Rarely cover official guidance

At long last the government guidance, agreed by the Workforce Agreement Monitoring Group (WAMG) social partnership, which sets out the basis for the implementation of 'rarely cover' was issued in May. This can be found at www.socialpartnership.org together with a brief statement from WAMG members, a covering letter to local authorities and the changes that will be made to the STPCD. Welsh versions are also available on the website.

The statement that teachers should rarely cover was in the 2003 workforce agreement, but the implementation was delayed until 1 September 2009 to give schools time to prepare. Discussions have been taking place within WAMG for many months about the definition of 'rarely'.

It has been agreed that individual unions will not issue further guidance beyond the process note, so ASCL members are advised to use the process note to initiate discussions within their school on implementation.

The ASCL hotline is, as always, available to members who have further questions about this issue on 0116 299 1122 or hotline@ascl.org.uk