Did you know, a student can be in the care of a relief teacher for the equivalent of one year or more throughout their education; a significant amount of time that equates to almost 8% of a student’s schooling years. The affect that a reliever can have on student learning, well-being and overall outcome is substantial. As one of the Directors at our Hawkes Bay based relieving agency Toi Toi Recruitment, I think it’s important to ensure we are placing quality, high calibre educators into our Centre’s and Schools.
How do students benefit from agency teachers?
Agency databases allow us to search and source teachers in their method, meaning that we can book a PE teacher to teach PE, a maths teacher to teach maths etc. This means students get to participate in practical classes that some teachers are not trained to take, in particular the subjects where safety and insurance becomes a concern, like woodwork or food technology.
Splitting of grades is minimised – because agencies work across different geographical locations if there is a particularly busy time in a certain suburb due to teachers being out on Professional Development days, or excursions, then we can send teachers from surrounding suburbs to ensure adequate cover is organised.
What do teachers gain from working with Toi Toi Recruitment?
We have connections with Centre’s and Schools all over Hawkes Bay and therefor can offer you lots of work at lots of different Centre’s! You can choose when and how much you work and can easily manage this all on our free and easy to use App. If you only want to work every 2nd Friday when you have a babysitter for your kids, or if you are retired and would just like to keep your foot in the door, we can accommodate this!
We provide regular and comprehensive professional development sessions - focused on effective relief teaching. These sessions are tailored to relieving so will focus on things like behaviour management, how to settle in quickly at a new Centre, interview techniques or how to write the perfect resume.
We have a bank of resources so we can help you do what you do best, teach! We can help with on the spot lesson plans, school expectations, and helping new graduates ease into relieving. We also have a close working relationship with the Ministry of Education, in order to help understand the needs of Hawkes Bay Centres and Schools and support our teachers to achieve these standards.
We are a small and locally owned business who is committed to getting to know each of our teachers and what kinds of schools they like to work at. We discuss ideal roles and can assist with landing that dream job faster. Doing relief teaching in more cases than not, leads to contract role opportunities. It really is a great way to build connections with schools and to be considered for any long-term vacancies that may pop up.
Why would a Centre or School use an agency?
We work with Centres and Schools that at times, require a decent number of relievers and teaching assistants each day. Imagine being the daily organiser, Assistant Principal or Principal for a large school, and having to call through a list of people at 6am in order to get them booked in for the day and ready to start school by 8.30am – near impossible. Not only would you need to somehow manage your list of teachers so that you don’t waste time calling people who are not available, but you would also need to manage which subjects each teacher is trained in so that each class has the best fit teacher for the day or so that the ratios of qualifications in your Centre are correct. We offer a wide range of options when requesting replacement teachers - call, text, email, online system or school app and, we’re open from 6:30am each day which means the daily organiser can contact us when those on their local list may not answer the phone.
We have found that there are certain suburbs or geographical areas where a lot of teachers live, and on the flip-side, there are suburbs where not many teachers live. If Centres booked their own local teachers directly, this would again cause an issue where some schools would not have any local teachers to call upon. As an agency we have an understanding of our teachers’ maximum travel times and can therefore ask teachers who are willing to travel further to help out some of these Centres/Schools in outer suburbs. We are constantly recruiting to ensure our teacher pool is able to cater to a range of needs across all Centres and Schools.
We have a thorough vetting and interview process ensuring all of our staff meet required employment conditions, and that teacher quality is at the forefront of what we do. This gives Centres and Schools’ peace of mind as any teacher an agency provides to them will have: the required registration, excellent reference checks and completed training on mandatory reporting and child safety standards.
The idea of this blog is to provide some insight into why some schools and teachers use a teaching agency, and how many benefits there are on offer. At Toi Toi Recruitment we strive to work for the greater good, and our end goal is to ensure that every student in Hawkes Bay is receiving the best quality of teaching, whether it is for one day or one week.
If you would like any further information on any of the topics raised here, please get in contact with me on kiaora@toitoirecruitment.co.nz
