A riotous class

Last week I did three days supply in a Year Six class. My return to teaching after six weeks off was... interesting.
The school was small, friendly, and well equipped and maintained. The class was... well, I worked Monday, Tuesday, and was asked to work Friday as the cover teachers for Wednesday and Thursday lasted less than two hours each. It's a real skill to take a wild class and get them 'on task' by 9.15, and even though my three days were frustrating, long, and full of difficult times as the class insisted on 'kicking off' at playtime an lunchtime when my stenorian voice was absent, I got twelve good lessons from the class.

There's a problem with supply, and it's not just supply teachers walking out due to class misbehaviour. The class I was covering was in a school with a forthcoming inspection. The teacher was presumed to have gone off in order to avoid the inspection, indeed the staffroom whispers told me, a complete outsider, that the teacher has a 'bad back' that is convenient for lengthy absences.

With supply teachers easily available, pupils are being let down. Teachers can go off at any time knowing their class is covered. The teacher I was covering left no planning, so my lessons were likely to be completely different to the curriculum they were supposed to be studying. This class will have a one-week gap in their knowledge due to a teacher taking time off and not fulfilling their duties. Heck, if I was off and seriously ill i'd always email lesson plans in. Why do some teachers believe that their right to sick pay is a right to drop work completely when they feel like it?

My LEA spent £2 million on supply last year. We paid for this out of our taxes. Surely the best thing to do is to allow Head Teachers to cut the hours worked by teachers with difficult classes? I have every sympathy for the teacher of the hellish class I spent three days with last week, and from what I was told in the staffroom, if she had a day or two a week with a nice class to look forward to she wouldn't hate her job so much, and possibly wouldnt't have felt the need to completely avoid school during het absence. Heck, she probably wouldn't have been off work at all.

If your child's class teacher becomes absent for more than a week talk to the Head Teacher. Ask them how your child is being taught, and if their teacher is still planning the lessons. It's absolutely your right to do this, and if you don't, they may be telling the supply teacher what I was told last week: "Do whatever you want with them. There's no planning anyway." your child deserves more.