Following the continued spread of Omnicron, Education Secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, made a plea for ex-teachers to return to classrooms across the UK in a bid to support schools with the staffing shortage caused by the new variant. 

The call for former teachers to return came from the Education Secretary before Christmas when typically job applications are low as people focus on the festivities. While we continue to promote it, we feel that a polite reminder from Nadhim Zahawi would be really beneficial to the cause in addition to ongoing marketing from the Department for Education.

As a teaching agency, we are proud to be able to support the government and moreover the education sector in any way we can during this strange and unprecedented time. Our goal is to support schools and pupils by helping them continue with face-to-face learning through the recruitment of former teachers. 

We've had a handful of former teachers looking to return to the profession in the West Midlands and anticipate enquiries increasing now the Christmas break has finished. Those wanting to help will require QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) as well as a valid and up-to-date DBS. However, we can put this into process for you if you don’t have one! 

This doesn’t mean that you’ll go straight back into the classroom though. You’ll still be required to satisfy our compliance and safeguarding checks. Which means that as well as an up-to-date DBS, we also need to gather references and other documents to ensure that you are safe to work with children. Understandably this important process takes time to get right but we are hopeful that we'll be able to get you cleared for work for work within the next few weeks which is likely to be when school absences will be at the highest. 

Given the level of sickness, schools are currently experiencing and dealt with last term, our only concern is that there are simply not enough staff to fill all the roles required which is why we are encouraging all those meeting the requirements to come forward and register as soon as possible. Our registration process is fully online so, you don’t even need to leave home to complete it. 

Can’t help but know someone who can? Don’t forget, we also have a referral scheme where you can earn £200 when you refer a teacher to us. Referring someone over to us is a quick and simple process which can be done online here.