AIBU to think Supply Teachers Should be Paid WAY More?

[LoveSkaMusic]

In any other job where a contractor is required, their day rate is massive compared to permanent staff. This is because they have to pay their own tax, get no holiday pay or any other benefits and are taking the risk of not finding their next contract particularly quickly.

So, why is supply teaching paid at less than the normal teaching rate (at least in the area in which I live)? It doesn't make any sense at all. Because supply teaching doesn't include pay for any of the school holidays, annually, it works out at minimum wage (give or take).

AIBU to think that supply teachers pay should be at least 50% higher?

You're not wrong. Unfortunately, I think a fair whack of teachers would leave their work and go into supply instead, so the government suppresses supply teacher pay to stop this.

Forgot to add, here in Northern Ireland, the supply teacher daily rate is the annual salary divided by the 195 school days. So a supply teacher who works every school day is no worse off over the year (except for cash flow during the holidays).

I do agree that it should attract a premium though, to compensate for the uncertainty.

https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/advice/supply-teacher/supply-teachers-pay/supply-teachers-pay-england.html

Looking at the Union website, it is only a problem for supply teachers working through agencies. Working directly for the school or LA, you would get the same pay as any other teacher.

a supply teacher (unless long term) comes in for the day and teaches a pre planned lesson. They don’t take over all the responsibility of the teacher (planning, marking etc) and therefore probably don’t need an uplift on the normal teachers salary.

not saying it’s easy but probably not comparable to other jobs where they do exactly the same as what the normal employee would do.

I like supply work and I think I'm good at it. My agency rate is £130/day before tax, no pension, sick pay etc. and my daily rate as UPS3 with a TLR is around £230. So YANBU in that I am worse off on supply.

However, like many public services schools are squeezed and use supply far less than they did, covering classes with support staff or putting classes together to save money. So I'm not sure putting up supply rates would help, unless more schools were prepared to employ bank staff on zero hours and cut out the agencies.

So, why is supply teaching paid at less than the normal teaching rate

To encourage you to take a permanent teaching job in a school.

There are also lots of ex-teachers with different levels of experience who could in theory turn to supply teaching. Like with every other industry I know if there are lots of people who could do a job and there is no immediate risk to health, then pay goes down. (The fact that people don't want to do a particular job for good reasons doesn't seem to factor.)

I’m on the fence with this in all honesty .

Im a supply teacher . I am M1 and I get £140 per day which is a few pound under the equivalent daily rate for M1 before the recent pay rise ( it would now be £153.00 ) . I think , for day to day , that’s fair . We don’t work holidays and don’t get paid for them - it’s not easy as I have to work a second job in the holidays , but supply was a personal choice . I think if you’re a higher pay scale then you should be paid more ( I know UPS teachers on the same daily rate as me which is awful ) .

However , getting paid the same as a teacher who is salaried? Well , for a start no teacher would be in a full time role they would all be in supply. There is absolutely no way that us supply teachers - on day to day at least - do anywhere near as much as full time CT’s do. As a day to day supply I go in , teach whatever has been pre planned for me , mark what I have taught and leave just after the children do. I don’t have to work through my lunch ( unless I decide to mark then so I can leave straight away - which I usually do as I am bored in the lunch hour ) , I have no responsibility over the class in the long term , I don’t have to do a single thing or think of anything at all outside of work hours . It’s easy . Behaviour management can be difficult but if it’s too bad I know I have one day there and I can say I don’t want to go back . I have worked full time in a permanent position and I had no life . I worked in the evenings , weekends , holidays and it was awful . In no way at all do I think my job as a supply is anywhere near as demanding as it is being a full time class teacher .

Im in a long term at the moment , with no planning , but I will be assessing etc and I am staying later and having to think about work outside of work so a part of me thinks maybe I should get a little more and I will broach the subject of AWR but still it’s nothing like the other teachers .

What needs to be done instead is working at making life bearable for teachers and taking pressure off so people like me don’t feel so overwhelmed and miserable that they leave to go into supply just to have a life .

I know of supply teachers getting a lot less than this and they're on higher than M1. It must differ a lot in different parts of the country and with different agencies.

I blame the agencies.

I've worked in teaching for longer than the agencies have existed. Originally you'd contact the school yourself and they'd put you on a list of people they would get in touch with if they needed a supply teacher. Or the county council would have a list.

Back then you got paid more per day if you worked as you were only paid for term time etc. If you ended up on a long term contract and worked a full year you would end up being paid the same as a full time member of staff would.

That was a faff for the schools, so agencies set themselves up on the principle that they would do the looking for the school.
Then they started offering a lower rate of pay to cover their own costs and be more economical to the schools.

Because schools wouldn't (can't) pay more. If supply gets too expensive they will attempt to cover with existing staff or just not cover some things. On the provider side, I can only speak for England, but supply agencies are private businesses, not government controlled and as long as they pay at least minimum wage, will obviously pay as little as they can get away with.

Supply teachers I have met have good reasons for not wanting to be permanent and prioritise schools that treat them decently and where behaviour is OK, rather than trying to negotiate pay.

My husband is paid £300 per day (but has to plan the lessons)

The issue is they do pay more, but supply agencies take a large cut and then they make you go through their offshore umbrella company for payment - it’s a scam.

@LoveSkaMusic Not much need for supply teachers now, OP. Both HLTAS and TAs in England can be used to cover classes for a fraction of the cost. I get paid £11.60p/h for the "privilege." Classes of 30, including high levels of additional needs, no other adult.
Some of my colleagues are paid even less.

I wonder why when I work directly for an academy school as a supply teacher I get paid on my pay scale but when I work for a council m a t school- which I started to this week- I have to accept three pay scales lower at m s 3?! Is this part if deterring teachers to move to supply. I left teaching for all the well known reasons! My agency I sometimes work for- I work directly for three schools/ academies more now due to pay- still paid me the same for 22 years despite me asking!!! At the moment they pay me £25 more than the original amount- £125 per day. I’m in Dorset. I don’t think this is in line with inflation, it’s rather insulting, it’s less than schools pay. I keep asking for more but there’s always a reason! Do academies tend to pay more than m a t schools?

I’m on £165 a day now, and have a few schools that I work with closely. My line with my agency is that I won’t work for less than a school would pay a gardener to come in and work for the day (no disrespect to any gardeners out there!) Though I suspect I’m still paid less than they would pay a gardener!
Agencies just take far too much money off top. It does stick in your throat a bit when you see them on LinkedIn at Christmas having huge parties in swanky hotels drinking champagne, or my particular favourite this summer was seeing “high achieving” agency staff on a work bonus trip to Spain!
I would say I work about 90% of the school year.

My DH is paid £310 per day, he invoices the school himself and has a direct contract. It’s rising in 2025 as they still need him.

I'm a teacher of 21 years, just done a full day of supply teaching; 8.30-3.30.
Will come out with around £120 for the day.
It's crap tbh.

All teachers should be paid more.

The end.

Supply teachers only do one bit of the job of being a teacher though. They don’t do the planning, the meetings, the parent consultations, the extra responsibilities of being subject lead or year lead, the filling in forms and dealing with other professionals about children and there’s plenty more.

Supply teachers often don’t do anything that a good TA couldn’t do and there’s a reason many schools look to their own support staff before going to an agency.

What crazy school is paying someone this?!? Why don't they just employ someone permanently?

Supply teachers only do one bit of the job of being a teacher though. They don’t do the planning, the meetings, the parent consultations, the extra responsibilities of being subject lead or year lead, the filling in forms and dealing with other professionals about children and there’s plenty more

don’t do planning? Lost count of how many days I did whilst on supply with sod all planning in place. When on long term supply, I always did planning, meetings, parent’s evening, phone call homes etc. I have handled safeguarding issues, writing statements. Long term supply requires dealing with other professionals. You are deeply naive if you think supply teachers don’t do extra. Some might run out on the bell but many don’t. I took it seriously, always had work, always paid to scale.

Because they can’t recruit! I’m assuming this is secondary. Schools are under huge pressure to get exam results. They can’t do this without long term quality teaching. Sometimes that means paying over the odds.

Because they can’t! They are a top grammar school and he’s a maths teacher! He’s only staying after Christmas as no one applied for the role this term. The day rate is equivalent to his salary before he left a normal teaching role - he was SLT. So when you take out pension, sick pay, national insurance - DH is still cheaper. Thats how much supply agencies charge the school.

DH is also planning and has full accountability for his classes. They redid the timetable for September to mean he works every period on the days he works (he won’t ever work full time as he owns a business). He also does parents evening, marking etc. the only thing he doesn’t do is any admin

Supply teachers don't have any where near the same workload and responsibility as permanent teachers with their own class. They don't have to (or at least shouldn't have to) do planning, marking, assessments, staff meetings, wall displays, report cards, parents nights.....

I am in Scotland it it seems to work completely differently to England, no agencies, paid same as if you were permanent, just for the hours you are actually teaching for and you do get holiday pay.