Recruiters have a role to play in improving the quality of talent available to schools in the teaching profession, according to John Dunn, director at educational staffing specialist, Randstad Education.

Dunn’s comments follow an Ofsted report which says teaching in 50% of secondary schools and 43% of primary schools teaching is no better than satisfactory.

Dunn told Recruiter schools are not helping matters by overusing unqualified people – teaching assistants – particularly where they are covering for absent teachers: “In some schools, particularly in the most challenging schools which have a churning workforce and a higher than average absence rate, a child can have a year’s worth of teaching by people who are not their normal teacher.

“It mounts up to a sizeable percentage of teaching some children’s cases. An increasing amount of teaching is being done by people called cover supervisors, typically qualified teaching assistants.

“Schools should place a fully qualified teacher in that position either from their own list that they would maintain or supply teacher providers.”

Anton Roe, director at Alderwood Education, adds: “From a recruitment business point of view, we would love to see schools take on more supply teachers. Ultimately, if you are looking at any business, fixing problems with talent goes back to permanent staff.

“Not enough schools engage with permanent recruiters to engage their permanent staff and rely on traditional networks. Perhaps schools should look to recruitment agencies for permanent hires rather than short-term supply.”