Teacher blog featuring the latest news and thoughts about teaching and education.
Venturing into the unknown is always a daunting experience, especially when faced with unfamiliar destinations and seas of new faces wondering who you are. Despite any reservations you might have, you will find that supply work provides a rich teaching experience and with every new assignment you will gain more confidence.
As a supply teacher, it is always handy to have a few extra activities up your sleeve just in case a lesson runs short. Having a few fun but purposeful activities which help consolidate children’s literacy or numeracy skills, or promote discussion, is a practical way to use additional time. If you ever find yourself with time to spare, here are some activities you could try with your classes.
During your time as a trainee or full-time teacher, you are constantly evaluating your own teaching practice through the exercise of formative assessment, conversations with your colleagues and class observations. Plunging into the world of supply teaching opens you up to a range of benefits but you may feel a little lost without the continuity of being in the same class day in and day out. You may begin to wonder, “How am I doing as a teacher?” or “Did I deliver that lesson well today?”. You could end up having a bit of a bad day and feeling like you have no one to reflect with or no clear steps to help improve your practice down the line. This may not apply to supply teachers in long-term placements but for those of you who have questioned how you’re getting on in day-to-day supply life, here are a couple of tips on how to continue being a reflective practitioner.
Teaching is tough—we know that and you know that. It's both physically and mentally demanding. In a 2019 survey by the charity Education Support more than three-quarters of teachers described themselves as stressed. Excessive workload and working hours are continually cited by teachers as the main causes of workplace stress. As a supply teacher, you have the added challenges of having to adapt quickly to a new school and not always knowing when the next role will become available. The coronavirus pandemic has created added stress for teachers with greater uncertainty in schools.
During this time of uncertainty we’re all currently facing with the ongoing COVID-19 situation, we wanted to reach out to all our teachers.
Following the announcement this week from the National Education Union the largest teaching union in the UK, teachers strike action by its members is looking extremely likely.
The Airsupply leadership team looks deeper at the impact of rising living costs within the broader economic picture. With recent government teacher pay announcements, inflationary pressures and tighter school budgets - what does all this mean for supply teachers? This one is not to be missed!
What to take on a day of supply? There are a few things some teachers take along which we think are pretty clever. There are some essentials which you’ll need to bring. A form of identification, A DBS and other things which a school may have asked you to prepare. Below we list some of the more unusual items which some of our teachers take with them.
At Airsupply, we’re lucky enough to read lots of CVs. As schools might also catch a glimpse of your CV, we consider what you can do to make yours stand out from the crowd.
With schools facing another year without a funding increase, we look at some of the strategies being used to save money. "It has not been possible to fund additional pressures facing schools in 2018-19.” The news delivered by the DfE is sure to be frustrating for school leaders. Making additional savings on top of the huge job of running a school is no easy task. Here, we list some ideas used by schools we work with to try to tackle the funding challenge.
