* Your report contains protests from the general secretary of the NASUWT on the legal right of teachers for time to mark and plan lessons, but misses an essential point: if lessons are to be “planned, prepared and assessed”
by qualified teachers they must also be delivered and discharged by qualified teachers.
Yet many schools are using unqualified staff as cover in a cynical cost-cutting ploy.
Such action has not only undermined and devalued the entire teaching profession but has seriously affected the quality of education. Heads who have let this happen should be brought to account.
The many postings about this issue on the TES website show the anger, disillusionment and frustration felt by teachers at how supply cover is arranged due to a cynical, unprincipled operation of the so-called workload “agreement”.
Philip L J Barton
64 Whipton Lane
Exeter
