School: Bishop Luffa Church of England School, Chichester Interviewee: Geoff Greatorex School type: Secondary Date: 24 Mar 2004 LEA: West Sussex

In a Nutshell The context Before implementation Implementation Review Key elements

The context

• 85 teachers, 55 support staff
• Annual budget 2003-4: £3,626,000
• Annual spend on teaching staff – £2,517,000; support staff – £438,600 (including £49,000 for study supervisors)

Situation before implementation:

As a high performing school with a good record in staff attendance, recruitment and retention, Bishop Luffa’s initial motivation to develop its cover strategy was as much to maintain standards as improve them.

“To create the best possible teaching and learning environment for staff and pupils it’s important to change things, to innovate and to progress,” says staff manager Geoff Greatorex.
 
The school’s annual cover requirement (including illness, training, and so on) was, and is, approximately 7,000 hours each year. Last year there were a total 1,600 teacher lessons taken off in years 7-11, 500 due to illness.

Before study supervisors, the school used to ask its teachers to do cover duties (always unpopular) and brought in supply teachers, at a cost of around £45,000 per year. It rarely used supply agencies at £166 - £180 a day, instead it used its supply contacts at around £115 - £140 a day. The money to pay for this came from the main budget plus the old LEA training fund.

“The old strategy worked okay, but we wanted something that would make better use of our resources, improve learning and address teacher workload,” says Geoff Greatorex. “We consulted with staff and decided to develop a team of study supervisors to meet our cover requirements.”

Implementation of the plan

A new job description was written for the role, and a team of six study supervisors was recruited - three full-time, the rest 0.8 FTE. The supervisors were and are contracted to work from 8am (school start) to 2.30pm and also to attend professional development days. They receive pro rata pay over 12 months.

Bishop Luffa provided training in-house. Its experience as a technical college and leading edge school gave it the confidence and know-how to develop an intensive two week induction course.

“After the course the supervisors buddy-up and observe teachers – and each other – working in a classroom environment,” says staff manager Geoff Greatorex. “They’re also encouraged to do professional development courses and are monitored and mentored on an ongoing basis.”

The study supervisors meet as a team each morning to discuss any issues and to receive their daily cover timetable from Geoff Greatorex, who, on top of his management role has 0.44 FTE teaching duties in the school. The supervisors cover individual absences for up to a week, after that supply teachers are brought in.

When not providing cover support, some supervisors are linked to faculties, for example maths, science and art, where they help teachers in lessons and often with their lesson planning. They also can undertake other duties, for example resource creation and invigilation, and help out on school trips. They all have minibus licenses.

“The scheme works really well. I just meet the supervisors in the morning and tell them their cover duties, and they get on with it. If there are any ‘gaps’ in their days, they fill them on their own initiative. They save a lot of time, know the staff, the school and the pupils. And I know that they will do good job, says Geoff Greatorex.”

The result, he adds, is generally higher quality cover than provided by supply teachers, less disruption, better pupil behaviour and higher standards of learning.

Review

Since the supervisor scheme started four years ago the number of teachers absent for at least a day through sickness has declined each year: from 64 (of 85 teachers) before its introduction, to 61, to 56, to 52 last year

Supply costs have also been reduced. Luffa spent £45,000 annually on supply cover before the scheme. Last year it spent just £10,000 on supply teachers. The released £35,000 is spent as part of the funding for the supervisors. Additional funds come from Leading Edge money.

“Study supervisors aren’t a cheap option, and it’s been said that we’re spending too much on support,” says Geoff Greatorex. “But we’d be spending more if we just used outside cover supply staff. In effect our supply budget has been replaced by our study supervisor budget, and we get so much more value for money from our study supervisors.”

Teachers still do some cover in the school, but it’s greatly reduced. The highest individual cover burden was 14 hours last year and the average figure was 10 hours, compared to at least double those figures before.

Some early reservations expressed by teaching staff and unions at the beginning of the scheme have also been overcome. It was soon accepted that the supervisors were very good for teachers as it means they have to do no or very little cover, and because supervisors supervise and don’t teach. The supervisors also enable teachers to do more CPD as it is now easier to get quality cover.

“Overall the demand for cover is greater than before!” says Geoff Greatorex. “As teachers are spending more time actually teaching, they want to excel and learn more – so there are more absences due to collaboration and training.”

He adds that fundamental to the success of the study supervisors is they take on the school ethos and really understand how the school works. He believes that if the supervisors were simply ‘a bolt on extra’ the system wouldn’t work.

Three elements are key: