The major teaching trade unions have published guidance which has been supported by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and the Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills (DCELLS) on covering for absent teachers. This guidance sets out the process by which schools should deal with covering for absent teachers from the next academic year onwards. It is known as the Rarely Cover guidance and states that from 1st September 2009 schools should have systems in place to ensure that teachers have to cover for absent colleagues ‘only rarely’.
It has become increasingly apparent that an unintended consequence of this guidance is that it is discouraging schools from taking educational trips. In some of the cases we have seen, the teachers involved in organising the trip are still trying to convince their headteacher or board of governors that the trip should take place, but the school leadership is taking a very cautious view of the guidance and will not authorise the trips.
Having looked at the guidance, we believe that it is not the Government’s intention for it to discourage teachers from taking school trips. This would go against the direction of all recent policy on this issue which has actively tried to encourage educational school trips. As a result we have been working with our PR and Public Affairs agencies to lobby the government on this issue and we have recently met with Sarah Conboy from the Rarely Cover team to voice our concerns.
Following on from this meeting I am pleased to announce that we have had it confirmed by Rarely Cover that the guidance was never intended to have an adverse effect on school trips and that they would not expect schools to use this as a reason not to take trips. In addition a draft copy of the guidance is now going to be sent out to consultation over the summer and we have the opportunity to review and respond to the proposal. We will now be working with both Rarely Cover and the DCSF to get the message out to schools that the Rarely Cover guidance should not impact on school trips. We will continue to monitor this situation very closely.