Our current cover system fails everyone, students especially. We assert an urgent need to redesign cover in UK secondary education. After decades of neglect, cover lessons deserve serious national attention and innovation. 

We call for:

• Absent teachers should not be expected to provide cover when ill

• Covering teachers should be provided with fully resourced lessons and time to prepare

• Expansion of enrichment provision should replace advance cover, rather than timetabled lessons, wherever feasible

• Changes to cover must reduce teacher workload, never increase it

• Lessons that replace traditional cover should be purposeful, rigorous and engaging             

There are many possibilities for improving cover provision: ideas should be thoroughly researched and tested, with the most successful implemented at scale and schools in disadvantaged areas prioritised. With the government pouring millions into enrichment expansion, we have a rare opportunity for system level change.