TAP TEACHERS NEWS

Following requests from a number of our schools, Tap Teachers have recently introduced photographic ID cards for all our education staff to take on placements.

When a teacher/education support worker comes in to your school for the first time we have asked that they present their photographic ID at school reception so as to clarify who they are and that they have been sent to the school by Tap Teachers. Also printed on the cards are CRB and GTC numbers so you have a quick at-a-glance reference for this information should Ofsted be visiting (you can of course still access this information, along with all other vetting details through our Online Schools Area).

Over half our teaching staff now have ID cards and we hope to have cards printed for the remainder very soon. We have encouraged our staff to take them to every assignment, to present them when arriving at a new school for the first time and then keep them with them in their purse/wallet for the remainder of their placement.

We're always keen to hear your ideas about how we can improve the quality of our service to schools and make filling your education staffing needs easier. We hope the introduction of photographic ID cards for our education staff is another step towards achieving this.

Tap Teachers is pleased to announce the launch of the Essential Cover scheme. The scheme is designed to provide schools with the following benefits:

• More flexible staffing

• More reliable cover
 
• Greater cost control over staffing

• Deeper subject knowledge within your school

The Essential Cover scheme is designed to help schools achieve more control and flexibility when employing cover supervisors. It can also help to reduce your overall staffing expenditure.

Our scheme provides you with motivated professionals, qualified in specialist subjects and looking for a career in education. Should you wish to employ one of these professionals directly you can do so without charge. You simply need to inform us 3 months before you intend employ the individual whilst they are temping at your school.

If you wish to learn more about Essential Cover, contact us now on 01604 646 333 and one of our consultants will be happy to discuss it with you in more detail.

Tap Teachers is pleased to announce that we have recently taken on a new IT developer who over the next three months will be concentrating exclusively on making our IT systems even easier to use when you are booking cover.

One of the initial projects our new starter will be concentrating on is a Booking Confirmation Email. This will contain all the vetting information on the teacher who has been booked and details of the booking itself. We are also developing a Booking Approval Email that will include a snapshot of all the days your teachers have worked for that week without the need for you to log in to the Online Schools Area when it comes to approval time.

We hope that these will help to make the process of booking cover for your school that little bit easier. We are always interested to hear from you about further ways we can improve our service. If you have an IT related requests or support issues, please don't hesitate to get in touch on 01604 646 333. 

Over the Christmas break, we will be working on a number of new developments that will hopefully help to make your life easier next year when placing booking with us - including ID cards and extending our services to offer a more comprehensive cover supervisor programme

We'll keep you posted with developments, in the mean time, from everyone at Tap Teachers, have a relaxing Christmas and a Happy New Year - we'll see you in 2010!

On October 13th, Tap Teachers primary school consultant Miranda Hodgson was a guest speaker at a cluster group meeting for twelve local primary schools at the Duston School in Northampton.

Miranda had been invited along to the meeting of bursars by Saint Luke's Primary School in Duston, a long time partner school of Tap Teachers.

Over the course of the ten minute presentation, Miranda gave a brief overview of our company and outlined some of the benefits to a school of working with Tap Teachers over other agencies and the LEA. Those in attendance received a goodie bag and chocolates at the end.

As a result of the presentation, a number of new local primary schools have begun using Tap Teachers as their supplier and we hope to arrange further talks like this at cluster meetings in different areas. 

If your school is interested in arranging a presentation from a Tap Teachers consultant - or just hearing more about how we think we can help improve your supply teaching service - give us a call on 01604 646 333.

If your school has teaching or cover supervising positions you are currently advertising for online, why not take advantage of the interactive jobboard on our website and help to spread the net wider? 

The Tap Teachers website receives over 600 hits a month from teachers looking for work across Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Leicestershire. Advertising your positions for free on our website is an excellent opportunity to reach a larger audience and unlike subscription jobboards there is no fixed limit to the amount of time your job can be displayed on our site.

To advertise your school's positions for free on our jobboard simply drop us a line or pop an email over to sales@tapteachers.com.

On October 12th The Independent Safeguarding Authority, in conjunction with CRB is launching the first stage of a new Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) that will bring all the current, disparate vetting procedures for people working with children and vulnerable adults under one centralised scheme.

For Tap Teachers, the only immediate change will be that the List 99 check we run on all new teachers who register with us is now being replaced by the ISA 'Children's List' check from this date onwards.

The scheme will be rolled out gradually over the course of the next year. From July 26th 2010, the ISA will begin issuing application forms to Registered CRB bodies like Tap Teachers so that our teaching staff can apply to become ISA registered. Over the course of the next year we'll be ensuring that all our teachers are aware of, and are ready to apply to be ISA registered when this becomes available. 

For further information about the key dates that comprise the staggered roll-out of the Vetting and Barring Scheme, visit the CRB website at www.crb.gov.uk/vbs or call the VBS contact centre on 0300 123 1111.

Our popular School Discount Scheme is now in its second year running and some of our schools are already qualifying for discount on their invoices. For the 2009-2010 academic year, we’ve lowered the qualifying thresholds to allow schools to become eligible for discount more quickly.

You now only need to spend over £500 in order to qualify for the first band. Remember, as we move closer to the end of the academic year your school will move up the discount banding more rapidly so it won’t be long before you are seeing significant savings made on your supply budgets.

Last year Tap Teachers discounted over £16,000 from the cost of school invoices and this year we hope to help even more schools save money on their booking fees.

The table to your right depicts the adjusted discount bandings for this academic year.

Our School Discount Scheme runs from August 1st to July 31st every year. The scheme is designed to help you get more from your supply budgets and as a reward for your loyalty. It's just another way that Tap Teachers are helping you to get more from our supply teaching service.

We are pleased to welcome Jeff Henerson, our new Tap Teachers consultant for Leicestershire. Jeff initially worked for another company within the Tap Teachers group and is now bringing his expertise in developing great client relationships to the education sector.

Well it wasn't quite the 'barbeque summer' we'd all been promised but we do hope you had a relaxing break and would like to take this opportunity to welcome you back for the 2009-2010 academic year.

First of all, we apologise for using one of those generic 'Back to School' images you've probably spent most of the summer trying to pretend aren't plastered over most high street retailers! Secondly, we'd like to let you know about some of the initiatives we've been working on to make filling your teaching requirements even easier - we think you'll agree, we've been a busy bunch over the summer.

If you're reading this you've probably followed the link from our new HTML newsletters designed to keep you up to date with the latest news and legislation in supply teaching. The switch to HTML will hopefully save some space in your inbox and mean you've got quicker 'at a glance' access to what's going on at our end without having to open newsletters attached as PDFs. We're also going to be launching a Tap Teachers blog, which we hope to use to post informative, useful advice for supply teachers and school support staff - look out for it in coming weeks.

Furthermore, in a effort to reduce paper usage and following positive feedback from many of our client schools regarding the idea, we are now able to invoice our schools via email. If you are interested in recieving your invoices via email please inform us. Finally, keep and eye out for our goodie bags for cover coordinators that will be winging their way to your school over the next few weeks -free deskpads, mousemats, mugs, pens and more!