No cover for maternity

GuessWho: What is the situation about covering maternity leave? The authority I work in claims there is no subject specialist available to cover and there is nobody on the supply list to cover the leave. Pupils are now being put on never-ending please takes ... or until someone magically appears!

airy: It should be advertised. I would be kicking up a fuss if I thought my kid wasn’t getting a proper teacher for all that time!

inthered: We have no specialist supply in our subject either. It’s affecting our workload, since we have to rotate classes to try and ensure all classes get some teaching. Maybe we should refuse to mark the extra work generated. And refuse to write extra reports or see extra parents at parents’ evenings.

grunwald: It will depend on your subject and your school. In general, the rougher the school, the harder it is to get supply staff to stay.

Flyonthewall75: I suspect officials are already having doubts about the cuts to supply teaching and their impact on schools. My guess is they will initially agree to pay short-term supply teachers at the correct point on the payscale, but without restoring the full hours, to see if that resolves the problem. So now is the time to be pushing hard so that all teachers are paid the correct rate for the job.

www.tes.co.ukscotland.