Supply teachers costing schools £1.4bn

Sky News has reported that supply teacher costs are rocketing because of chronic teacher shortages and increased sickness absences; and that it has cost the education system nearly £1.4 billion in the last year alone. That money could be better spent on pupil enrichment.

And students know they are missing out. One said: “Every lesson we would have a different supply teacher. I didn't feel like I was learning anything. We were falling behind."

And another said her science class was taught by five different teachers in a week. She said: "We had subs, and we have science five times a week, so we had a sub for every single one of those lessons - the sub changed for every lesson. Students (were) out of their seats, throwing stuff, talking, just anything you could really think of would be happening in that class. It was very loud, students weren't behaving, no one was really doing their work."

If we clean the air in schools, we can significantly reduce the number of coughs, colds, and Covid-19 infections that our kids catch at school. In turn, this would increase attendance, improve pupil concentration and performance, reduce schools’ spend on supply teachers and the number of lessons delivered by supply teachers, and reduce the sickness taken back into the family home, thus helping the economy and easing pressure on the NHS.

The benefits are enormous, and it would only cost around a fiver per pupil per year.