I'm a supply teaching assistant. I've been doing it for coming up to a year now and really enjoy it. I now have my "regular" schools which I go to often and have developed a relationship with the staff and children there, which is good. I enjoy the variety and the flexibility, but the agency are starting to grate on me a little.
Obviously one of the advantage of supply is that you can pick and choose your hours, and I'm pretty much always available. However recently they've been phoning me when I'm down as unavailable, last week I had an appointment on Friday afternoon but the agency phoned me in the morning and pretty much begged me to go a particular school for the full day (they really liked me, they specifically asked for me back etc. The school is lovely, so stupidly I gave in and rearranged my appointment for this morning. However ive already had about five missed calls from the agency alone this morning, and one message asking if I'm available all day (they know that I' m not).
At the school I was working in yesterday there was another girl on supply from my agency who has another part time job elsewhere and she said that they'd been doing exactly the same thing to her, despite them knowning that she has another job. This is a new development and it wasnt like this before the summer holidays.
Also, a while back I received very bad feedback from one school. It was I felt very unfounded as they were hostile to me from the off. I was supposed to go back for another shift but they told the agency they didn't want me back. After that I said I'd refuse to go back and told the agency this, but they've phoned me three times in the last week asking me to go back to this school and each time I've told them I'm not going back and why!
Is this normal stuff for an agency? I often find them very pushy, and they try to send me to placements that I don't have the skills or experience for. I dont want to leave but am starting to feel I have no choice.
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Supply agency issues. Any advice greatly appreciated.
23 replies
Rhine · 06/10/2015 10:24
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