OVER half of supply teachers are forced to supplement their income with other work amid pay cuts, the National Education Union (NEU) reveals today.

Understaffed schools rely heavily on agency-employed supply teachers to temporarily plug staffing gaps.

The NEU carried out an annual survey of its supply teacher members and received 1,450 responses. The report’s publication coincides with the union’s supply teachers’ conference this weekend.

It found that the percentage of supply teachers paid less than £100 a day has risen from 11 per cent to 14 per cent since 2018, and that supply teachers are paid £4,000 a year less than newly qualified teachers.

Some 89 per cent of respondents said they were paid less as supply teachers than they were when in full-time work.

And 56 per cent said they had to work in other jobs on the side, while 17 per cent said that they claimed benefits. Two per cent said they used foodbanks.

NEU joint general secretary Kevin Courtney said: “The situation for supply teachers is becoming ever more invidious, with experienced teachers not only underpaid but undervalued.

“With so many reporting that they need to claim benefits, or even turning to foodbanks, it seems incredible that such a situation can have grown amidst a retention and recruitment crisis across the profession as a whole.

“Funding pressures currently faced by head teachers are making experienced teachers less affordable, and those who do get to work as supply teachers are increasingly underpaid.”

The union is launching a new charter for supply teachers. Its aim is to secure appropriate pay grades based on experience based on national pay agreements for permanent teachers and cutting out use of profiteering agencies.