Long Term vs Day to Day Supply Teaching

Whether you’re just starting out on your teaching career as an early careers teacher (ECT) or considering your options as an experienced teacher, temporary supply teaching roles have much to offer in terms of personal and professional development.

When considering supply teaching, you have two options to consider: Long Term Supply or Day to Day Supply.

Deciding which option is best for you, is very much a personal choice depending on your circumstances and hopefully this article explains the differences and will help you to decide which route you would like to take.

Long Term Supply Teaching

With long term supply, you have full class teaching responsibilities including planning and assessments as well as the requirement to attend staff meetings and parents evenings.

These roles can last anywhere from 2 weeks to a full academic year and if you love the school, there is often a chance for you to go from a temporary to permanent position within the school, so these long term roles are a great way to “try before you buy” to see if you enjoy the culture of the school, it’s leadership and curriculum.  

As these roles, come with full class teaching responsibilities, you can expect to be paid to scale for these roles.

Day to Day Supply Teaching

With day to day supply, you are delivering pre planned lessons to a class, very much on a short term basis. There is no expectation of you to attend meetings or parents evenings. You may be in the same school for one day, a week or longer, but you will not have full class teaching responsibilities.

You will be delivering pre planned lessons set by the class or subject teacher. You need to ensure that the learning objectives of each lesson has been met and if you are doing primary supply, you will also be expected to mark any work that has been completed that day.

Day to day supply is totally flexible: you pick the days and schools you wish to work in, allowing you to fit your work around your other commitments – giving you a great work-life balance.

As well as a great work-life balance, it is also a fantastic way to gain further experience in a variety of schools settings across multiple year groups. Day to day supply teaching allows Teachers to see different school cultures, leaderships styles and student demographics, allowing educators the opportunity to determine their strengths and preferences.

This is especially useful for ECTs who are still undecided about which school setting or year group they wish to work in during their ECT years or where they feel like they would like to gain further teaching experience before finding a role which will support their ECT.

As Day to day supply teaching does not involve full class teaching responsibilities and you are delivering pre planned lessons, this is reflected in the pay and you will not be paid to scale for these roles. Day to day supply pay varies from region to region but you can expect to be paid anything from £110 to £170 per day.

If you are interested in becoming a supply teacher, click on one of the buttons below to get in touch with our friendly team today. 

We are currently recruiting for Primary, Secondary and SEN Supply Teachers to join our team in Birmingham, The Black Country and the wider West Midlands region including Walsall, Telford, Tamworth, Cannock, Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, Bromsgrove and Coventry.