The phone rings. I’ve been expecting the call. “Hi buddy, how you doing today?” 

He always calls me buddy. It irritates the piss out of me, but I let it slide; who wants an awkward conversation at 7.30am? “Great, thanks. What have you got for me?”

“A day of general cover at the academy. Can you be there in 20 minutes?” he replies.

In a recent survey by the Association of School and College Leaders, 71 per cent of schools said that the amount they spent on supply teaching had risen significantly in the past three years. This is mostly due to a shortfall of qualified teachers compared with the rising number of teachers leaving the profession. According to Department for Education figures, about a quarter of new entrants to the profession had left within five years of qualifying.

Most teachers who do quit cite the increased workload, excessive bureaucracy and a pernicious culture of continual scrutiny and blame. The thin silver lining in this dismal state of affairs for the nation’s education system is that if you want to work as a supply teacher, there are agencies desperate to sign you up.  

When I arrive at the academy, squatting on a dreary industrial estate at the fringes of north London, a board rubber’s throw inside the M25, all is quiet. Eerily quiet. This is obviously good, yet unnerving. Schools are not quiet places. The only time a school is quiet is when the kids aren’t there or on Armistice Day, and then only for 60 seconds. Even then there are always two members of staff who’ve forgotten, chatting away loudly by the photocopier. The atmosphere today reminds me of the bit in Watership Down when the rabbits come across a warren where everything seems idyllic until it becomes apparent that they’re under the protectorate of a farmer who feeds them well, but every so often kills them, skins them and eats them. 

The cover supervisor is welcoming and although I’m slightly late, she just seems happy I’m there at all. Without me, she’d find herself faced with the task of dragging a member of the permanent staff from the staffroom and telling them they’d just lost their free lesson. You have not seen fire and fury like a teacher being told they have to give up a free lesson.

They could try to find a member of the senior leadership team to take the class, who, due to their relatively light timetable, would almost certainly be free, but would suddenly remember an unscheduled but urgent meeting with a parent that precluded them from helping out this time…  sorry.  

I’m given my timetable for the day, five lessons of food tech, and we’re off. As I’m walked to the staffroom, I ask a couple of essential questions: how do I get hold of the on-call deputy if things get out of control? Whose name should I invoke to strike fear into the hearts of the troublemakers? What time can I leave? 

And then I’m on my own with a bunch of 15-year-olds.

Is it nap time?

The first few moments with any class as a supply teacher can define your whole day, so I know I need to play this carefully. The Year 10 students drift in, their sleep-deprived teenage eyes lighting up the moment they realise their usual teacher isn’t here. You can virtually hear what they’re thinking: “Great, I’m not going to get detention for the homework I haven’t done”; “Let’s see if we can get this one to totally lose his shit and start throwing things like the last guy”; and “Time for a nap.”

I opt for the benign and non-threatening, yet confident and assured stare, and a cheery “good morning, Year 10”. You have to reckon with a few minutes of general feet dragging and dithering before you take control; once I think I’ve got somewhere around 60 per cent of their attention, I speak. 

“My name’s Mr J. Ms Richardson is not here today, but she’s left work for you to do and as soon as I’ve taken the register, I’ll explain what it is. Please answer your name and if I mispronounce it, try not to burst out laughing like some of you inevitably will, thereby marking yourself out as an obvious pain in the arse.” 

I explain the work; in this case, as it’s an exam group, they have a practice paper to work through. Within a few minutes, everyone seems to be busy. So far, so good. I let them settle into their work for five minutes and then wander around the classroom to see if anyone needs help. They don’t. Leastways not from me. I flick through the food-tech textbook, offer my help a few more times, but by and large, the group look after themselves. That’s how it goes sometimes.  

But that’s not how it goes with the next class. 

‘Off their faces on Haribos’

The second lesson of the day is with Year 7, who you might think would be the easiest year to manage, being keen, fresh-faced and eager to learn regardless of who might be standing in front of them on any given day. And for the first two-to-three weeks in September, you’d be right. But a week into the summer term and that guileless innocence has long been beaten out of them.

Now they’re just extremely loud, quite unable to remain still for more than 30 seconds and - thanks to the newfound freedom afforded by walking to school on their own past the newsagents - off their faces on energy drinks and Haribos. Consequently, they take a little longer to settle down than the Year 10s.

I’m able to get one of them to take the register (a pro trick to avoid the name-mispronunciation issue), and I explain the work. Luckily, their regular teacher has left far more than is necessary, and although most of them don’t exactly look like they’re planning on “putting in a shift” today, you can also guarantee that a few of them will fly through the work and demand more. So we have an hour filled with dull but uncomplicated worksheets (them), and preventing people from flicking each other (me). 

The staffroom at break time is also weirdly deserted. This could mean one of a few things. Either the staff are very atomised and all stick to their own faculty offices (not uncommon when teachers are routinely worked so hard that they no longer have time for anything that is not quantifiable or which can be used to demonstrate progress, such as chatting to colleagues or having a coffee), or they’re so understaffed that every single teacher is on break duty or running an “intervention” class, or even, any teacher who is free is two streets away having a fag or crying silently in the loo. In my experience, all are equally likely. 

The rest of the day passes off without incident, which honestly is the best you could hope for. The same lessons are repeated to different groups and I manage to keep the kids in the room. Some even do a little bit of work. Towards the end of the final class of the day, a shy-looking Year 8 student sidles up to me at the front of the room and asks quietly, “Sir, will you be our regular teacher from now on?”

“I don’t think so,” I reply.

He nods thoughtfully. “That’s a shame,’ he says, “you were quite nice.” 

In the world of supply teaching, we call that job satisfaction.