Supply Teachers part of improving targets (not becoming one)!

Many hours are covered in schools by supply teachers and external agencies who employ the majority of cover staff, can inadvertently create a barrier to connecting good schools to good supply teachers. Examples are supply teachers wear a visitors badge instead of a staff badge, they have no keys to open doors often children can have more access, they have lessons in one part of the school then have to go to the opposite end of the school for the next lesson, often when they turn up late to a class, and have managed to find staff or pupils to open the door, the cover work provided is non existent or inappropriate. Children and staff in general have lower expectations of supply staff and this is counter productive for good classroom management. Supply teachers often have no relationship with senior management or TAs, no real meaningful access to IT system and this and many more challenges are often met by talented NQTs at the beginning of their career with predictable consequences. This could easily be sorted by schools recruiting their own supply teachers as they used to and this would mean schools could use their own part time staff or retired, or left but willing to come in for a couple of days. This in time would improve the quality provision of supply cover and drive up standards. Over my 24 year teaching career I have seen state education improve enormously and this is one of the ways to drive it up further.