Many schools will not be able to afford to employ the ex-teachers the government has encouraged to come back to classrooms to “plug gaps” caused by surging Covid absences, headteachers and supply teacher leaders have warned.
The Department for Education launched a scheme to get ex-teachers back into classrooms to help with Covid-19 staff shortages next term, with Christmas Eve set as the deadline day for applications to ensure candidates could be in classrooms for January.
However, headteachers have told Tes that the costs of such a scheme may be unattainable for many schools with supply budgets already stretched, as the Omicron variant is expected to create even further disruption next term.
Data released by the DfE on 14 December showed that 2.4 per cent of teachers and school leaders in open state-funded schools were absent owing to Covid-related reasons on 9 December, an increase of 20 per cent in just a fortnight.
There are concerns that the disruption will only increase with the spread of Omicron over the Christmas period and - as daily Covid figures reached a record-breaking 183,037 in the UK yesterday - that schools will need more financial support if they are to stay open.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, warned this week that schools were doing “scenario planning” before their pupils returned and that “in the worst-case scenario, if you couldn’t cover all of your year groups in that situation, you would have to make a decision - in secondary, for example, are you going to say exam classes come back and others are remote learning?”
Mr Barton said heads did not want this to happen but were “basically doing what wasn’t done by the government last year, which was scenario planning”.
Schools might also run staggered returns as they carried out on-site testing of pupils, he said.
Workforce fund too ‘strict’
Last week, Tes revealed that only four per cent of schools applied for the workforce fund - designed to support schools hit by high levels of staff absences - last year, despite increasing numbers facing financial burdens due to Covid disruption.
ASCL criticised the “strict” criteria that schools have to meet to be eligible for the fund, as many schools are forced to make the difficult decision between going into deficit situations or leaving the absences open.
The DfE ex-teacher recruitment push came after it emerged that schools were struggling to find supply teachers to fill absences last term. However, heads told Tes that, even if more teachers are recruited to support schools, high agency costs and multiple absences over the last term mean that many schools have run out of budgets allocated for supply this academic year.
‘I cannot afford supply now and if I cannot cover in house I will have no choice but to close bubbles to remote learning. Many schools are in the same position’
Emily Proffitt, headteacher at Cooper Perry Primary School, told Tes: ”The workforce fund is only available for schools with no surplus. Because we just managed to balance our budget I get nothing, despite a forecast deficit moving forward.
“I cannot afford supply now and if I cannot cover in-house, I will have no choice but to close bubbles to remote learning.
“Many schools [are] in the same position,” she added.
Under the current criteria for the workforce fund, as well as meeting the absence thresholds set by the DfE, schools must show that their reserves at the end of the funding year are down to a level of no more than four per cent of their annual income.
But the risk of entering into a deficit is not one that some are willing to take.
One head in the North West of England told Tes that he hadn’t “dared to look at our outlay on supply”, adding that it costs his school around £197 on one supply teacher for a day’s cover.
And Pepe Si’Iasio, headteacher of Wales High School, Rotherham, told Tes that he and colleagues were “worried about funding and availability for supply” in the new term.
Meanwhile, supply teacher Tim Holden, who has been advising thousands of supply teachers struggling with pay-related issues during the pandemic, said that school budgets are stretched due to high cover costs over the last year, and that the use of agencies rather than hiring directly has increased financial pressure.
The DfE said there would be no additional or more immediate funding that would be made available to schools in addition to the workforce fund.
‘Teaching isn’t just a body in a room’
There have also been concerns about delays and backlogs to the application process, amid claims that it could be up to 25 days before ex-teachers have been cleared and are ready to go back to the classrooms.
Joanna Clark, an ex-teacher, told Tes that relationships between teachers and their pupils are a key aspect in the classroom that the government’s scheme has overlooked.
‘Teaching isn’t just “a body in the room”; it’s about building relationships and structures with your pupils so they can learn effectively’
She added that after four years away from the classroom, she worried she would be incredibly “rusty”.
New social mobility chief and Michaela Community School head Katharine Birbalsingh has also weighed in on the debate around the importance of relationships with teachers, claiming that the ex-teacher drive meant “we have no idea of the reality of teaching”.
Caroline Derbyshire, executive head of Saffron Walden County High School in Essex and CEO of Saffron Academy Trust, also expressed doubts about the scheme’s success, saying “it isn’t just a matter of strolling back in”.
Ms Derbyshire explained that schools have “really evolved in the last couple of years” and returning to the classroom in January will be “really challenging”, because of changes in school culture during the pandemic.
“We’ve developed a culture in schools of when students are off and unable to come in, of teaching from the classroom and delivering that lesson online at the same time. That blended approach has become an expectation now.”
She added that prioritising teachers for vaccination should have taken place: “I felt all along that teachers and pupil-facing staff in particular in schools should have been prioritised for vaccination at an early stage.
“I think it is a great shame that that little bit of foresight wasn’t put in there. If we want our schools to stay open, to actually prioritise the protection of pupil-facing staff would have made a huge amount of difference.”
Safeguarding worries in special schools
Concerns have also been raised over the scheme’s suitability for special schools that have struggled with absence this term.
Special school head Simon Knight told Tes that teachers only make up 25 per cent of the classroom, with teaching assistants being a vital part of the delivery of education and ensuring classroom safety.
“The special-school sector has the highest proportion of vacancies and temporarily filled posts of any sector of education, so staffing is already likely to be stretched and absence difficult to cover,” he said.
“As well as having a deep understanding of the individual children they work with, special-sector staff need to have training in medical, nutritional and behavioural support - training that is not quick to arrange or deliver.”
He added that while the campaign was important, it once again reflected an initiative that lacks the necessary consideration of what special schools require.
“With many schools having already spent significant funds on additional cover and cleaning, it is important to find ways of securing staff that doesn’t cost the earth and where the money spent is directly linked to additional staff on-site, and not taken up by commercial supply costs.”
‘The very nature of SEND schools is it’s extremely bespoke to the individual needs of each pupil’
DfE data for 9 December showed that 2.1 per cent of teaching assistants and other staff in open state-funded schools were absent owing to Covid-related reasons.
The workforce fund, which was reintroduced earlier this month, sets a lower absence threshold for the sector (total teacher and leader absence rate above 15 per cent on a given day or 10 per cent for 15 or more consecutive school days).
Marijke Miles, headteacher at Baycroft School in Hampshire, said that teachers for pupils with SEND need “specific training” as provision is “extremely bespoke to the individual needs of each pupil”.
“It’s clearly a sincere and genuine thought to try and find a solution to what is going to be a very pressing problem,” she said. “But I think it’s going to be very problematic in the SEND sector and of course…could ultimately lead to safeguarding issues on both sides.”
Ms Miles explained that supply teachers will also need to complete specific training within the school, with some training taking two full days for regulatory compliance.
“If the problem we are trying to solve is that the staffing shortage is so extreme that we are calling up former staff, then by definition, we won’t have the capacity to train people while we’re trying to keep classes open.
“A lot of schools are already short on teaching assistants and one of the big issues is the absolutely exorbitant fees that the agencies are charging, which is basically double what we pay as a TA wage.”
She says that she was quoted over £200 a day for a supply teacher and £110 for TA supply just before Christmas.
