How to manage teacher absences

Teacher absence happens most weeks. It only becomes an emergency when the cover is late or the wrong person is in the room. The cost is the lesson, the staff time spent arranging it, and the interventions that get raided to fill the gap. This is a practical order of work. It is not employment law. Pay and conditions for teachers in maintained schools in England sit in the STPCD, which has its own page: what STPCD means for cover.

What absence costs

There is the supply invoice, when you book someone. There is the internal hour, when a TA or a cover supervisor takes the class and something else does not happen. There is the leadership time spent finding the name. In the 88-staff secondary example the whole cover job, duties included, is modelled at about 8 hours a week. Your week may be shorter. It is rarely zero.

Record it before you solve it

Planned absence (a course, a trip, an appointment you knew about) goes on the board as soon as you know. Unplanned absence is the 07:40 call. Both need a reason you can group later: illness, trip, training, unknown. If you only write 'off', the termly report is useless.

Put it on the same list as duty cover. A teacher off often empties a lesson and a duty. Two lists diverge by break.

Find the cover

Internal first, if the work can be supervised and your rules allow that person to be moved. Check they are not already teaching, on PPA, on a duty you promised not to strip, or over the cap you set. Then look at supply. Supply is the right tool for a specialist lesson, a long absence, or a morning when internal cover would wreck the interventions.

The difference between a teacher and a cover supervisor matters here. A cover supervisor can supervise work that was set. They are not a stand-in teacher. That distinction is cover supervisor and teacher. Cover management is where those checks sit if you are not doing them on a sheet.

Tell people once

The person covering needs the room, the time, and where the work is. The person who lost a duty or an intervention needs to know that too. Everyone else needs the single published list, not a reply-all that contradicts the printout. Send it after the last change. If you send it twice, say that the second one replaces the first.

The lesson itself

Work should already be set for a planned absence. For an unplanned one, 'carry on with the task on the board' is a supervision brief, not a lesson plan. Do not ask a cover supervisor to invent the curriculum at 08:10. If the class has to be split between other rooms, that is still cover, and it is a poor version of it. Note that you did it.

Write down what happened

Did the cover run. Was a reading group or an ELSA session missed because the TA was in the class. Did you book supply, and for how long. This is staff time and a yes or no. It is not a pupil register. Without it, how you plan the morning has no memory, and the next absence repeats the same bad swap.

What leaders should see

A weekly note: absences, internal cover, supply, sessions missed. Patterns matter more than a single bad day. A department that is always short on a Wednesday is a timetable problem. A school that always pulls the same three TAs is a fairness problem. Neither shows up if the only record is the printout that went in the bin.

If you want that record as part of publishing, rather than as a second spreadsheet, try the board on your own absences for 30 days. No card. You still approve the name before anyone is told.

Patterns worth noticing

One teacher off every Friday is not a cover problem. It is a timetable or a workload problem that cover is hiding. A department that always needs supply on the day of a meeting planned the meeting badly, or never arranged the cover when the meeting went in the diary. Treat known absences as known. The STPCD line about foreseeable cover exists because schools were doing the opposite and calling it an emergency.

Also notice who loses their own work. If the same TA's intervention is the thing that moves, you are funding catch-up and then cancelling it. Say that out loud in the weekly note. A head who only sees 'covered' will think the morning went well. The SENCO, looking at missed sessions, will not. Both of them should be reading the same note. Cut cover costs in a primary is the money version of this. The role split, if you are unsure who may take the class, is cover supervisor and teacher. Add one line for supply days. A week that looks calm internally and expensive on the agency invoice is still an expensive week.

Close the day by checking the published list matches the rooms. One walk at the start of period 1, or at the start of lessons after registration, catches the miss while you can still move someone. A check at lunch is a post-mortem.

Related

• How to create a school duty rota
• Cover supervisor and teacher: what is different
• What STPCD means for school cover

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