Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru The National Assembly for Wales Y Pwyllgor Plant, Pobl Ifanc ac Addysg The Children, Young People and Education Committee
Dydd Iau, 26 Mawrth 2015 Thursday, 26 March 2015
Cynnwys Contents Cyflwyniadau, Ymddiheuriadau a Dirprwyon Introductions, Apologies and Substitutions Ymchwiliad i Waith Athrawon Cyflenwi—Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 4 Inquiry into Supply Teaching—Evidence Session 4 Ymchwiliad i Waith Athrawon Cyflenwi—Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 5 Inquiry into Supply Teaching—Evidence Session 5 Papurau i’w Nodi Papers to Note Cynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42 i Benderfynu Gwahardd y Cyhoedd o Weddill y Cyfarfod  Motion under Standing Order 17.42 to Resolve to Exclude the Public from the Meeting for the Remainder of the Meeting
Cofnodir y trafodion hyn yn yr iaith y llefarwyd hwy ynddi yn y pwyllgor. Yn ogystal, cynhwysir trawsgrifiad o’r cyfieithu ar y pryd. These proceedings are reported in the language in which they were spoken in the committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous interpretation is included.
Aelodau’r pwyllgor yn bresennol Committee members in attendance
Keith Davies	Llafur Labour
Suzy Davies	Ceidwadwyr Cymreig Welsh Conservatives
Bethan Jenkins	Plaid Cymru The Party of Wales
Ann Jones	Llafur (Cadeirydd y Pwyllgor) Labour (Chair of the Committee)
Lynne Neagle	Llafur Labour
Aled Roberts	Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol Cymru Welsh Liberal Democrats
Simon Thomas	Plaid Cymru The Party of Wales
Eraill yn bresennol Others in attendance
Professor Ken Jones	Uwch Ymgynghorydd ar gyfer Dysgu Proffesiynol Parhaus, Prifysgol Cymru y Drindod Dewi Sant Senior Consultant for Continuing Professional Learning, University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Rex Phillips	Trefnydd Cymru, Cymdeithas Genedlaethol yr Ysgolfeistri ac Undeb yr AthrawesauTrefnydd Cymru. Wales Organiser, NASUWT.
Peter Thomas	Cydlynydd y Rhaglen Cymorth a Datblygu ar gyfer Athrawon Cyflenwi, Prifysgol Cymru y Drindod Dewi Sant Co-ordinator of the Supply Teacher Support and Development Programme, University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Swyddogion Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru yn bresennol National Assembly for Wales officials in attendance
Sarah Bartlett	Dirprwy Glerc Deputy Clerk
Sian Hughes	Y Gwasanaeth Ymchwil Research Service
Gareth Rogers	Clerc Clerk
Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:32. The meeting began at 09:32.
Cyflwyniadau, Ymddiheuriadau a Dirprwyon Introductions, Apologies and Substitutions
[1] Ann Jones: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. I’ll just do the usual housekeeping rules. If you’ve got your mobile phone on, can you just make sure that it’s on silent? If you’re using your laptops or your iPads, can you just make sure that they don’t ping? We’re not expecting the fire alarm to operate; if it does, we’ll take our instructions from the ushers, who will direct us out of the building. But, if we’re able to get out through this building, the Pierhead is the assembly point. We operate bilingually, so the headsets are available for English or Welsh. Translation from Welsh to English is channel 1, and channel 0 is the floor language for amplification, should you need it.
[2] We’ve had apologies this morning from Angela Burns, which is an ongoing apology, and also from her substitute, Paul Davies, who is having to do other committee work this morning, along with John Griffiths and David Rees, who are both doing other committee work this morning. So, we’ve no substitutes, obviously, so we’re just going to move on from that.
09:33
Ymchwiliad i Waith Athrawon Cyflenwi—Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 4 Inquiry into Supply Teaching—Evidence Session 4
[3] Ann Jones: We’re continuing our inquiry into supply teaching and this is evidence session number four. We’re delighted to have with us the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, so thank you very much for that. Do you want to just introduce yourselves for the record? We’ve got a set of questions that we need to get through, so we’ve got roughly about an hour. So, would you like to introduce yourselves, and then we’ll go straight to questions?
[4] Professor Jones: Yes. My name is Professor Ken Jones. My new title is senior consultant for continuing professional learning and development, at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. I’ve had various guises in the past at the university, to do with education. My background, effectively, is in professional learning and development, and perhaps, when we come round to the questions, we can give you a context about the reason why we’re here, and the work that we’ve done with supply teachers.
[5] Ann Jones: Thank you.
[6] Mr Thomas: I’m Peter Thomas, I’m the retired headteacher of a comprehensive school in Swansea. When I retired, I worked for a while with one of the teacher agencies regarding supply teachers, and then with Ken in the university, as the supply teacher support and development programme co-ordinator, but I’ve recently retired from that as well.
[7] Ann Jones: Okay. Well, thank you both very much and thank you for your paper. Just to give you a heads up, the areas we’re going to be looking at are: the use of supply teachers; pupil outcomes and Welsh-medium provision; continuous professional development and performance management; the role of local authorities; and then supply agencies. So, those are the five broad areas of questioning, although Members—. We do tend to just go off. But those are the five areas that we’re going to try and stay on. Aled, you’ve got the first one, on the use of supply teachers.
[8] Aled Roberts: Bore da a diolch am eich tystiolaeth. Mae’ch tystiolaeth chi’n nodi bod yna leihad yn y defnydd o athrawon cyflenwi sy’n cael eu defnyddio ar gyfer absenoldeb sydd wedi ei gynllunio. Eto, mae ffigurau Estyn yn awgrymu bod y defnydd yn cynyddu yng Nghymru a bod sefyllfa absenoldeb athrawon yng Nghymru yn llawer iawn gwaeth nag yn Lloegr a’r Alban. A oes gennych chi unrhyw farn bersonol am y rhesymau yna? Os ydym ni’n sôn am leihad yn y ddarpariaeth gyflenwi ar gyfer absenoldebau wedi eu cynllunio, mae hynny’n awgrymu bod yna waethygu o ran absenoldebau heb eu cynllunio—os ydych chi’n fy neall i—os ydy cyfanswm y ddarpariaeth gyflenwi yn cynyddu.		Aled Roberts: Good morning, and thank you for your evidence. Your evidence notes that there has been a decrease in the use of supply teachers for planned absences. However, Estyn figures suggest that the use is increasing in Wales and that the situation regarding teacher absences in Wales is much worse than in England and Scotland. Do you have a personal view about the reasons for that? If there’s a fall in the use of supply cover for planned absences, that would suggest that there is an increase in its use for unplanned absences—if you follow me—if the total of supply provision is increasing.
[9] Professor Jones: I think the reference in our evidence to the reduction in the use of planned absence, such as CPLD, is more to do with the fact that the release of teachers from the classroom itself has reduced. There is a variety of reasons for that. It’s tied in with the need for teachers to be present in the classroom, budgetary constraints, issues relating to the quality of CPLD, and so on. So, in our experience, we are finding that the release of teachers from classrooms for CPLD, in particular, is actually getting less prevalent. That doesn’t mean to say that the number of supply teachers required for planned absence for other things, particularly sickness, isn’t increasing, and I think the reports and the evidence that come from other data show that, in that sense, it is.
[10] I think, also, the more recent arrangements for rarely cover and so on mean that planned absence can be covered from within schools, to a certain extent. But I think we’d want to start off by saying that the picture’s complex. It’s very complex. It’s complex in terms of each local authority, it’s complex regionally and it’s complex locally, from school to school. What our evidence is showing is that complexity is causing issues in terms of how we manage the coherence of this.
[11] We would also want to switch the spotlight a little bit away from the supply teacher, himself or herself, in covering for planned or unplanned absence, and move the spotlight more on to the continuity of pupil learning, because that’s what we’re talking about. Whether it’s planned or unplanned, we are saying, ‘My child has an entitlement to high-quality learning and teaching, whatever the day, whatever the attendance of the staff’ and so on. If we move the spotlight on to the pupil learning entitlement, then we get a slightly different picture, and the planned and unplanned absence is part of the equation, but it’s not the whole equation.
[12] Aled Roberts: Mae yna broblem, onid oes, achos rydym ni wedi derbyn tystiolaeth yn dweud nad oes yna ymwybyddiaeth o’r rhesymau dros absenoldeb? Mae hynny wedi ein taro ni fel rhywbeth sydd yn unigryw, bron, i’r proffesiwn yma. Mewn nifer fawr o ysgolion, er enghraifft, nid oes cyfweliad ar ôl cyfnod o absenoldeb, ac nid ydym ni’n deall y rhesymau dros yr absenoldeb yna. Felly, pa fath o reolaeth sydd yna dros sicrhau ein bod ni’n gwybod yn union pa absenoldeb sydd wedi ei gynllunio a pha absenoldeb sydd heb ei gynllunio? Mae’n ffaith nad oes gan lawer iawn o awdurdodau lleol erbyn hyn hyd yn oed bolisïau sydd o gymorth i ysgolion o ran adnoddau dynol.		Aled Roberts: There is a problem, isn’t there, because we’ve received evidence stating that there is no awareness of the reasons for absences? That has struck us as something that is almost unique to this profession. In a great many schools, for example, there are no return-to-work interviews, and we don’t understand the reasons for those absences. So, how is ensuring that we know precisely what absences have been planned and what absences have not been planned being managed? It is a fact that many local authorities now don’t even have policies to assist schools in terms of human resources.
[13] Mr Thomas: I think most schools have return-to-work interviews when a teacher is absent. I think the current practice in the majority of schools would be for the senior members of staff to find out the reasons why teachers were away. But it’s getting the evidence for that at local authority level and so on—. But I think, at school level, the return-to-work interviews do occur. Unplanned absences are hard to manage on a number of levels: one is that it may be that work has been left; it may be that work hasn’t been left, and it’s up to the supply teacher then to manage the situation. Sometimes, the supply teacher hasn’t got, or may not have, the skillset to be able to manage the quality of the work that has been left or the fact that the work hasn’t been left. In terms of the processes in the schools, the vast majority of schools have processes in place where banks of work are left, but, sometimes, you can leave work, but then it’s how it’s delivered. You can leave suitable material, but then is it delivered suitably? On the other hand, you can have work that’s not really suitable, but because you’ve got a very skilled supply teacher, they can deliver an effective lesson for the children. How you can gather the evidence, I think, should be at local authority level. Whether it is or not, I don’t know, but most schools now do have return-to-work interviews, and so on.
[14] Ann Jones: Suzy’s got a point on this specific point and then I’ll come back to you.
[15] Suzy Davies: I just wanted to ask, Mr Thomas, you mentioned that the actual skillset of the supply teacher is very important, regardless of the quality of work that’s been left there. In those sort of unplanned emergency situations, how much choice do you have about the kind of supply teacher that you get?
[16] Mr Thomas: Sometimes, very little choice, because if it’s a high-demand day—. And some schools, in certain communities, are high supply-teacher users. Other schools—you may want one supply teacher in a school, and then you could be quite choosy, if you like, because they’re coming from the pool. If a large school is looking for a high number of supply teachers in a day, then sometimes you just take what you can get.
[17] Suzy Davies: Lovely; thank you.
[18] Aled Roberts: A gaf i jest mynd ar ôl y pwynt yna? Roeddech yn sôn am rai ysgolion mewn rhai ardaloedd yn gorfod defnyddio llawer iawn mwy o athrawon cyflenwi na mewn ardaloedd eraill. Yn eich profiad chi, a ydym yn sôn am ardaloedd mwy difreintiedig, ac felly a ydy’r defnydd yma a’r ffaith nad ydyn nhw, mewn rhai mannau, yn edrych ar, neu’n gallu edrych ar, sgiliau athrawon cyflenwi o achos nad oes ganddynt ddewis, yn ychwanegu at yr holl bwysau yna o ran cyrhaeddiad plant difreintiedig?		Aled Roberts: May I just follow up that point? You talked about some schools in some areas having to use a great deal more supply teachers than in other areas. In your experience, are we talking about more disadvantaged areas, and so does this use and the fact that, in some areas, they do not look, or are unable to look, at the skillset of supply teachers because they have no choice, mean that there’s additional pressure in terms of the achievements of disadvantaged children?
[19] Professor Jones: Yes, frankly, and I think the questions you’re asking are highly pertinent. They are not exclusive to Wales; they are not exclusive to parts of Wales. If we look elsewhere, we find that the whole situation of teacher cover and teacher absence is problematic and complex. But the questions you are asking—and this is really why I wholeheartedly welcome this inquiry and the way in which Welsh Government is going with this—are the questions about coherence. They’re about questions of finding valid data, not anecdotes. Much of what we’re doing in Wales relies on anecdote—it relies on anecdotal evidence. A lot of the comments that we continually hear about the quality of supply teachers are anecdotal and yet there are some superb supply teachers out there. But what you’ve put your finger on the pulse of with those questions is the fact that we’re not co-ordinated; we’re not coherent, so, therefore, we’re taking ad-hoc approaches. Quite often at school level and quite often within a school, a decision will be made in a school, as the Estyn report has shown, to bring a supply teacher into a key stage 3 class so that the experienced teacher can be moved up to a key stage 4 class to cover for absence. That’s school-by-school decision making on planned or unplanned absence and that’s the heart of it. I think this is what Welsh Government can do, I suppose, that is begin to direct us towards a more coherent approach to this whole complex problem.
[20] Mr Thomas: Can I add to that?
[21] Ann Jones: Yes, and then I’ve got Keith. Sorry, Aled; then I’ll come back to you. Sorry, Mr Thomas.
[22] Mr Thomas: There have been, in the past, initiatives like Schools Challenge Cymru; you’ve got the Raise Attainment and Individual Standards in Education project and the Narrowing the Gap project and so on, and you are right that disadvantaged communities sometimes do require a large number—. The schools are high supply users rather than maybe a more privileged community. I think there needs to be a link between those projects and pupil outcomes to see what is the impact.
09:45
[23] There is evidence out there from Welsh Government to say that there may be a negative effect, but I think there needs to be further research to say what actually the impact has been on pupil outcomes.
[24] Ann Jones: Okay. Keith, and then I’ll come back to Aled.
[25] Keith Davies: Good morning. In your evidence, you say there’s very significant variation at all levels across Wales—not just primary or not just secondary, but at all levels—and practice varies from very good to very poor, and that needs vary between local authorities; it will sometimes depend on the geography of the region and the availability of suitable provision. So, in your opinion, then, what is—. Tell us about the poor practice and tell us about the very good practice.
[26] Mr Thomas: I think supply teachers—. If you think of a triangle where you’ve got the supply teacher community, it’s the same as a school organisation or any organisation; you can have very good practitioners in there, and you can have people who aren’t as good and need support. But the problem inside that triangle is identifying the good practitioners, because one of the questions to ask is about performance management. Managing the performance of supply teachers is quite difficult; it’s not as easy as managing the performance of a mainstream teacher, and classroom observation—maybe a supply teacher observing good practice and discussing good practice with colleagues, either as a supply teacher or a mainstream teacher—is part of that process, and it’s very difficult for that to happen. And you’ve got the highly skilled supply teachers, and you’ve got then supply teachers who would need support and development in order for them to improve their practice, but they are not getting the feedback to say, ‘You need to upskill this part of your competencies’ or ‘You need to learn or look at policies and practice’, because they’re not getting the feedback. That’s one difficulty.
[27] The continuum of supply teachers is so wide—you’ve got the very young, newly qualified teachers who are really, really enthusiastic and want to engage with continuous professional development and learn from others, and you’ve got the others, then, who are a little bit older who may have been teaching for 20, 30, 40 years and have just retired or gone into supply teaching for different reasons, and they are quite reluctant to engage with CPD. And, for want of a better—. You know, you can’t teach—.
[28] Professor Jones: We wouldn’t make it an age-related issue.
[29] Mr Thomas: No, not at all.
[30] Professor Jones: And, again, our evidence doesn’t show that.
[31] Ann Jones: I think we understood that.
[32] Mr Thomas: No, I’m just saying that, inside that community, it’s like any community—you have good practitioners and not so good.
[33] Keith Davies: From what you’ve said in the evidence, then, it really comes back to management within the school—about the headteacher or senior teachers actually helping the supply teachers who are facing difficulties—
[34] Mr Thomas: And the people who source the supply teachers to the school. They have a role as well. I don’t think it can be solely on—. And the supply teachers themselves. There are three parts to this triangle. The supply teacher must take ownership of what they do. They are, if you like, ‘supply teacher plc’—they are the business—and they are marketed by the agency, or whatever, to go into the school and the school accepts them in like they do any other business, and it’s up to the three to work together in order to get a coherent—
[35] Keith Davies: The one you’ve missed out there, but you’ve got it in what you said to us, is that you think, for supply teachers, there should be a certificate. So, are you blaming the Welsh Government then—
[36] Mr Thomas: No.
[37] Ann Jones: We’re coming on to that, because that’s around—
[38] Professor Jones: I’m pleased you’re coming on to that, because that needs clarification.
[39] Ann Jones: We’re going to come on to CPD and performance management, so we can bring that in there. Aled.
[40] Aled Roberts: Jest un cwestiwn olaf. Rwy’n meddwl eich bod chi wedi gwneud pwynt dilys mai chwilio am atebion ydym ni yn hytrach na chreu rhyw fath o farn ynglŷn â’r sefyllfa bresennol. Rydych chi wedi dweud ei bod hi’n sefyllfa gymhleth iawn, ond mae yna gyfeiriad diddorol yn eich tystiolaeth chi at wledydd eraill ac athrawon dirprwyo. Nid wyf wedi dod ar draws y term yna o’r blaen, a buasai’n ddiddorol iawn pe baech chi’n gallu rhoi rhyw fath o flas i ni o sut mae’r system mewn gwledydd eraill yn cymharu efo’r system rydym, ar hyn o bryd, yn ei weld yma.		Aled Roberts: Just one final question. I think that you made a valid point that we’re seeking answers, rather than forming some kind of view on the current situation. You’ve said that it is very complex, but there is an interesting reference in your evidence to other countries and substitute teachers. I hadn’t come across that term before, and it would be interesting if you could give us some kind of idea or flavour of how the system in other countries compares with the system that we currently see here.
[41] Professor Jones: I don’t know whether it’s reassuring or not, but the answer is that it’s equally complex and there is equally no magic bullet. If you look at the research from the USA, you find that it varies state by state, and then, if you look at the state research, it varies district by district and then school by school. They use the title ‘substitute teachers’. I like the term ‘substitute teacher’. Having wasted a day of my life on Saturday watching the rugby, it’s a little bit like Justin Tipuric coming off the bench but never having trained with the rest of the team. So, he comes off the bench and he’s asked to play against Italy or he’s asked to play against an opposition without knowing how the team works. That’s not fair on the supply teacher, which, effectively, is the position they’re in. So, what we have to do, and the best examples from parts of New Zealand, parts of Australia, parts of the USA, where it works, and some other countries is where—. And it does come back a little bit to your question because it is the school partly, but it’s actually the community of schools. It’s actually the professional community that says, ‘Look, the supply teacher isn’t out there; they’re not marginal; they’re not separate; they’re actually part of our human capital in Wales’. These teachers are qualified teachers; they’re good qualified teachers, in many respects. We have to bring them into the professional community. We have to see them as subs, if you like, in which case, they’re part of the team, they’re part of the squad, but they’re not going start the game and they’re not going to play a whole game, but they’ll come on at some part of the game.
[42] When we start using that metaphor, then I think we can begin to answer, first of all, the question you asked first of all about the management of supply provision locally and regionally, and then, secondly, about the role of the school in that. But the school by itself just can’t do it. Schools can do wonders, and there are some superb examples in our locale and across Wales of where schools have models of inclusive practice, and they will bring the supply teacher in as part of the community. The supply teacher will be invited to professional learning and development events. They know what to get.
[43] When we’ve talked to supply teachers, one nice little expression they’ve got is ‘big bag schools’ and ‘little bag schools’. Supply teachers will go to a little bag school and they don’t have to take much in their bags because they know everything is set up, the work is planned, they have somebody who meets them at the door, the class is organised, the work is set and they know what they have to do. Then they have to go to big bag schools. In a big bag school, they have to take with them pens, paper, worksheets. They have to take everything with them because, basically, there is nothing that has been set up. So, it does vary from school to school. We’ve got to reduce the number of big bag schools and we’ve got to increase the number of little bag schools by this, sort of, local and regional collaboration, community, which brings them into the team rather than keeping them separate from the squad.
[44] Aled Roberts: That’s interesting, because I had to explain to my 15-year-old what I meant by supply teaching, and he said, ‘Oh, you mean subs’. [Laughter.]
[45] Ann Jones: Right, shall we move on to pupil outcomes and Welsh-medium provision?
[46] Suzy Davies: Thank you very much for your evidence, and, actually, you’ve answered some of the questions I wanted to ask today. You mentioned earlier the need for research rather than relying on anecdotal evidence to prove the impact on pupil outcomes. Who do you think should be doing that research?
[47] Professor Jones: It varies. Estyn has given a report, which is actually very helpful—it’s extremely helpful—and there’s the Wales Audit Office report, which I think is also extremely helpful, apart from one conclusion, which says that there should be less teacher absence from classrooms. For me, with my background in professional learning and development, I think that a flame needs air to burn and if you really want creative teachers, if you want teachers who will transform their profession, you can’t lock them in between four walls for 100 per cent of the time—you really have to have mobility. They have to have opportunities to observe others. So, in that sense, there has to be that sort of flexibility for moving around.
[48] Suzy Davies: On your big bag and little bag description, which I thought was excellent, how much of the big bag issue relates to the sort of emergency cover that I was speaking to Mr Thomas about earlier? You may have very good, well-managed schools that require big bag days. Would that be a fair observation or do the really good schools never have a big bag day?
[49] Mr Thomas: No, they have big bag days. I think it just depends on the pressure that the school is under. As Ken said, what we would like is a scenario where we are moving towards the little bag scenario all the time, but I think, on certain occasions, when the school is under pressure that, yes—. But it’s how the school deals with it.
[50] Suzy Davies: Yes, we go back to the leadership and management question, then.
[51] Mr Thomas: That’s right. Because there is anecdotal evidence that timetables and the curriculum are moved around so that when supply teachers go in it’s classed as a change so that maybe it’s the children who’ve got behavioural problems who are put with the supply teachers rather than keep the classes as they are. So, if a teacher’s absent, it may not be that teacher’s class that they’re dealing with.
[52] Suzy Davies: Yes, we’ve had other evidence of that. I just want to turn now to Welsh-medium provision. I thought it was very interesting that you noted that, actually, there are very few Welsh-medium supply teachers because they all manage to get jobs, pretty much. What do you say to some evidence that our cross-party group on the Welsh language had recently that people coming through universities who are supposed to be competent through the medium of Welsh actually aren’t as competent as they might like to think, and that might be having an impact on their seeking places in schools?
[53] Professor Jones: I wouldn’t actually like to comment on the quality of people coming through. I do have a foot in the initial teacher education training, obviously, in my own institution. I can say that, certainly over the last three or four years, the quality has risen immensely, and the monitoring of that quality—
[54] Suzy Davies: In their language—[Inaudible.]
[55] Professor Jones: Yes, in their language. I can’t comment, if I’m honest, on that. What we have done is that we have a colleague who is extremely interested in the supply teaching situation, who was a head of a Welsh-medium primary school, and we’ve tried to tease out some of the issues of Welsh-medium and Welsh language supply teachers. The answers that we’re getting are exactly those: the graduates can find jobs. So, in that sense, there are fewer, certainly newly qualified, supply teachers able to teach through that medium. I was looking at the GTCW statistics. They are slightly more optimistic than I thought they would be in terms of the number of teachers able to teach Welsh as a second language and Welsh-medium teachers, for instance. So, 25 per cent of our supply teaching force are down as Welsh-medium teachers there, which surprised me. So, there’s something possibly about the deployment of those teachers. There’s something about whether they are located regionally. I think this is where we do need that research. We need to answer questions like that. I’m afraid I can’t give you a direct answer.
[56] Suzy Davies: No, no. I accept that. I must admit I’m quite surprised by what you’ve just said as well, because the evidence we’ve had so far is that, even in Welsh-medium schools, let alone just Welsh lessons in English-medium schools, there’s some difficulty in getting hold of supply teachers who can communicate through Welsh. I noted, actually, in your evidence you say that Welsh-medium schools should provide fully bilingual resources to provide for teacher absence. Well, that really shouldn’t be necessary.
[57] Professor Jones: It shouldn’t be necessary. Absolutely.
[58] Mr Thomas: As part of the programme we offer—or we offered—to supply teachers, if they want CPD through the medium of Welsh, we link with one of the Welsh primary schools in Swansea and the two Welsh comps. There was no take-up. The supply teachers preferred, for whatever reason, to come to the ones that were delivered through the medium of English.
[59] Suzy Davies: Even though they may have Welsh language skills?
[60] Mr Thomas: That’s right. Now, I suppose that what we should have done was ask the follow-up question, ‘Why was that?’, but we didn’t go down that road. We just let it lie. But when it was offered, there was no take-up.
[61] Suzy Davies: That’s interesting, because it suggests it’s a choice on the part of the teachers themselves as to which schools they’re confident to work in as a supply teacher.
[62] Mr Thomas: That’s right, and in the schools that were going to deliver the CPD in-school—we were offering in-house CPD—through the medium of Welsh, it wasn’t taken up at all. So, they went to an English-medium school. Now, that might’ve been because of the numbers: they couldn’t network with other supply teachers because they thought the numbers would’ve been too small to gain anything from networking. But thinking about it, what I should have—
[63] Suzy Davies: Nevertheless—. Sorry. I was going to say, because there is a shortage of Welsh-medium supply teachers, I find it surprising that supply teachers who may think, ‘Well, I don’t have opportunities to get full-time jobs’, are not taking up that kind of opportunity.
[64] Mr Thomas: Yes.
[65] Suzy Davies: Right. Thank you.
[66] Ann Jones: Aled.
[67] Aled Roberts: Just on the GTCW data, is that sort of self-categorisation as to ability?
10:00
[68] Professor Jones: It’s the most recent one, 17 December 2014, and there are three questions pertinent to this: the number of teachers registered by Welsh language—there are nearly 5,000 supply teachers in Wales, and of these, the number of supply teachers who said they could speak Welsh was 31 per cent.
[69] Aled Roberts: I’m just wondering, though, if you’re looking for work, it’s almost an incentive for you to say that you’re able to; whereas, the criticism is that perhaps the schools themselves find that those people—
[70] Professor Jones: That’s quite possible, although the statistic that did surprise me was that on Welsh-medium teachers. They, presumably, are confident, because that’s not just that you can speak some Welsh, or that you’re able to teach Welsh as a second language. Those able to teach Welsh as a second language was 54 per cent. So, that’s—
[71] Simon Thomas: We all know how successful that’s been. [Laughter.]
[72] Ann Jones: Well, yes.
[73] Professor Jones: Exactly.
[74] Suzy Davies: [Inaudible.]—taught Welsh as a second language for the past 15 years.
[75] Keith Davies: My comment, Chair, is about that, of course—[Inaudible.] There’s a cross-party group on Welsh and we had Professor Sioned who has done the research on it. She was saying that, for Welsh as a second language, there is a problem in getting teachers in to do supply work. It’s a real problem, she said.
[76] Ann Jones: I think there are a number of reasons why, aren’t there? Aled alluded to one and then we know that, in reality, I have a good grading in my Welsh GCSE, or whatever it was, but, you know, that allows me to recite the twenty-third psalm in Welsh and that gave me the qualification. Now, when do you need to use the twenty-third psalm in everyday language? I mean, there are times when you probably do, but—[Laughter.] So, I suppose, it’s perception, really, isn’t it, of what you do and when you’re filling them in?
[77] Professor Jones: Absolutely.
[78] Ann Jones: I could still recite it if you wanted me to, but I think we’ll move on very quickly to continuing professional development and performance management. Perhaps I’ll get psalm 220—whatever it is—in as well.
[79] Simon Thomas: Diolch, Gadeirydd. Gwnaf ofyn yn Gymraeg ichi. Diolch am y dystiolaeth. Mae’n braf iawn cwrdd a thrafod hynny eto gyda chi. Un o’r pethau rŷch chi’n dweud yn glir iawn yn eich tystiolaeth yw y dylai fod yn orfodol ar athrawon cyflenwi i dderbyn datblygiad proffesiynol parhaus, ond y cwestiwn sy’n codi yn sgil hynny yw ble maen nhw’n mynd i gael y gefnogaeth honno a phwy sy’n mynd i ddarparu hynny?		Simon Thomas: Thank you, Chair. I will ask you in Welsh. Thank you for the evidence. It’s good to be able to meet you and discuss it with you again. One of the things that you say very clearly in your evidence is that it should be mandatory for supply teachers to have CPD, but the question that arises in the wake of that is where are they going to get that support from, and who is going to provide it?
[80] Mae gennych chi raglen yng ngholeg y Drindod, rwy’n gwybod, sydd yn rhanbarthol, ond mae tystiolaeth arall rŷm ni wedi’i derbyn yn dangos ein bod ni’n bell oddi ar gael unrhyw fath o rwydwaith genedlaethol a all ddarparu unrhyw beth tebyg i hwn. Felly, pa wersi ydych chi’n gallu eu rhannu â ni o’r rhaglen rŷch chi wedi yn ei hyrwyddo, a pha arwyddion, os leiciwch chi, y gallech chi eu rhoi inni ynglŷn â datblygu rhywbeth proffesiynol ar lefel genedlaethol?		You have a programme in Trinity college, I know, which is regional, but we’ve had other evidence demonstrating that we’re a long way away from having any kind of national network that could provide anything similar to that. So, what lessons can you share with us from the programme that you’ve been promoting, and what indications can you give us in terms of developing a professional programme at a national level?
[81] Professor Jones: The mandatory issue is the first question, and I think this is where we have to flip the coin on its head, because, are we saying that it doesn’t matter if someone has been in a supply capacity for 15 years, and it doesn’t matter if they don’t have continuing updating? No, we’re not saying that. We can’t say that, so, therefore, we’re saying it does matter. So, then we’re going to say it matters to the pupils and it matters to them as teachers. So, if we start off with that premise, that, yes, professional learning and development matters, how then, are we going to ensure that it comes through? This is where the mandatory thing—. A mandatory situation in a professional context shouldn’t be necessary. It shouldn’t be necessary for an outside body to say, ‘You must do this’, because if you’re a professional, you will do it. In fact, our involvement with supply teachers came in 2002, from supply teachers coming to us saying, ‘Help! There’ve been so many changes, we’ve been left behind. Can you help us?’ That’s when we entered the situation, so that is good. But then it comes back to the fact that that isn’t general, and that it’s actually quite a minority.
[82] The way in which we set it up in Swansea was, first of all, we had a budget, which helped, with Dragon funding, which has now gone, unfortunately, so that is now finished. We set up a consensus group—a group that was round table—and it consisted of supply teacher agencies, the supply teachers themselves, local authorities, our university—
[83] Mr Thomas: Careers Wales.
[84] Professor Jones: Careers Wales were involved, and there were other people who were actually involved in that community. From that, we built up a programme and we started with, not, ‘Okay, we’re going to deliver a programme up in Townhill and we’re going to tell you how to do it’, as that’s not professional learning. That’s not where we should be. It was to ask, ‘What are your needs?’—and they were diverse. Peter chaired that. I don’t know if you want to say a little bit more about that.
[85] Mr Thomas: Prior to the meeting Ken’s talking about, when I was head, I thought I understood the needs of supply teachers, but when we had the meeting, I was light years away from what their needs were. With the CPD that the school was offering, supply teachers do get involved with whole-school CPD, but that answers the needs of the whole school and mainstream teachers, but it’s not answering the needs of the supply teachers. They need a different set of skills than mainstream teachers in order to engage pupils very quickly and in order to have high-impact lessons. So, we realised that from this working party, and then we developed a programme that responded to the perceived needs offered by the supply teachers that were part of that panel. That developed then for the next three or four years. It was offered to schools. It was offered to the supply teachers themselves. It went through different channels. In one authority, it went at a whole-authority level. There were different avenues that we sought in order to put the programme together.
[86] Professor Jones: But it’s a very good question. In other words, okay, so we’ve got something that worked, but if we’re honest, and we are going to be, it worked in parts, because when we started off, when those supply teachers came to us in the early 2000s and said, ‘We need this support, and this is the sort of support we need’, we said, ‘Fine, we’ll put it on’, but then they didn’t come. They didn’t come because either they were going to lose a day’s pay if it was run during the day or they couldn’t get to us, or—there was a variety of reasons. So, they were their own worst enemies, in many respects. Having said there was a need for it, then they didn’t attend. This is where we keep touching back to the mandatory side of it.
[87] Simon Thomas: Just to pursue that, you’re quite right, of course, that any profession should have this kind of self-evaluating, self-learning built into it, but, in effect, if we look at other professions, there is a mandatory level there. It’s not mandatory in the sense that you must do X, but it’s mandatory in the sense that you must maintain your skills level at level Y, and you must demonstrate that by demonstrating that you’ve done a certain amount of professional training at these stages—whether it’s solicitors or medicine or anything else, it’s there. So, really, that’s the kind of model, isn’t it, that a professional learning environment would be looking at?
[88] Mr Thomas: I think that’s why we developed, as part of the programme, two booklets. One was a reflective journal that the supply teachers engaged with. That then was, if you like, their journal for identifying what their future development areas were and what their strengths were, and they could share that then with other colleagues, whether supply teachers or not. The difference between that and a mainstream teacher, who is doing a similar thing, is that they’ve got line managers. Well, who line manages the supply teachers? You’ve got the people responsible for sourcing them—the agencies—and you’ve got the schools, but the schools are buying in, so they don’t see it as their responsibility. So, it should, I think, come from whoever sources the supply teachers, whether it’s the local authority or agency or whoever. They should take the responsibility for that.
[89] Simon Thomas: We’ll come back to that, if I may—the line management, performance management side of things—but just to stay with the actual delivery of CPD for the moment, were you able at all to evaluate which—you said that you had some problems—was the most effective? Was it the whole-authority level? Was it the individual school level? Was there some other kind of more open approach? Were you able at all to evaluate that?
[90] Mr Thomas: We evaluated the impact of it.
[91] Professor Jones: Again, it varied. It depended very much on their needs. What they really wanted was the ability to observe, to get feedback, for someone to say, ‘This is where you’re at’, because it’s actually quite a lonely part of the profession. A supply teacher, unless they are connected with one school, which takes them on board as a substitute and says, ‘Come here; you’re part of our community’, it’s quite lonely. In that sense, they need two things. We’re distinguishing now between professional development and professional learning, and, if you look at the Scottish model of career-long professional learning, I think that that’s where we should be actually going, because it says: we’re not looking at you going on a course and then having these skills and then going in and applying those skills, which are out of date after a very short period of time. We’re actually saying, ‘What is the context that you work in? What do you need to actually be working with those pupils, so that the pupils benefit? We can focus on you to certain extent, but let’s focus on the pupils that you’re going to be engaging with—what do they need?’ And, I think, in that sense—. And it comes back to where the school is in this. If I’m a supply teacher, I think that I want the schools that I’m going to be working with—and I’m going to be working regionally, so I can probably draw a ring around a geographical area where most of my work’s going to be—. I want to be engaging with those schools. I want to know that the schools are talking to each other about my performance. I want some feedback about where I’m going, and it’s that sort of learning, and I want to put my hand up and say, ‘Yes, I’m a professional’, and, as a professional, I want my expertise to be really spot on and cutting edge, so this is what I need. But to do that, we’re talking transformative language here, we’re not talking about running a course for supply teachers at some location; it’s more than that.
[92] Simon Thomas: That brings us on, then, neatly to what I wanted to ask you about, which is that the Welsh Government is, at least in words, saying that it wants this to happen for the future profession as a whole, with the new deal and with professional learning environments and so forth and a teacher-led kind of profession, and the rhetoric is there in that sense. It’s not clear to me a) where supply actually fits into that in term of an entitlement, because that comes with costs, it would strike me—from your own experience as well—and it’s not clear either whether that is going to be modelled in a way that will be accessible to the way the supply-teacher market has fragmented and changed and the lack of control, if you like, on that market. Have you got any views? It’s early days for this new deal, as it’s been termed, but, nevertheless, do you have any views about how that might impact on professional learning for teachers, supply teachers in particular?
[93] Professor Jones: Yes. I think that the new deal is great. We were there in some aspects of it, like the passport for learning and so on, with the General Teaching Council for Wales when they had their work on professional development some years ago, so—
[94] Simon Thomas: When they had money, you mean. [Laughter.]
[95] Professor Jones: In that sense, it’s really good, and we’re borrowing heavily on the Scottish model, which I do like, because it’s a consensus model, and, if you look at the General Teaching Council for Scotland website, supply teachers are up there, they’re on the front page and it says, ‘This is how supply teachers access CLPL, Career-long Professional Learning, because you’re part of our profession, not separate to it.’
[96] I think that there has to be intervention. I think that the only organisation that can really get coherence across Wales is Welsh Government, and I think, as part of the new deal, Welsh Government has to be explicit and say, ‘Supply teachers are there. There are issues—there’s no question about it—but we need them here, we need them as substitute teachers as part of this area.’ So, to answer your question again, if you look at the aspects of the new deal, the professional learning passport, that’s what Peter was referring to earlier on, so we had a reflective journal, which we’ve started. The danger is—and it also comes back on other professions—some of the professions like law, they just require you to attend professional development. It becomes cynical. It becomes—. Sorry?
[97] Suzy Davies: They do expect you to learn from that attendance.
[98] Professor Jones: Yes, but they don’t always monitor that.
[99] Ann Jones: ‘Do they monitor it?’ Yes.
[100] Professor Jones: Basically, it’s the number of CPD hours that you attend, sometimes. Sorry, I don’t know if there’s a legal background here.
[101] Ann Jones: And there’s a difference between attending and learning or just attending to get the mark.
[102] Professor Jones: Absolutely.
[103] Ann Jones: She says, who was somebody who used to just attend to get a mark when she was in school.
[104] Professor Jones: Yes, and you’ve got your CPD hours, and, if you’ve got your x number of CPD hours, that’s fine, you’re updated, but that’s really not where we’re at, and there are three steps: one is engaging in the learning, and that’s not a course necessarily, and, secondly, it’s actually internalising that, which is where the reflective journal comes in. The danger of that is that it becomes bureaucratic and then it just become a heavy piece of paper, which—
[105] Simon Thomas: A tick-box exercise.
[106] Professor Jones: Exactly. Exactly.
[107] 10:15
[108] Simon Thomas: Chair, I just want to pursue this, because, what you’re describing I see, and we’ve seen it elsewhere in these islands as well, but each step that, if you like, classroom teachers are going along that journey, it seems to me that that’s getting actually more remote from supply teachers in the way that supply teachers are organised in Wales, because, unlike, say, Northern Ireland, where we have one pool where you can deal with them as a national whole, we don’t deal with supply teachers as a national whole. To use your rugby analogy, there is no sense of a kind of dual contract going on here where they work for the local schools but they’ve also got this other role of being part of the pool of professionals that we have. So, how can we—? Are there structural changes that need to happen as well in order to facilitate? We can’t simply use the current proposals for professional learning that are proposed for classroom teachers and just put that across to supply teachers, can we?
[109] Mr Thomas: Exactly. Just because it’s been in place for the last x number of years doesn’t mean to say that it should be in place. There has to be a different model. One of the main feedbacks we had from both supply teachers and schools that had been involved with the programme was that, at the times when supply teachers were engaged in conversation with the teachers in the schools, both benefited. The mainstream teachers benefited from the experience the supply teachers had, and the supply teachers were benefiting from the experiences—sitting down and talking about good practice, behaviour management and so on. That’s the way to move things forward, to somehow get the supply teachers and the mainstream teachers talking together, observing one another’s practice. How that’s going to be done—. But that’s one working model.
[110] Ann Jones: Okay. Aled. Sorry—. Carry on, were you going to answer?
[111] Professor Jones: It’s partly just to follow—
[112] Ann Jones: Yes, and then Aled wants to come in.
[113] Professor Jones: Again, it’s an excellent—. Sorry, that sounds patronising, but they’re really good questions, but I’ve got ‘dual contracts’ written down here. Okay, so, nationally, that might be difficult, but, regionally, it’s not. I think that if we can look at a model—. We’ve worked with local authorities. We’ve worked with middle leaders in schools with local authorities—potentially with the consortia. I’m not sure where we are with those yet, but potentially we could do. So, there could be regional pools. There could be regional monitoring. Part of the Scottish model, for instance, is that a registered teacher is required to update what they’ve done, where they are, what experience they have, what skills they need and so on. They do that annually. Now, if that information is collected regionally—. Actually, what we haven’t got in Wales at the moment is any idea about who can do what and where they are and where they could best be used. As a workforce model, that’s not really very good. So, if we try and do it nationally, I think that’s too much, but if we do it regionally or locally, I think that’s manageable. Then, we’re looking at pools of expertise, then we’ve got a workforce model that, actually, we can work to our benefit. But it does rely again not so much on the individual school, but schools working together. We’re seeing this happen more and more now, where schools are getting in partnerships with other schools. The competitive element is less. The primaries partner secondaries. So, if a supply teacher comes on as a sub within that context, we’ve got a different type of scenario and, actually, we can go forward on that.
[114] Ann Jones: Aled, you’ve got a point.
[115] Aled Roberts: Yes. Isn’t part of the frustration, though, as far as moving to this new model is concerned, the fact that we don’t have cohesion as far as our overall policies are concerned? For example, we have moved to a situation where 85% of funding is now delegated to the schools. So, actually, there is a bit of an obstacle there to—. I know what you say regarding perhaps there’s been a bit more willingness to collaborate as far as schools themselves are concerned, but the structural funding is very much down to school level. We also have frustrations with regard to possible implementation of the new deal. I accept what you say regarding the legal profession. I’ve been there. They moved very much to online learning. To be honest with you, you lose out there because you don’t have the ability to talk about your experiences, et cetera. Of course, we’ve also created a situation where, from next week, the 22 authorities will actually be using the agencies themselves. So, the actual ability of local authorities to mould or perhaps to roll out the new deal, albeit a new deal that’s sort of programmed at national level—. So, don’t we have tensions here regarding different policies going in different directions?
[116] Professor Jones: There are, but, if you flip it on its head, as I’ve been sort of saying, that’s looking at the way we organise and manage and so on. If you flip it on its head and say to a school, ‘How can you assure me as a parent that my child is getting continuous high-quality teaching, and is experiencing high-quality learning?’, and if you put that emphasis on the school and then look at ways in which that can be monitored—through Estyn, through other ways, through the schools reporting themselves through school development plans, and so on—then they have to provide models and say, ‘Look, if you do that with your partner schools, if you do that and collaborate with other schools, you can actually meet that requirement’. So, if that is a requirement, if we start from where the pupils are, and then the schools have to meet that requirement, whether the funding is devolved or held centrally—in some ways, it doesn’t matter—they’ve got to meet that requirement for high-quality, professional learning, and if they can do that by collaborating to bring in substitute teachers from a pool where we know their qualities, and we know where they can locate, and into a team-playing situation, then I think we’re going to get much more effective teaching and learning in schools.
[117] Aled Roberts: Where is the financial responsibility on these agencies?
[118] Professor Jones: Well, okay. So, the agencies are a different agenda—.
[119] Ann Jones: Yes, we’re coming on to agencies, so, if we can just think about that. Had you finished?
[120] Simon Thomas: No, I’ve still got a couple of questions, I’m sorry.
[121] Ann Jones: I knew you would have. Carry on.
[122] Simon Thomas: Just two things, I think, to finish off with. One is the Master’s in educational practice, as it’s being called, and I understand there’s been some difficulty with that, even though it’s classroom teachers. Again, this is anecdotal—this is the unfortunate thing about anecdotal evidence—but some of the mentoring and support perhaps hasn’t been as effective as it might have been. I don’t know if you are able to share any of that with us, but then the next step to that must be—well, again, there seems to be more reward for a supply teacher to be accessing this path, particularly with new teachers, newly qualified teachers, going into supply, very often, because of the job market. Is that something that you have come across at all, or do you share any of those concerns? Have you had any feedback on how the Master’s is working on the ground? Presumably the university is involved.
[123] Professor Jones: I’ve just spent two days in Ewloe on the MEP, so the university was involved. It wasn’t involved in the delivery of the programme, because that went to tender, and the tender went, as we know, to Cardiff and the Institute of Education and Bangor and Aberystwyth. I think their learning curve was vertical. I think they had to implement it immediately, and I think that what is beginning to happen now—and I’ll speak personally—is the MEP plane has taken off, because now they’ve actually got a central resource. Cardiff has actually changed its ideas on how they work with teachers as professionals, as opposed to students, and we’ve now got a large resource bank, which is developing. So, the plane has taken off and then they’ve stopped building the runway, so it’s actually got nowhere to land, if you like, and will come to an end, as we know, after this current cohort. But there are some excellent examples of practice. Unfortunately, they’re unsustainable, because they rely on a large pool of external mentors, and I think from the very beginning—. It mirrors the Master’s in Teaching and Learning in England; that did exactly the same thing and the funding was pulled from the MTL, so the whole thing folded. Good model: a school-based model, a model based on a lot of the principles of the new deal.
[124] Simon Thomas: Exactly, so where does it leave that model now? Is it a kind of blind alley, and we’re just not going to go back down there, and we’re going to try something very different in the new deal, or should we not be reconstituting that element when we’re talking about, you know, as we talk in theory, this as a Master’s-level profession?
[125] Professor Jones: I think it depends very much on when it’s done, so, if you’re looking to do it in the induction year, you’ve got one point. We could have every teacher being a Master’s after three years of teaching, which is when the MEP would actually take them, but then what do they do for the other 20 years that they’re in the profession? The whole point of CPD—. The ‘C’ in CPD, is ‘continuing’, and it has to be done right the way through, which is where the heart of professional learning—. It’s about this thing, it’s about the reflective journal, it’s about the professional learning passport, it’s about the ways in which schools actually engage their teachers in professional—. The difference between professional learning and professional development is that professional development is usually seen as delivering something to somebody where the spotlight is on the teacher and saying, ‘Right; how do you need to change?’. With professional learning, they’re saying, ‘What we’re doing now might change itself in five years’ time because career isn’t linear—a career isn’t linear; it’s going to change—so, we’ve got to equip you with the skills to be able to meet those changes along your career; what we’re going to do is to focus on how the pupils learn’. So, the professional learning side focuses on that. So, like the MEP for instance, if the best elements of the MEP can be harnessed and used as the core of this, it will work.
[126] My concerns are that there’s a big gap between what should happen and what will happen. I call it the pragmatic alternative because heads and supply teachers themselves will say, ‘I haven’t got the time to do that; I’m not funded to do that; I’m losing a day’s pay’, and so on. So, at some point there has to be monitoring, which we’ve come back to, and there has to be some sort of oversight. I still think the regional model is the one that is likely to work most effectively to say, ‘Right, what’s our workforce, including supply teachers; where are they; what can they do; what are they good at; and how, then, can we deploy them properly as part of that?’
[127] Simon Thomas: What all this sort of begs is this monitoring element because, if you’ve got supply teachers who are up to 10 per cent of the delivery of our classroom learning, and if they are not being performance managed, if they’re not being monitored, if in effect their needs are not being looked after, their further learning needs aren’t being looked after, or potentially the fact that they’re not suitable for classroom teaching isn’t really being monitored, you can’t have professional learning development or CPD if you aren’t doing that aspect of it. So, is there anything from your experience and project that shows that you can put effective performance management in for supply teachers, even though they might be working in a pool of schools?
[128] Mr Thomas: One of the things that we tried to engage the supply teachers within the programme was obtaining feedback. The skill of getting feedback from pupils, for them, is high priority. Because for a mainstream teacher who’s built a relationship with the classroom, the feedback becomes part and parcel of the day-to-day routine, whereas supply teachers—. What we talked about with them and discussed were certain strategies and things they could put into their lessons—it may be a game or whatever—where the children would give them feedback so that they could then say, ‘Oh, well, I have to pick up on this’. That was one way. The other way was to see how they can reflect back on their performance without really having the privilege of somebody watching them, which happens in schools. We were trying to develop these models with the supply teachers. There are things that they can do, but the agencies and the schools have to take some sort of responsibility as well. Because can the school afford the time for a teacher to go in to watch a supply teacher? Well, with the budgetary constraints, the answer to that is ‘no’ at the moment. So, is it possible for two supply teachers to go in? I’m not saying for the full day, but you know, at certain times, to observe the practice and to provide feedback. Now, that seems a good model. It’s similar to the initial teacher training one where teachers work in pairs. That could be something that could be built into the early years of a person doing supply teaching so that they can get feedback. You know, there are things that one can do in the programme.
[129] Simon Thomas: It all sounds fairly rudimentary, to be honest—not your project, but I just mean the way that we do this. It sounds fairly undeveloped.
[130] Mr Thomas: Yes.
[131] Professor Jones: Yes. I think that if we take the logic of it, and we say, from the data that we have, that most supply teacher use is in schools in disadvantaged areas, in schools with disadvantaged pupils, so if we need to invest in that, perhaps one of the strands—one of the ring-fenced areas—in the investment might be to say, ‘Right; how can we deploy the substitute teachers within these disadvantaged areas more effectively?’, because we’re not at the moment. So, that would be a focus. It would then be diverting funding from a similar worthy source, obviously, but into that.
[132] Simon Thomas: Well, there might be a role for the pupil deprivation grant here.
[133] Professor Jones: Exactly.
[134] Mr Thomas: One of the things that we talk about with the supply teachers is the triangle that I alluded to earlier on. If you think of the corners, you could have certain supply teachers drifting, who, with their skillsets, could go into the disadvantaged communities that Ken was talking about, or you could go up to the top and, as you move up, then maybe—. At the moment, all supply teachers get paid the same, so there could be an incremental drift up the triangle.
10:30
[135] Simon Thomas: Depending on your skills, for example.
[136] Mr Thomas: Yes.
[137] Simon Thomas: It’s not that; I haven’t got another question—
[138] Ann Jones: No, no—
[139] Simon Thomas: All I’m saying is that all this demands a greater level of strategic thinking than we have at the moment on supply teachers, it strikes me. Whether it’s done at regional level or national level, it needs to be done and it’s missing.
[140] Mr Thomas: I totally agree with that.
[141] Ann Jones: Okay, thanks. The role of local authorities, Keith.
[142] Keith Davies: Perhaps we should go back to the Taylor report of, I don’t know, 30 years ago: you know, a term after five years’ teaching or a year after seven years’ teaching.
[143] Professor Jones: Or the James report—and the Taylor, yes—in 1973 or 1972.
[144] Keith Davies: In the end, what you’re actually saying in what you’ve written to us is that the local authorities and the consortia are not aware of what the issues really are. There’s no policy there at all. Simon was saying there, ‘Well, you know, it’s tied into money’. Okay, well, if we do the investigation and it’s in the schools in deprived areas, the pupil deprivation grant could be used perhaps. But it’s back to funding, isn’t it? And, in a sense, I think it’s back to the Welsh Government, because when we only had eight authorities, we had pools of supply teachers. Why shouldn’t the consortia be working in that way? Of course, it needs funding, but it was the local authorities funding it then, so why shouldn’t the consortia fund the pool of supply teachers, and then you can give them the training that ordinary teachers would have? And also, I feel sorry for supply teachers in terms of their pension arrangements. If they’re with these agencies, they’re just paid by the day and there are no pension instalments at all. So, what should local authorities and the consortia do then?
[145] Professor Jones: Again, that’s exactly right, and it comes back to, ‘This is the position we’re in’, which is why I welcome this inquiry so much, because hopefully it will lead to action. One thing is knowing the problems, the other one is solving them. Whether the local authority or the consortium is important, the jury is out for me on the consortia at the moment. I can potentially see where they should be going, and that’s fine, and the situation we had with eight local authorities in Wales, that was manageable. I was actively involved in professional development, staff development, in those days, and we made huge strides across Wales because there was a designated staff development co-ordinator in each of those eight local authorities, and they met, they networked, they shared policy and they were actually able to transform where we were going.
[146] We know the stories with the 22 authorities, and so on. That doesn’t meant to say that local authorities 100 per cent are not engaging in this; some are. We’ve been working with Neath Port Talbot to put on a programme that actually is very good; it hasn’t come to fruition, partly because of our budget and partly because it’s stalled a little bit. But the concept there was that that local authority would say, ‘Right, who are the supply teachers working within our region, and how can we best equip those to go in and work in our schools, because it’s our schools and our pupils that matter?’ If you start from that, then the local authority will commit in that way. But I think because of the changes—. Part of the problem that we have at the moment is that the local authorities did not maintain their pools, and there were people who were coming into the pool on supply and were never being taken off. When we originally did our research 10, 15 years ago, we couldn’t get straight answers from local authorities. We were saying, ‘Right, how many teachers have you got in your supply pool? Who are they? What’s the gender balance? What’s the age mix? What are they good at? How many are secondary and how many are primary?’ They didn’t know. So, basically, there had been a drift in responsibility from those.
[147] Keith Davies: They probably don’t know what Simon was saying earlier, you see, that 10 per cent of all lessons are taught by supply teachers. That is a significant amount of lesson teaching. You know, the local authorities probably don’t know the situation in their own schools.
[148] Professor Jones: But it comes back to, as you were saying, ‘Okay, so we know the problems, now what are we going to do about them?’ This is why I come back to what is probably a regional model, a regional workforce model that actually looks at that, but co-ordinated and led by Welsh Government, possibly in funding terms, possibly in directed funding terms, but actually saying, ‘Okay, if we have a regional model, we’re going to make sure that we monitor the way in which those regions are going to enact this’.
[149] Ann Jones: Okay. Aled, briefly and then we need to move on to supply agencies.
[150] Aled Roberts: I still think that there are structural problems at play here. The reality is that a lot of these authorities couldn’t actually maintain a lot of these structures that you suggest because of pressure from within the profession for moneys to be delegated down to the schools. So, there was actually an agreement that the level of delegation would increase to 85 per cent. So, how could the authorities, to maintain some of those structures—. I’d be interested with Neath Port Talbot whether it was one of the authorities that was actually supporting its own pool, because we’ll get to April and in the north many of them actually maintained their own pools, but they’ve been pushed down the national framework to actually move towards agencies.
[151] Mr Thomas: With Neath and Port Talbot, it was at the time when they were moving over to an agency. With the agency, I think it’s where we are. Schools use them, rightly or wrongly, where—. They use agencies. There used to be a quality mark that agencies could adhere to if they wished to have the quality mark, but I’m not quite sure where we are with that. If there was a level playing field and it didn’t matter, as a supply teacher, which agency I belonged to—as long as it’s all transparent, I get the same training and the same support and development with agency A as I do with the agency B—so the school then gets the benefit and the pupils get the benefit of that, it doesn’t matter which agency we come from, if there was some sort of monitoring, whether it’s from a quality mark or whatever.
[152] Ann Jones: Okay. We’re going to come on to agencies. So, Bethan.
[153] Bethan Jenkins: Ie, man a man jest dilyn ymlaen o ble rydych chi wedi cychwyn. Man a man siarad am y marc ansawdd, a oedd yn rhywbeth y mae rhai o’r bobl sydd wedi rhoi tystiolaeth wedi codi gyda ni y gellid ei ailadfer, neu’r pwynt a wnaethoch yn gynharach, i athrawon gymryd hunanreolaeth dros yr hyn y maen nhw’n ei wneud. A fyddai system lle maen nhw’n gorfod casglu rhyw fath o bwyntiau, neu gasglu rhyw fath o fodiwlau penodol, yn gallu arwain at ddatblygiad iddyn nhw? Mae gen i gydymdeimlad â’r bobl hynny nad oedd wedi troi lan ar gyfer y CPD oherwydd maen nhw’n poeni am le maen nhw’n mynd i gael yr arian i dalu biliau. Felly, os oes system sydd yn ‘incentivise-o’ nhw fel pobl unigol i gael rhyw fath o farc ansawdd, efallai byddai hynny’n well na’r asiantaeth yn cael y marc ansawdd hynny. Beth yw’ch barn chi ar gysyniadau newydd yn y sector?		Bethan Jenkins: Yes, we might as well just follow on from what you’ve just said there. We might as well talk about the quality mark, which was something that some of the witness have raised with us in evidence that could be reintroduced, or the point that you made earlier about teachers taking responsibility for what they do. Would a system where they have to gather some sort of points, or some specific modules, lead to development for them? I sympathise with those people who didn’t turn up for the CPD because they are concerned about where they’re going to get money to pay their bills. So, if there is a system that incentivises them as individuals to have some kind of quality mark for them, maybe that would be better than an agency having the quality mark. What is your opinion on those new concepts in the sector?
[154] Mr Thomas: You’re talking about a model that we’ve been advocating for a while now, where the supply teacher is the business and the agency is the marketing tool. ‘Supply teacher plc.’ then takes the quality mark and it’s their responsibility to have that—they take responsibility for their support and development, and they take responsibility for their reflective journal and what have you. Then the agency is the marketing tool to market that business around the various schools to make sure that it’s a seamless transition for the pupils, and the schools get the best possible supply teacher for that position, for that day, or whatever.
[155] Bethan Jenkins: What would it take for that to happen? Would it take the agencies talking to other people because, obviously, they might not feel incentivised to do that? It may have to come from somewhere else.
[156] Mr Thomas: At the moment, with the agencies, I think it’s a pile of pennies—‘I’ve got more supply teachers on my books, so I’m a better agency than you’, and so on. But one thing we did manage to do was to get two of the major agencies to actually sit around the table with us to develop the programme. When they were together, they could actually see the benefit of joint working, because I think what happens at the moment is that there might be a pocket of training going on in one agency and it’s reflected over here, and the costs are spiralling, whereas if it was done in one place, it didn’t matter which agency you came from or how you sourced the school, everybody would get the same quality training. So, that would help the supply teachers. But I agree with you that the quality mark should be with the supply teacher.
[157] Bethan Jenkins: But I’m just curious about looking for solutions, as you said. What’s it going to take to go from having an idea for it to be put in place? Lots of people have come to us saying, ‘We need regulation’, but I’m not even sure what that regulation can look like at the moment.
[158] Professor Jones: Yes, and that’s the $1 million question. One of the things that I wanted to change, there’s actually a typing error, not a spelling error—but it looks like a spelling error—in our evidence, because it says on the third page:
[159] ‘We propose the introduction of a Certificate to Practice.’
[160] Practice is spelt with a ‘c’, and it looks as if that’s a misspelling, and that would annoy me, so it isn’t. It’s actually a certificate ‘of’ practice. There’s a significant difference between a ‘certificate to practice’, which is re-certification, and a ‘certificate of practice’, which is the evidence we talked about earlier on, which says ‘I’ve been maintaining my professional qualities and my professional—‘. So our proposal was a ‘certificate of practice’, which comes back to the passport for learning, which comes back to the teacher maintaining this reflective practice, but what we’ve seen—again, in other countries, where they’ve started this, and, to some extent, carried it on—is that the only time it actually continues is when it’s part of a mandatory professional updating or professional review process. If there is no mandate to do it, it drifts and people won’t continue with it.
[161] Mr Thomas: If you take that triangle, again, then entry into the triangle means, you know—. People might have to go through induction to become a supply teacher. You have to have, maybe, the quality mark. But if you haven’t done that, you can’t get in there. That means, then, that people in that pool are of the quality that you want and that schools want.
[162] Bethan Jenkins: Then the ones who wouldn’t have that mark wouldn’t be used or be able to be used in the schools—
[163] Mr Thomas: Until they get the suitable entry requirement, and then they go into that triangle. Yes.
[164] Ann Jones: Aled, very briefly.
[165] Aled Roberts: Onid rhan o’r broblem yma oedd—? Pan ydym ni’n edrych ar y cytundeb fframwaith yma, i ddweud y gwir, roeddwn i’n synnu at dystiolaeth Swyddfa Archwilio Cymru, a oedd yn dweud, pan ddaru’r cytundeb fframwaith gael ei sefydlu, mai jest mater o gaffael llywodraeth leol oedd o, yn hytrach na chytundeb a oedd yn edrych ar safon. Felly nid oedd yna fewnbwn o ran ansawdd. Roedden nhw jest yn edrych ar y broses a’r cyllid a oedd yn cael ei wario, yn hytrach na rhai o’r materion rydym ni wedi eu trafod yma heddiw. Heblaw bod y cytundeb fframwaith newydd o ran asiantaethau, os mai dyna’r defnydd rydym ni’n wneud o’r gyfundrefn, yn cyfeirio rhai o’r problemau ansawdd yma fel rhan o’r cytundeb, nid oes modd i ni fynd i’r afael â rhai o’r problemau yma.		Aled Roberts: Isn’t part of the problem—? Looking at the framework agreement, to be honest, I was surprised at the evidence given by the Wales Audit Office, which said that, when the framework contract was established, it was just a matter for local government procurement rather than an agreement that looked at quality. So, there was no input in terms of quality. They were just looking at the process and at the money that was being spent, rather than at some of the issues that we’ve discussed here today. Unless the new framework agreement for agencies, if that’s how we use the system, refers some of these quality problems as part of the agreement, we won’t be able to tackle some of these problems.
[166] Professor Jones: Yes, and it comes on the basis of the agency saying ‘Yes, we will’ or ‘No, we won’t’. I mean, the agencies—. Rather than paint them all with a black brush, we’ve been working with Education Staffing Solutions because they have said, ‘We’ve taken quite a bit out of the supply teacher process, but we want to put something back in as well, because we want our supply teachers to be up to date, up to speed, and we want to be able to say that’. So, they’re one of the companies that we’ve worked in partnership with. But there’s no requirement for that to happen, and maybe that does need to come in. So it does need, possibly, to be in two parts: with the supply teachers themselves, but also there must be a requirement that, if a proportion of funding is taken off from the employment of that person, some of that funding is then is put back in to the training and development and learning of the teacher.
[167] Bethan Jenkins: Another question that’s just come to mind in relation to other people who’ve given us evidence, is with regard to—. If there’s an issue with a particular supply teacher from an agency, instead of them being dealt with in an internal process, they’re just referred to the General Teaching Council for Wales. Estyn seemed to think that that was okay, but when we met with the trade unions, they said that that was a very harsh way of dealing with it, because, obviously, they’d be suspended indefinitely until the investigation happened I mean, not only that, but how do you deal with things like this, and also what Keith said about the general benefits and protection for the workforce? Any quality mark won’t, sort of, even help with that, will it? Or would the quality mark include things like that as well?
10:45
[168] Mr Thomas: Once again, this is anecdotal evidence from supply teachers, but they find even feedback on performance very difficult to obtain, either from the school or from the agencies. You might get a situation where a school says, ‘Don’t send me supply teacher x’, but supply teacher x hasn’t had the opportunity to say, ‘Why not? How can I upskill regarding what the concerns are?’ Then they can’t engage in CPD in order to improve the situation. You know, that’s at that level, and it gets worse the higher up it goes. If a problem does occur then suddenly you’ve gone up to a high level without the opportunity, as would happen in a school, in order to, you know—
[169] Bethan Jenkins: So, you don’t know.
[170] Mr Thomas: I don’t know. [Laughter.]
[171] Bethan Jenkins: I’m looking for answers. [Laughter.]
[172] Ann Jones: Perhaps we’ll have to think that one through.
[173] Bethan Jenkins: Yes.
[174] Professor Jones: The only answer is to say, ‘Right, who is the employer and where does that contract lie?’ I suppose what we’re all saying is that, if you’re an agency and you’re making money out of this, there’s an obligation on your part to actually make sure that the teachers you send to the schools are as good as we can get them and as they can get themselves. If you’re not doing that, there’s something wrong somewhere. So, I think the obligation is on the agency and on the teacher.
[175] Mr Thomas: It’s a cost-driven model. There are so many agencies out there that, as they are competing against each other, the costs are dropping. But that may not be to the benefit of the school.
[176] Ann Jones: Thanks very much. We’ve gone way over time, but I thought that it was a very useful session and some really useful points came out of that. Can I thank you both for your time this morning? We’ll send you a copy of the transcript, just to check for accuracy, because we publish that as part of our inquiry. Thank you both very much.
[177] Are you happy to break for five minutes, then, as a committee? Thank you.
Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 10:46 a 10:53. The meeting adjourned between 10:46 and 10:53.
Ymchwiliad i Waith Athrawon Cyflenwi—Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 5 Inquiry into Supply Teaching—Evidence Session 5
[178] Ann Jones: We’ll reconvene and move on to our next evidence session on our inquiry into supply teaching. We’re delighted to have with us Rex Phillips, who’s the Wales organiser for NASUWT—The Teachers’ Union. Thanks very much as well for agreeing to come in, Rex. We’ve got four sets of questions that we want to look at. We want to look, first, at supply agencies, then the use of supply teachers and pupil outcomes, the role of local authorities and regional consortia, and then continuing professional development and performance management. So, those are the four broad areas, but, as you said, you’ve been watching the evidence sessions, so you’ll know that we do go off, and that’s why we’re running late. We’ll try to keep it to time, but we’ll see how we go with these sets of questions. What comes from answers very often prompts more questions. There we go. We’ll start with Bethan, then, on supply agencies.
[179] Bethan Jenkins: Diolch. Rwyf jest am ofyn cwestiwn ynglŷn â beth rydych chi’n ei feddwl ynglŷn â rheoleiddio yn y sector ar hyn o bryd.		Bethan Jenkins: Thank you. I just want to ask a question about what you think about the regulation in the sector at present.
[180] Is it okay?
[181] Ann Jones: Is it working?
[182] Mr Phillips: Yes. It’s okay now.
[183] Bethan Jenkins: Roeddwn i jest yn gofyn i chi beth ydych chi’n meddwl am y broses sy’n bodoli ar hyn o bryd o reoleiddio asiantaethau athrawon? Yn amlwg, mae rhai o’r undebau eraill a phobl sydd wedi rhoi tystiolaeth yn poeni nad oes digon o reoleiddio yn y system. Pa fath o syniadau sydd gyda chi, fel undebau, ar sut i newid y sefyllfa sydd ohoni?		Bethan Jenkins: I just wanted to ask you what you think of the current process of regulating supply teacher agencies? Some of the other unions and other people who have given evidence to us are concerned that there is not enough regulation in the system. What kind of ideas do you have, as a union, about how to change the current situation?
[184] Mr Phillips: We’d agree, clearly, that there’s not enough regulation in the system. It’s one of the issues that we’ve been talking about for a long time. We’ve got a motion going to our national conference, which is in Cardiff, calling for better regulation of the agencies. We believe that you can regulate them through, perhaps, a kite mark system, but I want to preface my contribution with our view of the agencies, and we’d rather not have the agencies operating within Wales. We’d rather see a return to central supply pools within local authorities, under their control. Our view of the agencies is that they exploit the workforce that is on their books. That comes through very, very clear to us. They don’t pay national rates. They don’t pay pension contributions. That’s where the regulation needs to come in. We believe that, in terms of making regulations better for the agencies, there is a need to change the agency workers regulations, so that it makes it no less favourable treatment from day one of a teacher working for a supply agency rather than the 12-week period, which agencies find ways of getting around. So, that’s the type of regulation that we’d like to see in terms of the agencies. Also, we know that the agencies now register with offshore umbrella companies to avoid taxes. That’s another issue that we see needs to be put in place. But that may be an issue for the UK Government rather than the Welsh Government.
[185] Bethan Jenkins: Pa mor ymarferol yw mynd nôl i restrau cyflenwi awdurdodau lleol, o feddwl bod yna fframwaith cenedlaethol yn cael ei roi yn ei le a fydd, efallai, yn tanseilio unrhyw fath o newid? Rydych chi ac rwy’n credu mai’r NUT sydd wedi cynnig mynd yn ôl i restrau awdurdodau lleol.		Bethan Jenkins: How practical is it to go back to local authorities’ supply teaching lists, bearing in mind that a national framework is being put in place, which may undermine any kind of change? It’s you and I think the NUT that have suggested returning to the local authority lists.
[186] Mr Phillips: Whether it’s a local authority list or whether it’s a national list, if you’re suggesting that there would be a national list within Wales—is that what you’re suggesting or not?
[187] Bethan Jenkins: No, I was talking about the national framework for agencies.
[188] Mr Phillips: Oh, right. A national framework for agencies. Okay. As I said earlier, I would rather not see the agencies given that kind of credibility and that kind of status within the Welsh education system. If that’s what we have to have, then we would want to work on that and we would want to be engaged in looking at the construction of that framework. But we would clearly see that it would be better done on local authority level. I would agree—and I listened to what Keith said earlier about the fact that we’ve got 22 local authorities in Wales at the moment—that the economies of scale argument mitigates against local authorities being able to run central lists and central supply pools. Some of them won’t have the capacity to do that. With the austerity measures that are in place, it makes it even harder. But we have got local government reorganisation on the horizon at some stage, and we could see a return to a smaller group of local authorities. With that smaller group, we could return to that economies of scale argument. It would be far better, in our view, if the local authorities did control supply teaching in our schools, because that would be able to provide for CPD entitlement—which you said there’ll be another question about later on. They could control it, they could monitor the use of supply teachers within their schools, and they could actually ensure that they were paid an appropriate wage for the work they do. They could ensure that they’re paid under national pay scales and they could ensure that pension contributions were made on the work that they undertook. So, that’s the direction of travel we would rather see the Welsh Government going, rather than giving that kind of credibility to the agencies.
[189] Aled Roberts: Nid wy’n derbyn bod ad-drefnu llywodraeth leol yn mynd i fod yn ateb i’r holl broblemau yma, achos rhan o’r broblem ydy bod y proffesiwn a’r undebau wedi bod yn pwyso ar Lywodraeth Cymru i gynyddu yr arian sy’n cael ei yrru i lawr i’r ysgolion. Rydym ni rŵan mewn sefyllfa, ar lefel cenedlaethol, lle mae 85 y cant o’r arian yn mynd i’r ysgolion.		Aled Roberts: I don’t accept that local government reorganisation is going to be a solution to all these problems, because part of the problem is that the profession and the unions have been putting pressure on the Welsh Government to increase the money that is delegated down to schools. We’re now in a situation, at a national level, where 85 per cent of that money goes to schools.
11.00
[190] Sut, felly, y gallwch chi ddisgwyl i lywodraeth leol weithredu yr holl systemau yma, fel oedden nhw pan, hwyrach, nad oedd y lefel o ariannu ysgolion ond rhyw 70 y cant i 75 y cant? Rydym ni wedi tynnu allan o lywodraeth leol y capasiti i drefnu.		How, therefore, can you expect local government to implement all these systems as they were when the level of school funding was only about 70 per cent to 75 per cent? We’ve taken away from local government the capacity to organise.
[191] Mr Phillips: Absolutely, but when you say the trade unions have been in favour and asking for greater delegation down to school level, that’s not our position. As a trade union, we’ve been great supporters of the local authority control of our schools, and we’ve been opposed to increased delegation down to schools. By delegating the money down to schools, you dissipate it, especially on the funding formulas that we have. So, we would rather see money retained centrally to provide for supply teaching. We’d rather see money retained centrally to provide for special needs services within schools. So, clearly, that’s not our policy position, in terms of delegating more into schools. I actually thought it was the Lib Dems’ policy to put more down into schools.
[192] Aled Roberts: I’m just questioning this idea that, if we reduce the local authorities down to such and such a number, that, you know, it’s going to be this magic panacea. It isn’t, because the level of delegation is going to remain the same, whoever’s policy it is.
[193] Mr Phillips: Well, I would hope that the level of delegation would be looked at, and I would hope that, you know, the opportunity would be taken, if you have a smaller number of local authorities, to look again at what services need to be retained centrally, so that they could be spread and used where there are areas of need. That would be, in our view, the better way of approaching the funding of schools. There’s a whole host of issues around the funding of schools: whether or not we should have schools funded on the basis of pupil numbers, or whether we should have schools funded on the basis of the curriculum—
[194] Ann Jones: I appreciate that that’s a very valid point, but I just want to come back to supply agencies, and the use of them. I know, before Bethan comes in with the last question, Suzy’s got a point.
[195] Suzy Davies: It’s just a very quick question, actually. You were talking about the pool idea. Do you have a view on why regional consortia haven’t considered doing this? We’ll have other questions about consortia, but just on this particular point.
[196] Mr Phillips: I don’t know why. I know that we are very wary of the regional consortia at the moment. One of the problems with the regional consortia—and I don’t think the regional consortia completely understand this—is they have no employer function and no employer role over teachers as school-based workforce. Teachers in schools are employed by a governing body in the first instance, but the overarching employer is the local authority. They hold the contract; they can issue the contract. Governing bodies can’t issue contracts of employment. It’s the local authority that hold the contracts. Now, the consortia don’t have that role. When we talk about consortia, we need to be clear about what we mean, because there is an issue over what constitutes the consortia, and what constitutes school improvement services as well.
[197] Suzy Davies: I think we’re going to have some more questions on that. It was just on the pool point.
[198] Ann Jones: Okay. Bethan.
[199] Bethan Jenkins: I’m not sure who asked the question last time to the NUT, but they said there would be a conflict of interest in doing this, but other models, such as the trade unions setting up an agency of your own, so that you could protect—. I know; it’s just an idea. Are there any other ideas, apart from going back to the local authority list, that you’ve looked at—other countries, how they do it—that could then take away from the treatment that you exemplify, in terms of the terms and conditions of those agency teachers?
[200] Mr Phillips: The question you asked about the trade unions setting up their own agencies, we were asked that by Leighton Andrews when he was Minister—
[201] Bethan Jenkins: Yes, I know. That’s why I thought I’d ask.
[202] Mr Phillips: The response was, ‘No, that’s not our role as a trade union’. We wouldn’t wish to do that. I have to say that I’ve not looked at models in other countries, because I think that the best model would be central supply pools. That is the best way to protect the terms and conditions of our members. That’s what we’re looking to do with supply teachers: we want to end their exploitation. I mean, if the supply agencies were saying to us, ‘We would pay national rates, we would pay pension contributions’, then that would be a different situation, but none of them does that.
[203] Bethan Jenkins: The other question, I suppose, is, regardless of the agency situation, there is a general issue of quality, in terms of the feedback that the teachers would get, especially so via the agencies. Previous witnesses, you will have watched, have said about having an individual quality mark for the teacher that would follow the teacher through the system, as well as it being on the agency. Would that be something that you would agree with?
[204] Mr Phillips: I’m rather concerned about the idea of an individual quality mark for a teacher. There are structures within the system. Teachers are all subject now to a performance management process, and that process looks at them and looks at the quality of the teacher, and we are in a situation now where, under that process, under the administration or the administration that is at Westminster at the moment, our appraisal process is directly linked to their pay. That’s a problem for us. Putting a sort of kite mark or a quality assurance on an individual teacher, I think, is the wrong way around. The teachers are professionals. They come into the profession and they’ve been trained. If they are not working up to their appropriate level, then there are procedures for dealing with that: they can be placed on competency procedures. I know there is an issue here with supply teachers because supply teachers are not subject to performance management under the regulations. They could be, if they’re on a long-term supply basis. That’s what the regulations say. How you would conduct performance management for people—. If the supply teachers were centrally employed by a local authority, then you could run performance management for them, but really the responsibility for the performance management of teachers who are on the books of agencies rests with the agencies.
[205] Bethan Jenkins: I think the reason why people were looking at the individual was because many of the individuals weren’t accessing training because they were needing to go to another school to work to get their salary that day. So, it was a way of trying to incentivise the individual. So, if they did have either points or a mark, they would want to be able to personally keep up with that, and so they would be incentivised then to take training, if you understand what I’m saying.
[206] Mr Phillips: I’m not altogether sure that I agree that you would incentivise teachers by giving them some sort of mark, or grading, which is what seems to be said. I heard what was said about the passport. I can’t remember what it’s called now—the professional learning passport?—that is being brought in. We’ve not looked at that in any detail; there’s been no discussion with us about that passport. That was an announcement that was made, but we need to look at that in some detail, because I don’t understand what it’s going to look like, but I would be very concerned, and the NASUWT would be very concerned, if that were some sort of tool that would be used to grade teachers.
[207] Ann Jones: Okay, thank you. Shall we go on to the use of supply teachers and pupil outcomes? It’s Aled and then Suzy.
[208] Aled Roberts: Jest eisiau cwestiynu yn y lle cyntaf y gwahaniaeth barn rhwng y Swyddfa Archwilio Cymru, sy’n dweud bod yna gynnydd yn y defnydd o athrawon cyflenwi yng Nghymru, a’ch tystiolaeth chi, sy’n dweud bod yna ostyngiad yn  y gwaith cyflenwi sydd ar gael i athrawon unigol. Felly, sut mae hynny’n gweithio?		Aled Roberts: I just wanted to ask in the first instance about the difference of opinion between the Wales Audit Office, which says there’s been an increase in the use of supply teachers in Wales, and your evidence, which states that there has been a reduction in the supply work that’s available for individual teachers. So, how does that work?
[209] Mr Phillips: It’s what our survey has told us. Our members have told us, when they’ve responded to that survey, that they’re finding it more difficult to get supply work. Now, I can only speculate on the reason for that. I think that there are two reasons for it. It’s the nature of work that is on offer to them through the supply agencies. I think there has been a shift from teachers being offered supply work to being offered work as cover supervisors because it’s cheaper to put a cover supervisor into a school than it is to put a supply teacher in. So, I think that that’s one reason. If a teacher rings up an agency and they’re looking for work, they may get told, ‘Well, we can put you in as a cover supervisor in a school, but there’s no work as a supply teacher.’ What will often happen when those teachers arrive at the school is that they will find that what they’ve been doing is the work of a teacher. Now, you can use cover supervisors for very short-term supply work, but that’s all it should be used for. I think there’s a huge issue over the misuse of cover supervisors in our schools at the moment.
[210] The other issue is one of, I think, supply and demand, and it comes down to the redundancies that we faced in Wales year on year. I think that there are a lot more teachers out there now who are looking for supply work, and they can’t find that supply work simply because there are more of them. I think it’s as simple as that. There seem to be two bodies of teachers, I think, that look for supply. I don’t think anyone makes the career choice to be a supply teacher. I don’t think that happens. I’ve got no evidence to suggest that that situation exists. What happens is that those teachers that are made redundant will be looking for additional work. Some teachers that retire will be looking for additional work. The other end of the scale is those teachers that are coming out of college. A lot of the teachers that come out of college can’t get permanent jobs any longer. We run an NQT seminar every summer, and every summer we ask the question, ‘How many of you have got permanent jobs?’ It’s not a lot any longer. I have to say there was a slight increase in that last year, but generally speaking, they’re not permanent jobs. And then, when we asked the question, ‘How many of you’ve got jobs through agencies and that?’, a lot of people answer that question and say, ‘Yes, that’s all we’ve been able to get—work through agencies, and on agency books’. So, you’ve got your two pools of workers there that are looking for work. The situation hasn’t been helped, you know, in terms of the supply teachers, by some of the other initiatives that have been brought in, like Teach First. You know, we weren’t a big fan of Teach First when it came in—it was the additional graduate training programme when it was brought in—because those people are contracted to schools and they’re learning on the job. So, if they’re there, they—. I don’t know how they’re used in the schools and how much that’s regulated, but they can be used, you know, instead of teachers in some instances, although we have to remember that they are trainee teachers when they’re in schools.
[211] Aled Roberts: Beth ydyw eich sylw chi ar lefelau absenoldeb yng Nghymru a’r ffaith bod yna dystiolaeth bod yr ysgolion a’r cynghorau lleol yn casglu data ynglŷn â lefelau absenoldeb, ond nad oes dealltwriaeth o’r rhesymau dros yr absenoldeb hwnnw?		Aled Roberts: What is your view on absence levels in Wales and the fact that there is evidence that the schools and the local authorities are gathering data about absence levels, but yet there is no understanding of the reasons for those absences?
[212] Mr Phillips: Well, sickness absence in schools is an inevitable part of running a school. Teachers will become ill.
[213] Aled Roberts: Ond pam y mae’r ffigurau yn llawer iawn yn uwch yng Nghymru nag yn yr Alban a Lloegr?		Aled Roberts: But why the figures very much higher in Wales than they are in Scotland and England?
[214] Mr Phillips: Well, again, I can only speculate on that, all right; I can’t tell you. What I can say, from the evidence that we have from those teachers who ring in to us, is that one of the causes of long-term teacher absence is stress-related illness, and that stress-related illness is related to increased workload, downward pressure, and the high-stakes accountability culture that exists within our schools at the moment. That is causing people to go off on long-term sickness. It doesn’t help when teachers go off on long-term sickness for schools to then just engage cover through supply agencies and use it in that way. If a teacher is off on long-term sickness, then we believe that there should be a contract offered to the teacher that is coming in to cover that sickness. But we would put down, I think, from our experiences, the cause of increased sickness levels in school is that culture of downward pressure on teachers and the expectations that are put on teachers.
[215] The management culture in some of our schools has become extremely punitive, and the idea of running a school on a collegiate basis seems to have disappeared. We seem to be moving to a system of command-and-control structures in our schools. That came through very much in the Robert Hill report, and it was something in the evidence that we gave to that that we objected to strongly because that’s not how schools should operate. They shouldn’t be command and control; it should be a collegiate approach, with professionals working with professionals. I think we’ve lost some of that in Wales. I think that some of the sickness absence policies that are in our schools are extremely punitive, with trigger mechanisms in them that require then, you know, a visit from maybe a local authority after a certain number of days. They don’t seem to allow for the fact that teachers do become ill. They can become sick. If there’s a flu epidemic, why you would need a return-to-work interview after a teacher having the flu is beyond my comprehension.
[216] Aled Roberts: Ond roeddem yn clywed tystiolaeth yr wythnos diwethaf y byddai, ymron pob diwydiant a phroffesiwn arall, gyfweliad er mwyn i’r arweinyddiaeth o fewn yr ysgol ddeall y rhesymau am yr absenoldeb ac i gymryd camau i ymateb i hynny, os oedd unrhyw fath o farnu o’r sefyllfa o fewn yr ysgol.		Aled Roberts: But we did hear evidence last week that, in nearly every other industry and profession, there would be a return-to-work interview so that the leadership within the school would be able to understand the reasons for the absence and to take steps to respond to that, should there be any kind of judgment of the situation within the school.
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[217] Mr Phillips: Well, I’d certainly welcome that in the case of long-term illness, but what I was saying was that, in terms of short-term illness, a certificate would be sent in, or the teacher will say what was wrong with them. If it’s simply related to influenza or a cold, I don’t really see that there is a need for a return-to-work interview. That’s where I say the policies are mechanistic and punitive. I mean, the return-to-work interview could just be a headteacher saying, you know, ‘Are you okay now? Have you recovered?’ That’s fine. If it’s done in that way, that’s a supportive way to deal with it. I don’t disagree with the fact that we need to look at what’s caused the illness, if it’s a long-term illness, and I don’t think that there is enough done on that, certainly in terms of stress-related illness. But I think that, probably, schools may fight shy of wanting to know about what’s caused the stress for the teacher, because, sometimes, that stress is caused by the way in which the teachers are managed.
[218] Aled Roberts: Ond i ni, mae’n debyg, efo cymaint o sylw yn cael ei roi i gyrhaeddiad plant, mae’r ffaith bod 10 y cant o wersi yng Nghymru yn cael eu darparu gan athrawon cyflenwi, ac wrth inni dderbyn tystiolaeth gan blant a phobl ifanc sy’n dweud bod rhai o’r gwersi hynny yn cynnwys gwneud wordsearch neu chwarae gemau, wrth gwrs fod pryder yn mynd i fod, o’n rhan ni fel gwleidyddion, fod yn rhaid inni fynd i’r afael â’r broblem gynyddol yma o absenoldeb a’r defnydd o athrawon cyflenwi.		Aled Roberts: But for us, it seems, with so much attention being given to pupil attainment, the fact that 10 per cent of lessons in Wales are being provided by supply teachers, and as we’ve received evidence from children and young people stating that some of those lessons include doing wordsearches or playing games, then of course there’s going to be a concern, for us as politicians, that we need to address this increasing problem of absence and the use of supply teachers.
[219] Mr Phillips: I’m glad you said that last part, Aled, because there are two issues there, aren’t there? There’s the issue of the absence in the first place and there’s the issue of the cover that is provided within the school. I think I’ve covered the issue of the absence in the first place, but, in terms of the cover that is provided, I think that very much depends on the attitude of the school.
[220] I would just come back on this 10 per cent figure though, because I think that came from the Estyn report, didn’t it?
[221] Simon Thomas: No, it was from the Wales Audit Office.
[222] Aled Roberts: Yes, the Wales Audit Office.
[223] Mr Phillips: The Wales Audit Office. Wasn’t there a tie-up with Estyn over that as well?
[224] Aled Roberts: There was a follow-up.
[225] Mr Phillips: A follow-up. Because, clearly, I don’t know whether that—. If it’s the Wales Audit Office’s, it’s probably got a little bit more credibility, because it probably was across the piste, whereas Estyn tend to place their—
[226] Simon Thomas: It was that one in 10 secondary lessons is covered by supply teachers. That was the actual Wales Audit Office figure.
[227] Mr Phillips: From the audit office.
[228] Simon Thomas: Yes.
[229] Mr Phillips: Well, yes, that would, in my view, have more credibility, because what Estyn tend to do is to go in and do thematic inspections of a few schools and then place their data on that, and they would say that 10 per cent—. They’d try to spread that out across the whole of Wales. But, if that’s from the audit office, then we’ll accept that that figure is correct.
[230] Coming back to the point about what happens in the classroom and the anecdotal evidence, or the evidence that you’ve had from children, I think that does depend on what happens when the supply teacher gets to the school and how they’re treated. If they’re treated as an integral and a valued part of the school—if they’re shown the school policies and if they’re given some kind of introduction to the school—then I think that you would find that it would be an entirely different approach. But, all too often, I don’t think that they’re shown policies. They’re not told about, you know, the specific needs of individual pupils. I think, in many schools, there’s a failure to provide adequate support. I also think, a supply teacher in a school, if they’re in need of support and help, they should feel that they can go and ask for it. I raise that issue because, sometimes if a supply teacher goes and asks for support or help, they’re just considered to be not very good, and if they’re working through an agency, the school will just ring up the agency and they will then be told, ‘The school doesn’t want you back for the next day’. So, part of that could be why you get a turnover of supply teachers in schools as well.
[231] I think it’s probably best summed up by saying that, I think, if a school values the role of a supply teacher, and treats them with the respect that their position deserves, and gives them help and support, then I think that you wouldn’t have the problems that you’ve just described. I don’t think that they should be left to sink or swim in a school when they arrive at the school. You know, if there is a more stable relationship—and I think the presenters previously made this point—with the school, they will probably know about the policies in that school. But that really should be something that is looked at. That issue as well in the school is not only about, you know, the pupils’ outcomes and the relationship to that; there is also a huge issue about pupils’ health and safety, because teachers need to be told about the specific needs of pupils.
[232] In preparing for this, I’d asked our PAs to look at it—they are our professional assistants who take the calls from our members, and deal specifically with the members and deal with supply teachers. And, what surprised me in the response I got back from them was that they’d reported that, quite often, supply teachers in schools are left to give pupils back to carers and yet the supply teachers may only have been in the school today; they won’t know the carers who the pupils are going back to. So, that’s the kind of situation I think we need to look at and need to address. It’s about how supply teachers are managed when they go into the schools. That is the responsibility of the school.
[233] Aled Roberts: Jest un cwestiwn olaf. A oes unrhyw beth o fewn eich astudiaeth chi a’r adroddiad rydych chi wedi ei gyflwyno i ni sydd yn cadarnhau bod mwy o ddefnydd o athrawon cyflenwi o fewn ysgolion o fewn ardaloedd difreintiedig?		Aled Roberts: Just one final question. Is there anything within your study and the report that you have presented to us that confirms that greater use is made of supply teachers within schools within disadvantaged areas?
[234] Mr Phillips: I don’t think so. I need to put the report into context, as well, because this report was a report that went across the UK.
[235] Aled Roberts: The UK; yes.
[236] Mr Phillips: Yes. But I don’t—. I would say, you know, that there is likely to be a greater use of supply teachers in areas of disadvantage, because I think that teachers working in the schools in areas of disadvantage are under greater stresses and strains, simply because, I think, behaviour is probably an issue in many of those schools. It comes down to what the behaviour policies are in those schools. I think you may even find that there’s a greater turnover of supply teachers going into those schools, because, don’t forget, if a supply teacher is employed through an agency, they can be taken off the agency’s books, but the supply teacher can also say, ‘I’m not going back there again’.
[237] Ann Jones: Okay. Suzy.
[238] Suzy Davies: Yes. I’ve got a couple of questions. In your survey, it seems that 78 per cent of supply teachers were able to access pupil support mechanisms within schools and 74 per cent believe that their requests for support to manage behaviour were taken seriously. Now, obviously, there was a proportion that had the opposite experience. How many of those who had the better experience also had the poor experience and were able, even just anecdotally, to say the difference that that made to the pupil outcomes in both scenarios?
[239] Mr Phillips: I don’t know the answer to the question, okay? I don’t think that we’ve looked at that; I don’t think we looked at that in terms of the effect on pupil outcomes at all. The survey didn’t go—. Well, I don’t even know if I was to ask a supply teacher, you know, ‘How much do you think that you’ve affected the outcomes of pupils from the work that you’ve done?’—because I don’t think that’s been looked at in any great detail. It, perhaps, is an area that needs to be looked at, but it’s nothing that we’ve looked at as a trade union.
[240] Suzy Davies: So, you’d welcome the position that the universities took in the previous evidence session that some serious research needs to be done on how pupil outcomes are impacted by different types of supply teaching, effectively.
[241] Mr Phillips: Well, I can see that there’s no reason not to do that, if that’s considered to be an issue and a problem. Given that there is a lack of research, I don’t know whether we know whether it’s a problem or not. We would hope, as a trade union, it doesn’t present, perhaps, the problem that has been described. But, if it’s a problem, then you have to look at why it’s a problem and you take us back to your questions, Aled.
[242] Suzy Davies: Okay. And, just one very specific question, actually, on Welsh-medium supply teachers. I don’t know how many of your members are Welsh speaking, or actually teach through the medium of Welsh, but do you get any feedback from your members that they’re sometimes asked to teach in inappropriate settings in terms of language—perhaps English-speaking teachers having to go into Welsh-medium schools, or even having to teach Welsh as a second language in English-medium schools when that’s not actually their area of expertise?
[243] Mr Phillips: No. We’ve had no-one contact us over that. We know that there is an issue with certain groups of teachers, like science teachers teaching through the medium of Welsh; we know there are issues related to that. But I think that the issues related to supply teachers in terms of Welsh-medium education mirror, in many senses, the issues related to Welsh-medium teachers across the piece.
[244] Suzy Davies: Okay. That’s very helpful, thank you.
[245] Ann Jones: Shall we go on to the role of local authorities and regional consortia? Keith.
[246] Keith Davies: Yes. Rex, good morning.
[247] Mr Phillips: Good morning.
[248] Keith Davies: Do you think that local authorities are not undertaking the tasks they should be undertaking now as far as supply teachers are concerned?
[249] Mr Phillips: I don’t think they’re able to. I think that’s the real problem. They have moved away from this. I think in north Wales they still have a system of lists, but I heard what you said earlier—
[250] Aled Roberts: Until next Wednesday.
[251] Mr Phillips: Exactly, yes. That seems to be going. That’s what austerity has done to them. That’s what the cutbacks to local authorities have done. Local authorities—well, you know—are struggling with their budgets at the moment. I don’t think it’s because they wanted to move away from that. I think that they’ve been put in a position where they’ve had to prioritise other areas and they’ve moved away from it, and it comes back to the amount of money that they’ve had to delegate down. They haven’t been able to retain the resources to do that. Economies of scale play a great part in that. I heard you talking about the days of the eight local authorities, when you were able to do it. I think that that’s absolutely right. They were different times in those days. It would be good if we could return to something like that, because I think that you would then have a pool of teachers that could be provided with the type of support they should be provided with.
[252] Keith Davies: We’ve had two bits of evidence. One is from Sefton. Sefton Council is running a supply agency and it’s a contract from schools for three years. They have three members of staff running it, so it’s not expensive, and the teachers who do supply work in Sefton get their proper money—if they’re teachers who are starting their career, they get £110 a day and they can get up to £180. Sefton are doing it there. We’re also told that the city of Belfast is doing it for the whole of Northern Ireland, so they employ supply teachers for all the schools in Northern Ireland. Now, there’s a question I didn’t get to ask to the two we saw earlier. We’ve got now this education workforce council, so that anybody working in a school at whatever level in whatever job has to join the education workforce council. I’m not sure what happens in Scotland. Is it something similar to the education workforce council in Wales that, in Scotland, actually employs the supply teachers in Scotland? There are examples around the UK of supply teachers getting paid the proper salary, and I’m just wondering what you would recommend to this committee that we put to the Welsh Government on it?
[253] Mr Phillips: Well, how big is Sefton? Do we know?
[254] Keith Davies: Now then; I can tell you how many teachers there are in a minute—
[255] Ann Jones: It’s a fairly sizeable area.
[256] Keith Davies: It could be.
[257] Ann Jones: Yes, it’s a fairly sizeable area, but I think it’s the model that we’re talking about.
[258] Mr Phillips: The model that you’re talking about I think is a good model. If you ran it that way, and you’re talking about proper pay and conditions of service—. So I would favour the model. You could monitor supply teachers better. Well, the monitoring would take care of itself, if they were centrally employed, because they could be subjected to performance management. CPD could be provided because it would be being provided for teachers as well. The other aspect of that is that teacher induction could be dealt with and supported. Clearly, we mustn’t forget, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of newly qualified teachers undertake their induction while they’re working through the agencies, while they’re working as supply teachers. That was one of the important things that the Welsh Government did. They allowed service—any service—to be credited towards induction, and I think that that was a good move on the part of the Welsh Government to do that. But that induction process could be run from there.
[259] You mentioned the education workforce council, which is the new body that was set up instead of the GTCW. Those around the table who know me well will know that we were not great supporters or fans of the General Teaching Council for Wales in the way that it conducted itself, and I wouldn’t want to see the education workforce council running a supply pool because, again, they’re not an employer. I think it’s important for an employer to run the supply pool, to have that function. So, the Sefton model may be fine; the Belfast model may be fine.
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[260] Things are different in Northern Ireland, I think, and if they run that for the whole of Northern Ireland then that’s fine, but Northern Ireland operates on a more general basis, I understand. I mean, they’re going through major redundancies at the moment over in Northern Ireland, but there was a time—I don’t know whether this still exists—when they were doing that, and looking at all their schools as a family of schools in Northern Ireland. Now, we tend—. I heard what was said earlier about doing this sort of thing on a regional basis. Regional basis—I don’t know. Local authority basis/regional basis, I always think ‘consortia’. Consortia: no employer role. Local authority: too many. You reduce the number of local authorities, make them a reasonable size, and then you could run these sorts of systems.
[261] Ann Jones: Shall we move on to continuous professional development and performance management, Simon?
[262] Simon Thomas: Diolch. A dweud y gwir, rydym ni wedi daelio â llawer o’r maes yma trwy’r cwestiynau, felly dim ond un prif gwestiwn sydd ar ôl, rwy’n meddwl. Dywedasoch chi yn gynharach nad yw’ch undeb chi, o leiaf, wedi bod yn rhan o’r trafodion o gwmpas y fargen newydd, neu’r model dysgu proffesiynol cenedlaethol, neu beth bynnag sydd gan y Llywodraeth, sydd ond newydd ei gyhoeddi, wrth gwrs. O edrych ar yr hyn sydd wedi ei gyhoeddi i’r Cynulliad—nid oes llawer o fanylion wedi’u cyhoeddi—nid yw’n glir i mi sut y byddai athrawon cyflenwi yn elwa o’r system newydd, chwaith. Felly, er nad ydych wedi bod yn rhan o’r trafodaethau o gwmpas y peth, a oes gennych unrhyw farn ar yr hyn sydd wedi cael ei ddisgrifio hyd yma, ac a oes gennych unrhyw farn ar sut gall hynny ddarparu ar gyfer athrawon cyflenwi?		Simon Thomas: Thanks. To be honest, we have already covered a lot of this area in previous questions, so just one main question remains, I think. You said earlier that your union, at least, hasn’t been part of the discussions around the new deal, or the national professional learning model, or whatever the Government has, which has only just been published, of course. From looking at what has been issued to the Assembly—there aren’t many details that have been announced—it’s not clear to me how supply teachers would benefit from the new system, either. Therefore, although you haven’t been part of the discussions about this, do you have any opinion about what has been outlined so far, and do you have any opinion regarding how that could provide for supply teachers?
[263] Mr Phillips: Well, let me first of all correct you. We are involved in the new deal, right? We weren’t involved particularly in the national professional learning model, as such, although we’ve been involved on the outskirts of that through the union partners process, but we are very much involved in the new deal, and I attended the meeting—I think it was either last week or this week—over the new deal. I think it was earlier this week. What I said was that, what came as a surprise to us, was the passport that was announced, right? That was the issue that—
[264] Simon Thomas: But the passport is the key to CPD, effectively.
[265] Mr Phillips: Yes. That’s it. Is it a professional learning passport that it’s called? I can’t remember the name of it, which is not surprising, because we weren’t really involved in its—. It was announced, but we didn’t know what it was going to be. We still don’t know what it was going to be. I think the new deal provides a way forward. It certainly provides a way forward for professional development, but what I like about the new deal is the commitment that it will be designed by practitioners for practitioners. That seems to be the thrust of it. The professional learning model I think they’re looking at is really to have a system where teachers can learn from one another, rather than having the courses that we heard of earlier. From our experience as a trade union, when our members have been placed on capability procedures and we ask them, ‘What was the most effective part of the process you undertook?’, they generally tell us, ‘It was going to see somebody else teach a lesson as opposed to have someone else coming in with their clipboard and watching me teach my lesson’. I think that that, really, is the thrust of where the new deal is going to take us. Hopefully, that’s where it’s going to go, and that’s what we’ll be pressing for as a trade union.
[266] Now, on the issue of supply teachers, yes, I think that that needs to be discussed, I think that that needs to be part of that process, and we won’t lose sight of the fact that, within new deal, that entitlement that is talked about has got to be an entitlement for supply teachers. If it is an entitlement for supply teachers, then clearly it’s got to be funded. Now, we know that, with the new deal, we’ve been told there is no new money, so this is a different way of looking at things. And if you’re going to provide the experience for teachers to learn from one another, then that’s a matter of organisation, and it’s a matter of, perhaps, looking at the use of in-service training days, it’s perhaps a matter of looking at an asymmetric week, similar to the situation that they have in Scotland, so that you can free up one group of teachers to go and observe another group of teachers. But those observations would be professionals talking to professionals. They wouldn’t be, in our view, judgmental lesson observations. They are for people to benefit from looking at those teachers who are deemed to be excellent teachers or leading practitioners within our schools.
[267] But supply teachers should be a part of that. Now, again, we come back to—at the moment, the system that we’ve got is one of agencies in Wales—how do you involve the agencies in that? The agencies could just say, ‘Well, we don’t mind our members going to that professional training’. What we would expect is for them to be paid to go to it, right? They would be remunerated by the agency to go for that. One of the issues is, I think, whether this should be mandatory for supply teachers. Well, clearly, if it is an entitlement, it should be funded; if it’s mandatory, then I think it must be funded. If you’re being told that you have to do something by the agency, then the agency has got to say, ‘Well, you need to do this training. We’re going to send you off on this training, and we will reimburse you for that—we will pay you for that.’
[268] Simon Thomas: But, in a sense, it doesn’t really matter if it’s described as mandatory or not, because if you’re describing this self-improving, professional-led professional development and learning, which everyone is describing as part of the new deal, then everyone has to be a part of it, otherwise it doesn’t work. Therefore, the mandation is almost secondary, because everyone has to buy into it and make it work. The implication of that is that we can’t possibly have 5,000 teachers in Wales who are not part of this, because they have to be part of the process. So, thank you for the clarification as well, but what I was trying to get at is that it’s a little surprising that the passport is the, kind of, entitlement card, if you like, and there hasn’t been clarity around whether that’s going to be available to supply teachers or how it will work in the supply teacher context.
[269] Mr Phillips: Well, I understand what you say about the passport. I’m not sure what the passport is. I know what we don’t want it to be, and what we don’t want it to be is something that, you know, is there for teachers to have to demonstrate that they’ve undertaken that training. It is the education workforce council that appear to have been given the operation of the passport, and what we would want—. There are certain safeguards that we would want in that. If it’s a teacher’s own passport to learning, it’s their own record of their professional learning, then that is their property. We wouldn’t want anybody else to be able to access that. Like you, Simon, we don’t know enough about it at the moment, but there will be certain things that we will need to look at, but I would be clear that we would expect whatever is being put in place for teachers to be put in place for supply teachers, not least because they’re part-time workers. You know, there would be equalities issues there, and we would expect them to be able to access that, because it could be perceived as discrimination, on the grounds of the fact that they are part-time workers, if they were not allowed to join up. They may not like me saying that and they may not thank me for saying that, but I think that that would be our approach—that that entitlement should be there for all, not just for some.
[270] Simon Thomas: Diolch.
[271] Ann Jones: Are you happy, everybody? Thanks very much for that, Rex. You know that the procedure is that we send you a copy of the transcript to check for accuracy, because it forms part of the report when we come to conclude. So, thanks very much for that.
[272] Mr Phillips: Well, thank you.
[273] Ann Jones: Thanks a lot. If Members are happy, can we go into private under 17.42—? Oh, sorry, there are some papers to note before we do go private under Standing Order 17.42.
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Papurau i’w Nodi Papers to Note
[274] Ann Jones: There is a letter from the Minister on the appointment of the new chair of the qualifications shadow board, and then a letter from the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee on psychoactive substances. So, we will note those.
Cynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42 i Benderfynu Gwahardd y Cyhoedd o Weddill y Cyfarfod Motion under Standing Order 17.42 to Resolve to Exclude the Public from the Meeting for the Remainder of the Meeting
Cynnig:		Motion:
bod y pwyllgor yn penderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o weddill y cyfarfod yn unol â Rheol Sefydlog 17.42(ix).		that the committee resolves to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting in accordance with Standing Order 17.42(ix).
Cynigiwyd y cynnig. Motion moved.
[275] Ann Jones: We will go into private session. Thank you.
Derbyniwyd y cynnig. Motion agreed.
Daeth rhan gyhoeddus y cyfarfod i ben am 11:39. The public part of the meeting ended at 11:39.