The Department for Education’s digital team has developed a prototype service to help schools find supply teachers.
It is intended to provide an alternative route to going to an agency, enabling the school to look at all the supply teachers available and make an informed decision themselves.
The service will show the availability, day rates, experience and specialisms of available teachers, along with the year groups they have taught and feedback from schools.
A blogpost by head of insight and service design Courtney Brightwell said the prototype has been tested with four school business managers who provided positive feedback.
Among the advantages claimed is that it could save schools time and money.
The development comes after schools have been challenged by staff absence problems Covid-19 broke in March 2020 and they became increasingly reliant on supply teachers.
“Looking ahead, we hope to use a service design approach to explore the supply teachers’ market in more depth with our policy colleagues,” Brightwell said.
