'There are no subs to be found anywhere' - Over a third of Cork school's pupils sent home

Principal Trina Golden said it has been coming for weeks, as they have had previous close calls “scrambling” to find last-minute cover

When two of the four teachers called in sick, and as no substitute teacher could be found, 12 of the 30 students in the school were told not to come in. File photo: Ray Ryan

Over a third of children enrolled in Owenabue Educate Together National School, Cork, were told to stay home on Monday morning, as there were no substitute teachers available to cover their class.

When two of the four teachers called in sick, and as no substitute teacher could be found, 12 of the 30 students in the school were told not to come in.

Principal Trina Golden said: “There are no subs to be found anywhere at all”.

“You can generally find someone with a day or two's notice, but anything shorter than that, the supply panel is booked out, on subseeker.ie there are no replies, and all the teachers we usually use are booked up,” she said.

Ms Golden even resorted to Twitter just after 7am on Monday to try and recruit a substitute, with no luck.

Owenabue ETNS opened in September 2020, in Carrigaline, Cork. The school has 30 pupils in total across junior and senior infants, and a special class for children with autism.

Although this is the first time the school have had to send students home, Ms Golden said it has been coming for weeks, as they have had previous close calls “scrambling” to find last-minute cover.

“I don't believe we're the only school that it's happened in, and I don't think we're going to be the only one over the next few months, especially with winter illnesses going around,” she said.

Covid-19 is exacerbating the sub shortages issue, as teachers have to stay home to isolate, or mind isolating children, and classes can no longer be broken up and children placed in with other groups.

Ms Golden said it had been a “frustrating day”, having to make the difficult decision of which class to cancel, and having to justify that decision when calling angry parents at 8.15am to tell them not to bring their children to school.

Lack of support staff

She said that the impacts of the national substitute shortage are most severe on smaller schools, who lack the support staff which larger schools can use to mitigate against teacher absences.

“In a bigger school you might be able to get by without closing the class, whereas in a smaller school there's just not the flexibility in terms of numbers on site,” she said.

However, Ms Golden added that when support staff are used as substitute cover, this unfairly impacts children in need of those supports.

“The sub shortage is a crisis in itself, but the knock-on impact particularly on kids with additional needs is enormous. Using support teachers as substitutes might keep children in school, but it means there are kids not getting the support they need. This is a much broader issue than having to send a class home,” she said.