Press releaseWednesday 17 September 2008
Academies top choice for supply teachers
- Just 3.7% of supply teachers would prefer their next placement to be in a comprehensive school
81% of supply teachers say they would prefer to work in Academies and City Technology Colleges (CTCs) over all other kinds of secondary schools reveals research by giant group plc, the contractor services provider.
According to the research by giant group, only 3.7% of supply teachers would like their next placement to be in a comprehensive, with a just 9.4% choosing a private school as their preferred placement location.
Matthew Brown, Managing Director, giant group, comments: “Such a low preference for comprehensive schools is surprising. It is partly driven by the negative publicity that has dogged comprehensive schools in recent years. Stories about poor teaching standards, a lack of funding and weak discipline are putting supply teachers off choosing comprehensives as their preferred placement. However, some of the negative perceptions of supply teachers must also be driven by their own experience.”
“At the other end of the spectrum, you could speculate that the unpopularity of private schools is based more on commitment felt by many teachers to give something back to society.”
Academies are a relatively new Government initiative and are located in areas where academic achievement is below the national average. They are often independent of their local authority.
Matthew Brown explains that Academies can be seen as combining the best of both worlds- having some of the independence of a private school, having the benefit of both public and private funding whilst also partly selecting students on the basis of academic merit.
Says Matthew Brown: “There seems to be significant attractions of working in Academies to supply teachers. Performance pay, a bigger emphasis on practical and specialist education methods, are all major motivating factors to contract teachers when deciding the location of their next placement.”
According to giant group, 71.7% of supply teachers would prefer a long-term contract over a higher per hour payment (28.3%).
Matthew Brown explains: “Long-term contracts are considered preferable to a higher-per-hour payment as for some contract teachers it provides a bigger pay benefit in the long-run.”
“This is especially the case since demand for supply teachers is much less volatile than other types of contractors, such as in IT or engineering sector for example, where sudden booms in demand are commonplace, leading to sharp rises in per hour payments.”
Other findings by giant group also showed that 47.2% of supply teachers said that flexible working was their main reason to become a contractor.
Note: Established in 1992, giant group specialises in providing services to recruitment agencies, temporary workers, freelancers and contractors. The range of services include agency back office solutions from giant precision – timesheet management, billing, payroll, contract management, pre-employment and background checking, BACS disaster recovery – and giant umbrella payroll services where giant is the professional employer organisation employing and payrolling the temporary workers and contractors.
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