A career in supply teaching can be a very rewarding one and also leave you the time and flexibility you need to do the things you want to do. Below are some tips that might help you when choosing a career in supply teaching.
1. Choose an agency which specialises in teaching, and more specifically supply work. It might be tempting to register with lots of generic agencies but the reality is that they’re not best placed to help you. If you’re unfamiliar with names of specialist agencies a good place to start is Google. If you have ‘auto-detect location’ turned on Google will only return search results local to you. Try searching ‘supply teaching agency’, ‘supply teaching recruitment agency’ or ‘supply teaching jobs’, to browse a list of local agencies to you.
2. Be honest when meeting the agency. The agency will want to meet you face-to-face, normally at registration period. Styles vary across the industry, but prepared to treat the registration as a job interview. Be honest about your strengths, weaknesses and preferences on travel distances, school size etc. Giving the agency a full appraisal of what you’re looking to achieve will increase your chances of finding a role that suits you, and will reduce the amount of roles you have to reject.
3. Be able to drive. It isn’t a pre-requisite, far from it in urban areas, but it will certainly help you.
4. Be ready. Typically, agencies work in two ways. 1: agency books you in advance or 2: you receive a morning call. We recommend that you’re ready to take a phone call as early as 7:15am. Being as flexible as possible will endear you to the agency and will put your name higher up the list of teachers to call. If you cannot make the distance in the time-frame, make sure you tell the agency.
5. Be prepared. Sometimes the school will have plans they want to use, sometimes they don’t. It’s always a good idea to take work with you and have a back-up plan. Make sure you mention this during the interview stage with the agency, either from previous experience or as intent for ‘how you work’.
1. Choose an agency which specialises in teaching, and more specifically supply work. It might be tempting to register with lots of generic agencies but the reality is that they’re not best placed to help you. If you’re unfamiliar with names of specialist agencies a good place to start is Google. If you have ‘auto-detect location’ turned on Google will only return search results local to you. Try searching ‘supply teaching agency’, ‘supply teaching recruitment agency’ or ‘supply teaching jobs’, to browse a list of local agencies to you.
2. Be honest when meeting the agency. The agency will want to meet you face-to-face, normally at registration period. Styles vary across the industry, but prepared to treat the registration as a job interview. Be honest about your strengths, weaknesses and preferences on travel distances, school size etc. Giving the agency a full appraisal of what you’re looking to achieve will increase your chances of finding a role that suits you, and will reduce the amount of roles you have to reject.
3. Be able to drive. It isn’t a pre-requisite, far from it in urban areas, but it will certainly help you.
4. Be ready. Typically, agencies work in two ways. 1: agency books you in advance or 2: you receive a morning call. We recommend that you’re ready to take a phone call as early as 7:15am. Being as flexible as possible will endear you to the agency and will put your name higher up the list of teachers to call. If you cannot make the distance in the time-frame, make sure you tell the agency.
5. Be prepared. Sometimes the school will have plans they want to use, sometimes they don’t. It’s always a good idea to take work with you and have a back-up plan. Make sure you mention this during the interview stage with the agency, either from previous experience or as intent for ‘how you work’.