Maternity cover

[pretzel2101]

Just want your opinion on this:

DS's (Y10) Science teacher has just left the school on maternity leave. They have sent two part-time teachers to cover her, however both of these are also pregnant, and are due to leave by the end of the academic year. The original teacher has already left earlier than expected.

Has this happened to anyone else? I don't particularly want to complain to the school, but what else could I do?

[titchy]

Not sure what the problem is. The maternity leave has been covered by suitably qualified teachers. Given the shortage of Science teachers they've done pretty well.

The original teacher may well be planning to come back in September if you're concerned about who teaches them next year. The fact that the cover teachers are also pregnant isn't really a reason to be concerned, and certainly not a reason they shouldn't have been appointed.

[pretzel2101]

titchy - the two cover teachers are meant to leave at the end of the year with the original teacher coming back after Christmas. So the autumn term is left with no-one, at the moment. That autumn term is also the time they are scheduled to do their CA so I'm a bit worried.

[Fedup21]

Certainly not ideal, but I suspect this is going to be happening everywhere on a massive scale in schools over the next year/two years.

Maybe the government with think twice then about the mess they've made, but I rather suspect not. It'll be the unlucky children whose exam results suffer.

[titchy]

They'll probably have one of the existing staff for year 11. Timetables are rejigged each year and it'll be one of the other year groups that gets a supply for a term. No school leaves their year 11s floundering.

[SueLawleyandNicholasWitchell]

Science teachers are like hen's teeth.

There is zero point in complaining because the school can't magic them out of nowhere - they are doing their best.

[pretzel2101]

titchy - at ds's school teachers are carried through years 9/10/11 unless one leaves, so really the cover would still be there in autumn.

Same thing happened last year with Maths, they were left with a rubbish cover teacher, DS only managed to do well (he's top set by the way) by attending after-school revision from another teacher

[titchy]

That's the aim in my dc's school too. In reality though if they need to change teacher, for example in the circumstances you've mentioned, they will.

[Stillunexpected]

What would be the point of complaining? I suspect school have only come up with this solution as a last resort, it certainly isn't anyone's idea of a god cover situation. If there was a better one, they would have implemented it. I am finding it really scary how many schools are struggling to find teachers, particularly it seems in science and maths.

[rollonthesummer]

Complain all you like. If the school can't hire teachers because there aren't any, what do you expect them to do!?

[thatsn0tmyname]

They'll rejig the classes ready for September. Chances are that other teachers in the dept will leave too and new ones will be arriving. The deadline for current teachers to resign is May half term.

[catslife]

Having been a school governor, it is slightly too early for schools to know now which teachers will definitely still be there in September.
Teaching vacancies for September will be advertised from now onwards. These jobs will be advertised as fixed term contracts.
As others have said, some teachers leave for other reasons as well and since teachers can resign up until the end of May e.g. because they are moving to another school and then these jobs also need to be advertised, the school may not finalise staffing arrangements until July.
If needed the CAs can be rescheduled as they can be done any time between October and March. So try not to worry about this too much.