How is the Welsh Government working to ensure that all substitute teachers allocated by teaching agencies adhere to the same standards that a full-time employed teacher would be expected to meet?
Under the regulatory framework and local management of schools’ arrangements, schools and governing bodies in Wales are responsible for ensuring sufficient and suitable staff are in place, including for cover arrangements.
The Welsh Government has supported the system by putting in place and managing the Welsh Government Corporate Procurement Supply Agency Framework. This helps schools to recruit temporary staff through a national list of approved agencies who will have met specified quality requirements and be formally monitored as part of the framework arrangement. This includes being regularly audited by both the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate and an approved representative professional recruitment body, as well as signing up to the Welsh Government’s Code of Practice on Ethical Employment in Supply Chains.
As set out in the National Professional Learning Entitlement, we want to ensure that all practitioners, including supply teachers, in Wales have access to consistent and high-quality professional learning throughout their career. To ensure development opportunities for educational practitioners are easily accessible, a new professional learning area was launched on Hwb in September 2023. This provides a single point of access to high quality, professional learning resources.