According to figures from the Dept for Education, the average secondary school teacher has about four working days off a year due to illness. Of course this incorporates teachers who have a long time out with a serious illness as well as the 44% of teachers who are fortunate enough to go a whole year not getting ill at all.
These numbers show why the need for ready-made materials for supply teachers who cover English classes is as vital as ever. For even when something has been left from the previous lesson, there are always going to be those who finish the work rapidly, and need something else to do.
Which is why the Absent English Teacher volume of worksheets was developed.
The worksheets within the volume cover a wide range of topics and range of ability – and are all designed so that they can be used as a one-off in an emergency, or as a series of highly varied tasks over a number of days, should the absence be unexpectedly protracted.
Activities range from a study of an advert for the Stakes R Us shop (specialising as it does in anti-vampire technology) to a speech modelling persuasive/argumentative language expounding the reasons why sport should be banned in school.
Each article is followed by a wide range of questions, an extension task through which (for example) the students create a speech in support of sport, and a homework (in the case of Stakes R Us, writing the tale of a student who discovers his/her headteacher is a vampire).
The volume covers not only advertising, as in the first example cited above, but also texts in the form of playscripts, a diary, lonely hearts, science fiction, letters, memos, alternative story beginnings, confidential reports, obituaries, references etc etc.
Each lesson in the volume is printed on a single page and is simple to photocopy instantly for any class that suddenly requires the lesson.
The Absent English Teacher Worksheets collection is available from Hamilton House priced at £30.00 plus £2.95 delivery.
You can order the Absent English Teacher worksheets collection by filling in the order form and sending it by fax, email, or post (see contact details below). Alternatively, if you have a school order number, you can order by phone.
First and Best in Education, Earlstrees Court, Earlstrees Road, Corby, Northants, NN17 4HH
Telephone: 01536 399 011 Fax: 01536 399 01 Email: sales@firstandbest.co.uk