I’ve been in the teaching game for well over 20 years now. With all that experience, particularly these past three years working as a supply teacher, I can confidently say that, when it comes to schools, I’ve seen it all. 

Nevertheless, when I turned up last week for my first day of teaching since everything shut down in March, I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

What were schools going to look like in the Covid era? How had six months out of education affected the students? Would there be any coffee in the staffroom? Would there even be a staffroom?

But I felt lucky to have a job to go to at all. Supply work isn’t that secure at the best of times. Now, though, who knows when the work will come in? 

On the one hand, there’s likely to be a need for more supply teachers as the regular staff get sick or have to go into isolation. On the other hand, schools are understandably reluctant to have any more outsiders penetrating their bubbles (no sniggering at the back) than necessary. 

Coronavirus: The challenges for a supply teacher

So far, the work’s been slow to pick up, but that’s the case every September. When and if it does, I’m not sure how I’ll feel about it. In the usual run of events, I barely give a second thought to the poor teacher whose shoes I’m stepping into. Now it all feels a little more complicated. Not least because, if I’m taking over from someone who’s been struck down with Covid, I’ll have to wonder how robust the school’s safety measures are. 

On arrival at the school, there were a few obvious signs of the new order. There were Perspex screens in reception, to separate the office staff from visitors, hand sanitisers on every wall and posters reminding everyone about social distancing. So far so safe. 

My first indication that there might be one or two issues was the cover supervisor’s somewhat relaxed approach to ensuring that I was fully compliant with the schools’ biosecurity measures. I’d made sure to arrive early, expecting a briefing on what I could and couldn’t do to protect myself and the students, perhaps with a short video or PowerPoint to highlight the key points. 

That wasn’t quite how it went. Instead the cover supervisor hastily shoved a few sheets of printed A4 in my hands, with the slightly disconcerting instruction: “Here’s all that distancing and handwashing nonsense for you to look at if you get a moment.”

Budget hand sanitiser

Once I was in the classroom - a Year 10 RE lesson - things seemed to be in good order. The students were all in rows, facing the front of the class and as far apart as you could reasonably expect in a tiny room packed with 25 adolescents. To be honest, having worked at this particular school pre-Covid, it was a big improvement.

I chatted to a few students in the front row, from a safe distance, and the general assessment was that things weren’t all that different. The main issue they had was that the hand sanitiser the school used was clearly a budget brand, which smelled nasty and left an unpleasant, gritty residue on the skin. If that was all they had to complain about, I thought, things didn’t seem so bad. 

I read through the pages of “nonsense” I’d been given, to find that a comprehensive set of protocols were in place. Although, in practice, I couldn’t find the antibacterial spray I was supposed to clean down the teacher’s desk with after the lesson.

And as for the purpose of the walkie-talkie that all staff now had to carry “at all times”, I never found that out, because I wasn’t given one. On the whole, though, everything felt quite safe.

Staff on edge

In the staffroom, the changes were more apparent, and the atmosphere definitely a little more strained. Firstly, the luxurious four-seater sofas were all out of bounds. Only seating that could be sprayed down was now permitted. 

Not surprisingly, the staff also seemed more on edge than usual. During the 15-minute break, there was a great deal of fevered (excuse the pun) gossip about a Year 11 boy being sent home with a high temperature, and a girl in Year 7 throwing up in the loos. The kind of everyday events that in normal times wouldn’t even rate a mention now took on sinister undertones.

The Year 7 students I took in the afternoon thankfully behaved like most Year 7 students in their first few weeks of secondary school. They were cheery, chatty and excited to finally be at “big school”. 

I couldn’t decide if things were harder for the newbies, being thrown into this strange new world with all the extra rules, or easier, because they had no previous experience to compare it with. Either way, I was reminded that, regardless of what the outside world throws at them, children still mostly behave like children. 

I was also reminded about the demanding nature of the teaching profession, and found the toughest part of the day was not being able to slump down on a big comfy sofa during my breaks. I guess, in these tough times, we’ve all got to make sacrifices.

The writer took up supply teaching after 20 years in a full-time teaching job