In our schools, connection shapes culture and helps people choose to stay. It also matters in how trusts think about supply staffing, retention and long-term workforce sustainability.
Supply is often discussed through the lens of absence and cost. Schools and trusts spend around £1.4 billion a year on agency supply staff. But another question is: what might change if every supply colleague felt genuinely connected to the schools they work in?
At Edwin, we work with more than 6,000 schools through 20 branches nationwide, placing around 10,000 teachers and support staff into schools each year. We see first-hand that supply is not the enemy of a sustainable workforce. Used strategically, it can create continuity for pupils, provide flexibility for schools and become a route into permanent employment. At its best, it becomes an alliance between trusts, schools, trusted partners and the people stepping into classrooms when needed most.
Connection turns cover into continuity
When a supply teacher or support member of staff is properly briefed, introduced to the team and included in the life of the school, they are more likely to return. Over time, that builds familiarity with pupils, confidence in routines and greater consistency.
Connection can begin with a clear welcome, access to the right information, a named colleague to ask for help and a genuine thank you.
Connection can turn temporary work into permanent opportunity
For trusts facing persistent vacancies, particularly in specialist, SEND, AP or SEMH settings, supply can be an important bridge into long-term recruitment. It gives leaders the opportunity to see how someone builds relationships with pupils and contributes to the wider team, while giving the colleague time to understand the school before making a longer-term commitment.
Thrive Education Partnership is one example. During the 2025–2026 academic year, 34 members of staff who initially joined through short-term temporary assignments were appointed permanently. They had already built relationships, understood the school context and demonstrated the quality of their work. The schools also created the conditions for people to feel known and part of the team, while saving approximately £102,000 in permanent hire fees.
As one member of staff put it: “For staff, there’s a real sense of being part of a team. You are seen and appreciated irrespective of your role in the school.”
What trust leaders can do next
Supply will always have a place in a responsive education system. The question is whether that flexibility becomes part of a broader alliance that protects learning, reduces avoidable cost and builds a workforce community where people feel known and connected.
Trusts and schools may want to ask: Which supply colleagues return regularly? Which roles repeatedly require cover? Where could better induction or communication improve retention? Which people could be nurtured into permanent opportunities?
For many trusts, this is where the joined-up value of Edwin becomes important. Edwin Alliance helps leaders understand where temporary staffing pressure is appearing and what it is costing. Edwin People can support the wider people strategy behind those patterns, from workforce design and recruitment planning to HR advice and support.
But connection cannot stop at workforce planning. It also needs to reach the classroom.
Ali Durban MBE, Founder of The Single Collective, describes this as part of a school’s “relational infrastructure”: the relationships, routines and ways of working that allow knowledge, support and trust to move through a school.
“Children do not see workforce strategies; they meet the adults who walk into the room. The briefing may need to cover routines, risks and behaviour plans, but it should also help someone understand the children they are about to meet: how they communicate, what helps them feel safe, what interests them and where their strengths lie.”
Supply colleagues may also see parts of a school’s culture that are harder to notice from inside it. Across a trust, a supply colleague should still be able to expect the same relational standard wherever they work.
Three questions for trust leaders
- What does it feel like to arrive in our school as a supply colleague?
- What does a supply colleague need to know, and who needs to take the time to know them, for them to contribute confidently from the outset?
- What might supply colleagues notice about our culture that those of us within it no longer see?
A final thought
At its best, supply staffing is not a sign that a workforce strategy has failed. It can be one of the ways a trust creates opportunity and finds future colleagues. If we want people to choose our schools for the long term, we need to pay attention to the first day, the first welcome and the first experience of connection.
Sustainable workforces are not built through structures alone. They are built through relationships.
- Charnice Scott leads Strategy and Partnerships at Edwin.
We welcome perspectives from a diverse range of guest contributors. The opinions expressed in blogs are the views of the author(s), and should not be read as CST guidance or CST’s position.
