Cover Supervisors – Education on the cheap?
I have looked at the Camden motion on cover. It starts well restating the union's opposition to cover supervisors. However, it ends weakly with a call for cover supervisors to have decent pay and career prospects. I don't want to sound ultra-left but surely that is a call that UNISON ought to be taking up. Once they are in schools then it opens the floodgates to them being used for other duties previously carried out by teachers. In effect their motion is a testament to the failure of the NUT leadership to campaign against them back in 2003. Let's face it alot of head teachers will try to roll things back further and have these people doing more than merely covering for the first three days.
At my school there is a members meeting to discuss this issue. It will be interesting to see what response our position gets of no support for cover supervisors.
It is a difficult argument as many teachers will say ,'as long as I'm spared from doing cover then I don't care about unqualified people doing cover'. Plus management will try and blackmail staff and say that because of budget pressures then the only way to move towards the rarely cover target is to bring in cheap labour to do cover.
But surely our job as a union is to protect the jobs of our supply teacher members. By raising the white flag of surrender how are we defending their right to work as cover for absent teachers. We can't just let their right to work be given away just like that. I have several friends who are supply teachers and are loyal NUT members. They have told me how work is getting harder to come by due to the employment of cover supervisors.
As more and more schools employ cover supervisors then more and more people will be driven out of supply teaching. Eventually it will get harder for schools to find supply teachers to do long term sick/maternity cover.
I talked to a new teacher at our school. He was telling me that his wife worked as cover supervisor down in Dorset. She was paid a pittance about 11,000 a year and had a few days 'training'. She was then thrown in at the deep end trying to control riotous classes. To make matters worse many teachers had not bothered even to plan lessons properly so it really was a struggle. In the end she got sick of it and left the job.
We could do with more examples such as this. The national union needs to do some research into the effects of cover supervisors on the schools where they have been introduced.
Dylan Murphy Kirklees NUT
At my school there is a members meeting to discuss this issue. It will be interesting to see what response our position gets of no support for cover supervisors.
It is a difficult argument as many teachers will say ,'as long as I'm spared from doing cover then I don't care about unqualified people doing cover'. Plus management will try and blackmail staff and say that because of budget pressures then the only way to move towards the rarely cover target is to bring in cheap labour to do cover.
But surely our job as a union is to protect the jobs of our supply teacher members. By raising the white flag of surrender how are we defending their right to work as cover for absent teachers. We can't just let their right to work be given away just like that. I have several friends who are supply teachers and are loyal NUT members. They have told me how work is getting harder to come by due to the employment of cover supervisors.
As more and more schools employ cover supervisors then more and more people will be driven out of supply teaching. Eventually it will get harder for schools to find supply teachers to do long term sick/maternity cover.
I talked to a new teacher at our school. He was telling me that his wife worked as cover supervisor down in Dorset. She was paid a pittance about 11,000 a year and had a few days 'training'. She was then thrown in at the deep end trying to control riotous classes. To make matters worse many teachers had not bothered even to plan lessons properly so it really was a struggle. In the end she got sick of it and left the job.
We could do with more examples such as this. The national union needs to do some research into the effects of cover supervisors on the schools where they have been introduced.
Dylan Murphy Kirklees NUT
posted by classroom teacher at
14:09
2 Comments:
I totally agree with your points. I have been a supply teacher and have been for many years only working with local LEAs. The payment offered by agencies round here (South Wales) is at about 55% of my daily pay with the LEA as I am at the top of the scale with Threshold, and that's before you consider pensions.... Consequently I have never worked for agencies.
I am very concerned at the drop in supply work. I have had about 35% less work from LEAs in the last few years and it's getting very worrying. For some teachers full time work is not an option, for any number of reasons, and part time jobs are not always available or practical. Supply is often the only way of remaining in the profession.
I really wish the unions had shouted louder about agencies and cover supervisors from the start. I fear it may be too late to do much about this now. In the meantime I fear that the children are getting a raw deal with under qualified staff struggling to cover when the regular teacher is away. I agree that many supply teachers are giving up because of the lack of work but opportunities are dwindling despite that. I wonder how it will all end?
I am a cover supervisor and have worked at two different London secondary schools. I agree with certain points about the effect on children’s education if their classes are being covered by unqualified people. However, I am a serious and dedicated person; I consistently try to give the students the best cover I possibly can. I’m under no illusions that being unqualified means I am not delivering the best education the way their regular teachers could. I know that some of my ‘colleagues’ would be frowned upon with the way they handle the cover lessons, but I take pride in delivering the cover work so the children gain the most they can in their teachers absence.
However, there is an up side! The benefits of cover supervisors are, we get to know the students and build relationships, which consequently bring down the lever of misbehavior and disruption in a classroom. It also allows us to be aware of AEL and SEN children, giving us the ability to adapt our classroom management and the cover work given. It gives us the ability to deal with bad behavior properly, as we know the school and staff so can speak to the relevant people and applying the relevant consequences to the action. I would definitely say the organization of cover supervisors within schools needs addressing as there generally seems to be no chain of command for us and only basic training at the start of the job. The length of absence and related cover is also questionable; I know I have covered in some longer term absences.
Overall I would say cover supervisors can be effective cover for absent staff. They do however need to hire by experience and qualifications. By this I mean people dedicated to working to provide the best education. One of my colleagues is a retired assistant head teacher, being cover works for him. I am an experienced educated person, who will also be doing a PGCE next year!
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