Will getting ex-teachers back help keep schools open in January?
Retired teachers offering to ease school staffing issues are unlikely to be in classrooms when schools reopen in England, supply agencies have warned.Agencies say they already have backlogs of potential supply teachers waiting for criminal record checks.
Jerry Church, 61, a retired primary school teacher in Essex, said he would be returning to teaching after five years because he missed the job."I've been triple-jabbed, so I'm quite happy to go back and help out. You test yourself each day. I'm happy to put my head over the parapet and help out.
She said her agency had a backlog of around 50 candidates, adding that obtaining references from previous schools also took time: "If a teacher hasn't been working for 10 years, the school may not have kept that information," she said. "It will still take some time to see the effects of this drive actually hitting schools," he said, adding that the agency would have to wait until schools reopened to get the necessary references for ex-teachers.