Teachers looking to progress their careers, and schools actively seeking new staff received a massive boost today with the launch of the new online eteach premium service from eteach.com. Thousands of teachers registered at eteach.com will find it even easier to access education jobs on the upgraded site.

Recruiters are now able to save precious money by either signing up to a nominal cost pay per vacancy or annual licence arrangement at eteach.com.

The new upgraded website, now online at www.eteach.com, offers an easy to use and free Job Board for teachers as well as a dedicated cost-effective recruitment advertising service for schools and local authorities throughout the UK and Internationally.

Chief Executive of eteach.com, Paul Howells, a former teacher, said:

“We have invested in our core business, finding teachers for schools and jobs for teachers. We offer true value and provide our services FREE for education job seekers, delivering the best value advertising package for schools and colleges on the market today - eteach.com’s unlimited advertising package is often cheaper than a single display advertisement in National and Local press.
It is an easy decision for recruiters in education to switch to Eteach and by doing so they will save the education sector millions of pounds per annum as well as providing a faster, more effective online staffing resource for their organisation.”

As well as saving money, the eteach.com premium service offers enhanced school advertising, allowing schools to create high profile images in line with their own websites and the ability to create a new look online for their adverts - with customised individual profiles - images, crests, logos, history and even video clips.

eteach.com also offers a ‘free Applicant Tracking System’ where a school advertising jobs can monitor applications, assess CV’s and reject or progress an individual candidate.

Eteach has also forged unique partnerships with the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), most relevantly with their recruitment support teams who provide help with developing job descriptions, assessment centres, psychometric testing, selection panels, and leadership recruitment consultancy. These partnerships make the Eteach/ASCL/NAHT offering the most valuable resource for school and college principals available today.

Teachers can post their CV’s and career history free of charge; eteach.com believes there are 120,000 active jobseekers on the site.

Schools are not only recruiting teachers - a changing workforce brings more diverse employment opportunities to schools - from school bursars and business managers to gardeners and catering staff. All now appear on www.eteach.com

Eteach already works with 30% of the schools in England. Impressively it is used by almost 90% of the schools in Wales.

Mr John Dunford, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) states: “We believe that eteach.com offers excellent value to our members. As staff recruitment continues to be a key issue for Head Teachers, the dynamic service provided by Eteach offers a real alternative to traditional press advertising.”

Testimonials

“Putney High School has been placing its teacher recruitment ads with eteach since September 2005. Everyone at eteach has been most helpful and pleasant to deal with which helps to ease the stress of recruitment time.Over the years an increasing number of teachers have seen our ads on eteach and subsequently made applications for our vacancies. In short, the service has been totally professional, quick and easy to use. I would certainly recommend eteach to other schools!"
Ros Wells, PA to Headmistress, Putney High School

“We usually advertise in the TES and local LEA newsletters, but most of our applicants actually come from your website! This is great evidence of your site’s effectiveness.”
Sheila Elliott, Head Teacher, Nottingham

“Eteach is a very user friendly, cost effective and successful way to advertise posts. Adverts are placed without any delays or inconvenient print deadlines and the response is often immediate. We have saved thousands of pounds and several hours of administration time on each vacancy by using Eteach.”
Brian Lightman, Head Teacher, St Cyres School, Wales

“I am very pleased that Eteach has responded to NAHT members and developed a low-cost and effective recruitment tool to meet the needs of even the smallest primary. At Whitchurch High School, we have found Eteach to be a simple and effective way of recruiting teachers.”
Gareth Matthewson, Past President, NAHT

"We have always found Eteach to give a fast, efficient service. Their staff have been friendly yet businesslike. We have never had a situation where Eteach were unable to assist us with supply cover, even when our requests have been at the last minute. We are always contacted after a teacher has acted as supply cover to establish whether there were any concerns or problems, and if there were these were taken seriously".
Headteacher, Dewhurst St Mary Primary School, Cheshunt

"If I were to sum up Eteach Supply in one word, I would have to say 'Excellent'. The staff are always friendly and professional especially in sourcing me work to suit my availability. I can always speak to a consultant, even first thing in the morning and are very quick and efficient in dealing with any queries. Eteach have made a huge difference in making supply teaching so much easier and enjoyable."
Lynne Kirshen, Hertfordshire Teacher

"We have been using Eteach Agency for our supply needs for more than one year now. The staff we have dealt with have been very accommodating and only on the very rare occasion, have they been unable to find a teacher to cover our classes."
Carole Hunt, Ravenscote Community Junior School, Camberley

About Eteach

Eteach UK Ltd was formed in 2001 by Paul Howells a former teacher and teacher recruiter. Over the last eight years it has established a unique position within the online education recruitment marketplace. It is now best placed to benefit from the migration of several recruitment functions to online such as recruitment advertising, recruitment administration, CPD and temporary staff management.

This move to online activity within schools has been driven by cost pressure, the eGovernment agenda and growing familiarity with use of the Internet.

Eteach has secured its strong position as a result of several factors

• The eteach.com website has become the leading recruitment destination site for the primary and secondary school workforce. In April 2005 it entered the Hitwise top 10 ranking and has consistently remained there or thereabouts ever since:
  • More than 490,000 registered members,
  • More than 120,000 newsletter recipients,
  • More than 695,000 visits per month, (ABC certified)
  • More than 45,000 vacancies advertised in the last 12 months.

In September 2009 Eteach launched a substantially upgraded website – eteach premium – free to candidates and a low cost end to end recruitment solution for schools and Local Authorities.

The Education Market in England & Wales

Schools

There are approximately 25,000 maintained sector schools in England and Wales divided into primary (85%) and secondary (15%) phases. In total approximately 425,000 qualified teachers and in excess of 300,000 support staff are employed in schools.

• On average a secondary school employs 57 teachers, however it would not be uncommon to have a staff level in excess of 100 and to experience more than 10% staff turnover (12.3% last audited figure HC 1057-1).
• The average number of staff in the primary sector is 10; it is far more common for a primary school to have less than 5 teachers and for the staff turnover to be lower.
• The Independent sector has approximately 3000 schools with 1300 affiliated to the Independent Schools Council.
• Faith schools comprise a growing sector of the market. The Catholic Education Service (CES) has 2300 schools and there are in excess of 4000 Church of England schools.
• Maintained sector schools are organised into Local Education Authorities (LEAs), of which there are approximately 160. Historically schools would purchase a large proportion of goods and services via LEAs including recruitment advertising. However schools have total financial control, are being encouraged to be more independent and to buy services from the private sector. The recent government white paper reinforced that view.

The Workforce

Education staff are encouraged to take up membership of unions. In approximate size order the unions are:

• National Union of Teachers (NUT) 260k members,
• National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) 240k members,
• Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) 130k members,
• Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) 40k members.

School Leaders are also members of unions. Historically they have been split according to secondary sector and primary sector:

• The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) 10k members.
• National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) 35k members.

Internet Penetration

The Internet has penetrated the Education sector to a great degree. A recent Eteach survey showed that 90% of Education professionals have online access at home. However the sector has been slow to adopt the Internet as a job-seeking tool partly due to the demographic of the workforce but also partly due to the complexity of the education recruitment process.

Potential Market Size

• Using the above figures and taking 7.5% staff turnover spread as an average, it could be estimated that between 80-160,000 vacancies occur each year in the school sector.
• In the FE sector there are possibly 60-80,000 vacancies each year.
• In the University sector (not yet served by Eteach) the figure could be 30-40,000 per year.
• Conservatively, therefore, a total of 200,000 vacancies have the potential to be advertised each year.

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR INTERVIEWS WITH ETEACH CHIEF EXECUTIVE PAUL HOWELLS PLEASE EMAIL STUART HIGGINS stuart@stuart-higgins.com or call 020 7096 5814