Although joining a supply teaching agency isn’t essential, many substitute teachers couldn’t imagine doing their job without one. If you’re a new supply teacher, choosing the right teaching agency is one of the main decisions to make.
With the chance to avoid alternative party fees, going it alone as a supply teacher is a tempting prospect. But more often than not, the ease, convenience and, generally, reliability of a teacher agency more than justifies the price. The secret to making a supply teaching agency do the job is choosing the right one. Don’t be tempted to join up to lots of different agencies, research your facts, choose a company that meets your criteria, and stay with it.
Choosing the right best supply teaching agencies London
1. Recommendations
A great spot to start when choosing the right supply teaching agency for you is to ask around for recommendations. Person to person is a robust force within the supply industry and finding someone that comes strongly suggested is a good spot to start. If you are stuck for local advice, why not try the Tes supply teacher forum?
2. Who do they work with?
Like a teacher, you’re the best person to guage your skill set and strengths and as a result, choose the schools you’d like to just work at. Before you sign up to a supply agency, be sure they use the schools on your list. Supply can be considered a great route into finding in a everlasting role in a school you like, but if your agency doesn’t deal with this school, it creates the work much harder.
Throughout your research, learn how many schools the agency you’re looking at works with and just how many placements they fulfil every day, this will provide you with a good gauge of how effective they can be.
3. Well-trained consultants
Within the best teacher agencies, a number of the recruitment consultants will be former teachers themselves. This inside knowledge is extremely helpful when choosing placements to suit your skills, and shared experience will help you create a relationship with your consultant, which is vital. Australian supply teacher Kayla Bransdon joined an agency after moving to London, “Before even moving to the united kingdom my consultant phoned me regularly to check on by domain flipping was feeling and ensuring I needed everything organised,” she said.
Regardless of whether your consultant hasn’t taught before, a good degree of experience in the training recruitment sector is essential.
4. Career development
Working with a company can actually assist with your professional development. Kayla recognises the opportunity for career development to be one of the main element advantages of working with a company, “The largest benefit of doing work for an agency is that everything is performed for you,” she said. “They find you work, handle PR, provide free professional development and is there as emotional support.”
All good agencies will provide you with at least some free training, recognising both the benefits of career development to you, as well as the kids you teach.
5. Fair and timely pay
It pays, literally, to do your research into an agency’s payment procedures. Check testimonials on the agency website and seek out reviews online – the teaching community are extremely proficient at sharing home elevators bad payers.
Learn how you’re getting paid so when. Each agency differs in its approach, but the main thing to find out would be that the mechanisms in place are as efficient as they could be.
The rate you obtain will change from agency to agency, but also for long-term supply a reputable organisation should be paying you consistent with your experience.
6. Safeguarding
Whilst safeguarding is an integral area for schools to take into account, it’s also an extremely good indicator to whether a company is reputable or not. All supply staff need at least two references as well as much criminal background checks before they start work.