A CHRONIC shortage of supply teachers is threatening to cause severe disruption to the education of thousands of children.

Schools are now having difficulty finding last-minute replacements for teachers absent through illness or on training courses.

And in some cases, teachers are being forced to take classes in subjects they are not qualified to teach.

Tracie Oliver, who runs Teacher Supply North-East, in Sunderland, said it placed between 50 and 100 supply teachers with schools across the region every week.

She said: "We could place 500 if we had them. There is definitely a problem and we're starting to turn a lot of work down.

"If there is a course on and a lot of teachers are out on the same day, it can be very difficult to cover."

Harry Kennedy, recruitment manager for Gateshead agency First Call, said: "A year ago, any school that rang us we would have been able to match their requirements 100 per cent.

"Now, although we satisfy 95 per cent of requirements, we have discovered there are shortages in some subjects and it is very difficult to meet 11th hour requests."

He said technology, music and home economics lessons in secondary schools were particularly difficult to cover.

He said: "If we are unable to supply a teacher in a particular subject we try and put in a good general teacher. We can't deny that it is not an ideal situation for the kids or the schools."

John Morgan, headteacher of Conyers School, in Yarm, Teesside, and chairman of Stockton Secondary Headteachers group, said that where schools were unable to cover long-term absences, the time-tables had to be altered to give GCSE classes priority.

He said: "It is getting to the point where, in some schools in some subjects, you can't find people to cover the lessons."

Martin Fisher, National Union of Teachers principal officer for the Northern region, said the North-East was now suffering from the teacher shortage which had been affecting the South-East for several years.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said the number of teachers in England had increased by 7,000 in the past two years, and recruitment for teacher training courses had risen this year for the first time in eight years