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  • Busy Bees Boxes - 18/10/2011

    Tap Teachers would like to thank you for entering the Busy Bees Boxes competition!
    Busy Bees Boxes is a campaign that Tap Teachers ran to ‘’encourage schools to establish a fruit and vegetable patch or maintain an existing one’’. The initial letter sent to all schools across the county prompted considerable interest. A wide variety of schools entered, ranging from town schools to rural village schools and big schools to smaller schools. After months of garden preparation, planting and pruning the Busy Bees Boxes representative visited all the participating schools - and she had her work cut out! The competition was strong and this was evident when judging the competition. Having taken photos of all the gardens and interviewed the gardening clubs the winning trio has been decided. 
     
    First place prize of £300 of gardening vouchers goes to . . .
    . . . Croughton All Saints COE Primary School Gardening Club! The club started with ten members back in 2007. The end of the first season saw the gardeners harvesting potatoes grown in bags, spinach and runner beans. The garden quickly flourished producing board beans, beetroot, garlic and leeks, even blue potatoes! Croughton Primary School Gardening Club have been enhancing their crops using home grown Comfrey Tea, their own compost and gathering well-rotted manure from a local farm. All this helps to grow such tasty fruit and vegetables.  The garden has a few permanent residents too - the chickens! Croughton School Christmas fair enjoys much of the children’s produce, we hear the Blue Potato and Leek Soup is Blue-min’ marvellous! Well done Croughton Primary School Gardening Club!
     
    Second place of £200 of gardening vouchers goes to. . .
    . . . Culworth COE School Gardening Club! The six regular members have been meeting once a week since March 2010 to raise seedlings, grow spinach, spring onions, raspberries, pumpkin, and marrow. The group really use their initiative by burying leeks in the ground protected by ‘loo rolls’ to aid the blanching process. As well as being very conscientious during the winter months keeping the plants warm against the frost using fleece and straw to tuck them in! Congratulations Culworth School Gardening Club!
     
    Third place of £100 of gardening vouchers goes to. . .
    . . . Bridgewater Primary School Gardening Club! The year six pupils have been cultivating their garden since September 2010. Something has been going on every day, all year round. This ranges from growing things such as flowers, strawberries, parsnips, sweet corn, gooseberries, lavender and even wheat to bake their own bread. The winter sees a lull in growth so year six focus on looking after the wildlife in the garden; providing bird feeders and baths for the birds to use. They have also worked incredibly hard in building an additional garden for the reception children to grow their produce too. ‘Wellie Wednesday’ has proved very popular when the children arrive in their wellies to plant and pot. Well done Bridgewater Primary and good luck with the Best School Garden for Britain Awards’! Thank you for sticking your wellies on and getting growing, well done everyone for taking part!

  • Launch of Tap Teachers new look website - 05/10/2011

    ​Tap Teachers is very proud of their new look website! Launched at the beginning of October 2011 it’s hoped it will take the company, their schools and teachers in to the new term with confidence and ease.

    Many new features have been added to the website. For example you need never miss out on the latest newsletter or current offer. Everything will be online! Details of the Loyalty Scheme are also available and our ‘new’ Recommend a School or Teacher scheme.

    A new ‘teacher area’ is on its way offering a multitude of functions - so watch this space!
     
    Yet fear not! It’s not all change! The websites original functions still remain; enabling schools to confirm bookings online, check booking history and leave feedback.
     
    Tap Teachers always appreciates your feedback be it positive or negative, it’s all constructive!
     
    Please contact us via email miranda@tapteachers.com or chat with your consultant.
     

  • AWR - 04/10/2011

    ​The Agency Worker Regulations (AWR) are designed to ensure that agency workers receive equal treatment to that of permanent employees performing the same duties (comparable worker). The regulations have two stages; ‘rights from day one’ and ‘rights after 12 weeks’. These regulations come into force in the UK on 1st October 2011.

    As a school your responsibilities are to ensure the following;

    Rights from day One:

    Once an agency worker starts working with your organisation they are entitled to the following:

    • Use of the canteen
    • Access to internal job vacancies (schools responsibility to inform where to access this information)
    • A workplace crèche
    • Toilets/shower facilities
    • Staff common room
    • Waiting room
    • Mother and baby room
    • Prayer room
    • Food and drink machine
    • Car parking


    These benefits are not compulsory, yet if they are already provided to permanent staff members, temporary staff must benefit too.

    Rights from week 12:

    • Equal pay
    • Equal holiday entitlement
    • Duration of working time
    • Night work
    • Rest periods
    • Rest breaks


    In addition, pregnant agency workers who have completed 12 weeks qualifying period will be entitled to paid time off for ante natal appointments.

    Exceptions for Schools:

    Local Education Authority run schools are bound by the ‘Schools Teachers Pay and Conditions Document’ which require them to pay to scale (this does not cover teaching assistants or those who are employed to carry out specified work under paragraph 10 of Schedule 2 to the Education (Specified Work and Registration) England Regulations 2003). This means that they are required to make sure that a teacher receives at least the pro rata amount for their pay scale. 

    Academies, Free Schools and Independent Schools are not bound by these conditions and are not required to confirm to these conditions, therefore we need to request the information regarding pay and conditions for each placement.

     
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