The challenge
St John’s CE Primary School approached us after unsuccessfully working with several other supply teaching recruiters. The school’s Business Manager, Lesley Burton, wanted us to find the right calibre of supply staff for their school and forge a relationship with a recruitment specialist she could trust:
“Aside from the vital need for quality staff and service delivery that managed logistics of both staff absence and additional talent placement, we concluded that the best way to move forward was to form a working partnership”.
This gave Richard Marshall, Primary Education Consultant, the challenge of quickly gaining an insight into the school’s values and ethos whilst also creating a strong relationship with Lesley and understanding her staffing needs.
Reed are still our go-to for any staffing matters and are integral to our school, nothing is too much of ask.
Business Manager at St John’s CE Primary School
The solution
Before tackling the brief, Richard visited the school to get to grips with its different areas and gain an understanding of what type of supply staff would be a good fit. He sat down with Lesley to discuss her past experience with suppliers and what had worked versus what hadn’t worked, to ensure a seamless and productive partnership.
“Reed were interested in the needs of us and our pupils. Reed were a brilliant fit for us as the values of their team were aligned with our values in school,” Lesley said.
Richard and his team then began using a range of tools to attract prospective staff, such as job adverts, targeted marketing and proactively speaking about the school to their network of candidates. Richard ensured that all the supply professionals he and the team spoke to had a set of skills and values aligned to St John’s.
This created a large candidate pool, from which he carefully selected staff to send to the school. He worked closely with Lesley to monitor their performance to ensure the right placements were made.
The results
Such was the skill of two of the candidates that Reed found, St John’s offered them permanent contracts. The quality of the supply staff Richard sourced has led to the school extending its relationship with Reed.
Richard has created a talent pool of supply teachers that the school can call upon when extra staff are needed. He also has a scheduled call with Lesley once a week to check in and ensure she is happy with the candidates and the service.
Lesley said: “Reed are still our go-to for any staffing matters and are integral to our school, nothing is too much of ask.”
“I can always reach the team and they always make sure our requirements are met… especially through Covid times. Reed has been there immediately whenever we have needed consistent staff who know our school”.
Richard and Lesley have formed a strong partnership which has extended to more than just recruitment help, as she explains: “Alongside our supply needs, we work in partnership and support Reed in any way we can. We now share information about a number of matters around schooling and education.”
Lesley is impressed with the relationship and service she has received from Reed, claiming the school has used other recruiters in the past, and found Reed to be “in a completely different league”.
