Teachers: Coronavirus

(asked on 16th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to provide schools in England with additional funding to fund supply teachers needed to cover for staff who are self-isolating as a result of advice from NHS Test and Trace.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 19th November 2020

The Department’s guidance for schools on full opening sets out the options available for schools seeking to manage staffing capacity as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition to using supply teachers and other temporary or peripatetic teachers, schools can also consider using existing staff more flexibly, including support staff and ITT trainees, or volunteers, as would usually be the case. This guidance can be found: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools.

Schools have continued to receive their budgets as usual, which has ensured they have been able to continue to pay for staff and meet their other regular financial commitments. As stated in our guidance, schools should continue to use their existing resources to manage staffing capacity. Where schools do hire agency workers, we recommend they consider using the Department for Education and Crown Commercial Service’s agency supply deal, as this offers a list of preferred suppliers that must be transparent about the rates they charge.

We continue to work with stakeholders and representative bodies to understand the staffing capacity pressures that schools are facing and how we might best support them.

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