Cover lessons at Private school

[Boosee]

Just wanted to check if anyone knows about policies at private schools re. Cover lessons? At my daughter's school, 2 out of 4 art lessons this term have been covered by a supply teacher who is not a qualified art teacher due to exams. Some cover lessons took place last term as well.Their teacher left instructions on Google classroom and they were expected to just get on with it. As this was an expected absence due to exams, should the school ensure a qualified art teacher covers the lessons? I've also noticed cover/supply teachers being used in other lessons with teachers that are not qualified in the subject, so the pupils are expected to follow written instructions on Google classroom. This also happened in the autumn term but I didn't raise the issue then. I've raised it with the head of year now, but haven't received a response yet. Is there a standard policy private schools should follow, they have nothing on their website regarding this.

Thanks

The point about private schools is that there are no standard procedures, they can do whatever they want with things like this. They are highly unlikely to have a written policy for cover/supply.

There isn't a standard policy all private schools should follow.

How acceptable you think it is is very dependent on the age of the class. At age 7 I wouldn't be too bothered.

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You do realise there is a general teacher shortage, right? That teachers in private schools don’t come from a different pool of teachers than non-private? You’re lucky to have a qualified teacher standing in front of them, let alone a subject specialist, private sector or no.

Sounds pretty standard for state schools. But if I were paying £12k a year for my child's education I'd probably be querying it! However OP there is a massive shortage of teachers even in the private sector, as many PPs have said so I'm not surprised. I'm sure the school will be doing all they can to recruit but if they simply don't have the staff there's not much else they can do.

I teach in the private sector. In all the schools I've worked in they don't ever get supply for short term absences, we are expected to just cover for absent colleagues in our 'frees' (ie our marking and planning time). I lose two or three lessons a week to this. We are also expected to set work on google classroom for our classes when we are off sick like you describe.
For longer term absences we used to get supply but there just isn't any to be had. Last year one of my colleagues was on maternity leave and they couldn't find any cover (shortage subject) so the HoD set the lessons on google classroom and we all covered lessons for the whole year.
This is education now. Private schools are squeezed as well and they don't have spare budget for cover.

Yeh agree with others - of course there is no standard policy for private schools with regard to use of cover. After all, teachers in private schools don't even have to be qualified (tho I am well aware that most are).

In this area the school can do whatever paying parents will put up with. How old is your DC? If year 7 or younger then I might suck it up I guess. Assuming you are otherwise happy with the school.

I imagine btw the OP is paying a fair bit more than £12k a year esp if secondary. I agree that if you are paying it's not ideal.

Completely standard in private schools, I'm afraid.

People think that private schools are wonderful, but in reality they aren't (unless you're talking Eton etc). I think if people knew what really went on inside them, they'd be fighting to get their kids in to the best possible state school and crying over the money paid. Relative works in one. There just aren't enough staff. They are burnt out, overworked and underpaid.

In my department we always try to cover within, ie a subject specialist will cover. We are a large department though. I imagine as Art is a small department there may only be one or so other Art teachers, chances are they aren’t ‘free’ at the time. It’s pretty standard in any school to have a non specialist covering for the odd lessons; only if it was a long term absence would they try and get a subject specialist.

As others have said, there is a massive recruitment problem in teaching whether it’s private or state !

I imagine it's especially difficult for Art this term, because the A level practical part of the exam takes 15 hours, the GCSE 10 hours, and "The timed Art examination will normally be invigilated by an Art and Design teacher." (see here and here.)

During all that time the Art teacher will need cover for their non-exam classes, and all schools would be looking for cover at the same time.

I suspect it's getting harder in all schools, but more slowly in good private schools than in state, or in less successful privates. We're lucky, I think my kids have had no than more than a small handful of cover lessons taught by a non subject specialist in all the years they've collectively been at their private school. Odd cover lessons usually taught by another teacher in the department, and any longer absence eg maternity or long term illness always has a subject specialist. But I imagine it's particularly hard at this time of year, in any secondary school, due to staff helping with exams.

I’ve never known a private school get supply in unless it’s for long-term cover. They just set work and someone loses their free to supervise the kids doing it. Actually, most of the time even if it is a teacher from the same department they won’t actually teach the class purely because they are losing their free. They’ll expect the kids to just get on with work so the can get on with marking, admin etc

Did you see that one of Keir Starmer’s six pledges is recruiting more teachers? Not that 6500 more will touch the sides in some subjects. I see a time when google classroom is the norm and qualified teachers are just supervising ‘delivery staff’.

As an aside, I also used to get taken for unforeseen cover in state schools. If you had an unfortunate free period which had a lot of absence ( Friday afternoon) you could get taken every week. You need bodies in front of classes.

@Moglet4 they may not be planning the lesson, but it still makes a difference to have a subject specialist doing cover so that they understand the content being delivered and can help students with questions etc.

Recruitment isn't the issue, retention is. Until the pressure on teachers is reduced you canvrecruit as many as you like but it won't stop there being a mass exodus of teachers.
6500 teachers is 0.25 of a teacher per school. This will help how?
If >10% of private school DC leave and go to state sector then the net income of VAT will be £0 so how exactly will Labour fund these 6500 teachers? They will also have to foot the cost of this 10% in state schools so it will actually cost the taxpayer.
Labour's figures are wildly optimistic and have now been refuted by further research eg ASI etc

Of course, but speaking purely from experience a teacher covering will not want to answer many questions when they’ve had their free nicked. Many, many private teachers will tell the kids to work in silence and not disturb them

It's very common in all schools to have some art lessons covered to allow the teacher to invigilate the 10-hour GCSE exam and 15-hour A-level exam, probably plus a practice run for year 10/12. Art probably has a higher ratio of "doing" to "listening to the teacher" than most subjects, so if the teacher organises things well, they can make sure pupils are in a position to make good use of a lesson when they are not there.

On a practical level, you're asking the school to find a qualified art teacher willing to cover a couple of weeks in the summer term, plus random other days when the art teacher is ill or otherwise absent. Occasionally they might have a retired teacher willing to come back, but otherwise it's unlikely, and there are probably better uses of money.

If there's a policy to ask about, it's how quickly they get in specialist cover for longer-term sickness absence, particularly in core subjects, where a fortnight's absence can mean several lessons missed.

I’m astonished at the question. Of course there is no standard policy on this all private schools should follow.

Is there a standard policy private schools should follow

They can do what they want. Legally they can have someone who has never seen a paintbrush or a child before teach art indefinitely.

I have heard of schools that are run by the local authorities and they have to follow a curriculum set by the government and employ qualified teachers. There's all sorts of rules about class sizes and all sorts of things like that.

Which year? If it was Years 1-9 I wouldn’t be too concerned but GCSE would be worrying

I've worked in a number of private schools. It's been the same in all of them: the teacher simply sets work (or HoD does) and a random teacher from the school supervises the children (usually in silence) while they get on with whatever they've been set. There is no one single rule but this is very very normal.

I've just checked with my children. They said what normally happens is they have a more 'eyes down' lesson than normal (presumably set by the normal teacher??). Another member of the department will actively teach the lesson as normal for the first 20 minutes or something, and then then it will be quiet working for the rest, with help for any questions. Very occasionally it will covered by a teacher in a different subject, in which case it will just be quiet working.