local association. He said that as a
supply teacher it was easy to feel isolated. Today’s conference would
hopefully address that, and it was partly for that reason that the
Bolton supply teachers group had been established 18 months ago.
Meetings are usually held every half term, sometimes more often.
There are about 20 regular attendees some new to supply teaching,
others with years of experience. Originally intended to be an
opportunity for teachers to network, something that is not easy to do
at work. Supply teaching is a job where you often have to operate
without the support of other full time teachers. The group has
however outgrown its original function and we have undertaken
activities designed to support and inform supply teachers. One of the
first practical activities was to compare agencies and give them a set
of “Top Trumps” style ratings. Whilst most work these days come
through such agencies, not all agencies are equal in terms of the pay,
benefits and care they offer their teachers. Creating the Top Trumps
allowed us to compare agencies and underlined the fact that we do
still have a choice as to who we work through.
We also decided to create a “supply pack” that we’d like local schools
to have available containing the information that would help us as
supply teachers in an unfamiliar school. Developing this would be
the remit of one of the conference’s workshops.
Members of the Bolton group also attended the NUT Supply Teachers
Conference in London, which provided the incentive to stage this
conference.
Chris would recommend starting your own supply teachers group.
The Secretary of your Association/Division has access to contact
details for all supply teacher members. Julia kickstarted the Bolton
group by writing to every member listed as a supply teacher on her
membership list. As supply teacher members of Bolton Association
can be working in any of the neighbouring or even more distant
authorities with additional travel time and, in the case of primary
teachers, having to stay behind for an hour or so at the end of the day
to complete marking, meetings usually start much later than ordinary
general meetings.
Food is always provided at the meetings as an added incentive.
Creating or joining a supply teacher group is a great way of getting
support from other colleagues. In short there is nothing to lose from
creating a supply teachers group and everything to gain.
Richard Knight spoke about the Sefton campaign to save the Local
Authority supply pool. There was a golden age for supply teaching
15 years ago. Now there were 580 different supply agencies. A race
to the bottom has started to see who can pay least.
In answer to the question to the disparity between what schools pay
for supply cover and what supply teachers earn, Richard pointed ou
that he boss of Capita earns £2.1million, the Hays boss had a
£190,000 pension fund last year! Given that, he he wondered why
didn’t many associations fight to save supply pools?
At the start of the Sefton campaign, 60 angry supply teachers met to
defend their service .
Richard used Freedom of Information requests to get supply budget
figures which local officials claimed couldn’t be provided. They
proved that the number of Sefton primary schools using private
agencies is going down year on year, despite what leading councillors
claimed. 79/98 schools signed up to Sefton Supply, which is run by
one manager and two part-time staff. Compare that to private
agencies.
School bursars were very supportive. 40-50 teachers lobbied the
council and filled the gallery at a council meeting. The local MP was
also lobbied and he was also quite good and wrote to the council
encouraging them to save the service. The slogan “Good for children,
good for schools, good for teachers” was even used by bursars when
they contacted the council. Another fact used was that the Belfast
council supply teaching service runs supply for the whole of
Northern Ireland.
In Sefton, actual headteachers interview and appoint supply teachers.
There is joint union training for teachers and assistants on child
protection. Schools are encouraged to allow supply teachers to
attend their CPD.
On the negative side, there is no mechanism for supply teachers to
move up the pay scale. Some teachers with gaps in service are now
even being knocked back down the pay scale.
Morale amongst supply teachers nationally is rock bottom so
bringing back supply pools is vital for the education service.
Feedback from the conference workshops
The Welcome Pack for supply teachers – chaired by Chris McMullen
The workshop comprised mainly of primary teachers, so the contents
of the welcome back focussed more on the needs of supply teachers
in that sector:
 A timetable
 Information on the collection/dismissal of pupils
 Breaktime supervision arrangements
 Emergency evacuation information
 Medical/behaviour issues of individual pupils
 Location and access codes for computers
 Printing/reprographic procedures
 Support staff details
 Marking procedures
 Behaviour/rewards procedures
 Who to contact for help and where
 Where available through sims thumbnail pictures of pupils
The Charter for Supply Teachers – chaired by Philip Roberts
The Charter was produced by the NEC following a motion at the 2013
National Conference. It was clear from the wording that no actual
supply teachers had been involved in its drafting!
The call to employ “directly or through the local authority rather than
use agencies” took no account of the fact that the Lancashire
Teaching Agency worked hand in hand with the local authority and
did pay “the proper rate for the job” and used the TPS.
The call for supply teachers to “have the opportunity to make
pension contributions” ignored the fact that agencies now have to
offer pension schemes but these are invariably inferior to the TPS.
The latter should be a condition of the Charter.
The recommended “welcome pack” was important as recognised by
the workshop today but there was no need to stipulate its contents
within the Charter. The contents could be the subject of a separate
briefing paper. More important was a call for schools to treat supply
teachers as equal members of staff rather than, as is often the case,
“visitors”, often leading pupils to ask “are you a real teacher or a
substitute?”.
Much more thought needed to be put into the material which would
have to accompany the Charter arguing its case.
Schools signing up to the Charter should be recognised on the
Union’s website.
A letter to the National Executive – chaired by Steve Harrold
KC said that in addition to encouraging associations/divisions to
send motions on supply teachers to the NEC, the conference was
within its rights to send a letter directly to the General Secretary.
With this in mind, the workshop made 5 points for the national union
to focus on in its campaigning in support of supply teachers:
 Affirm that local supply pools are more efficient and desirable
than agencies
 In areas where all supply teachers are employed through
agencies, name and shame the agencies offering the worst
terms and conditions and encourage local authorities to
cooperate with neighbouring authorities to make supply pools
viable
 Need to address misapprehensions our permanent colleagues
have about supply teachers. We also need to push for CPD for
supply teachers to ensure we have the best qualified supply
teachers possible
 Challenge the accepted view that agencies cannot pay into the
TPS
 Identify and publicise the proportion of money schools pay to
supply agencies which actually goes to the teacher earning it
and how much to fund the bureaucracy and fat cat lifestyles of
the directors/shareholders.
Questions for lobby – chaired by Nick Wigmore
The workshop produced questions which MPs would hopefully find it
impossible to say “no” to:
 Do pupils have the right to a qualified teacher in every class?
 Should all teachers receive a fair rate of pay? If so, supply
teachers should be paid 1/195th of an annual salary.
 Should all teachers have a right to CPD?
 Should all teachers have a right to pay portability?
 Should all teachers have a right to maternity/paternity leave,
sick pay, leave of absence etc?
It had been hoped that Bridget … who has set up Supply Teacher
Roar on Twitter/Facebook would be able to attend the conference to
explain her intitiative but that had not proved possible.
Conclusion
Julia said that Richard Knight has started putting together a motion
to national conference which will be circulated to local
associations/divisions. Every local association can submit their own
motions to conference or vote to prioritise motions.
Members were encouraged to lobby Hamilton House so they realise
that training for supply teachers in term time means we’re not
earning money. One course was held in the first week of the Autumn
term and there was some debate about whether this was a quiet time
for supply teachers. There was however some agreement that the
last week before Xmas is when most schools don’t need supply
teachers. Phil felt that there was reluctance amongst union officials
to organise events during holidays as this might set a precedent but it
was the only financially viable option for supply teachers.
Nick said that the best person to contact at Hamilton House was John
Hegarty.