A SUPPLY teacher cried for help from her union yesterday after finding herself “cornered” by exploitative agencies, headteachers desperate for staff and a difficult job market.

Beverly Lennon, a fluent Welsh-speaking black teacher for more than 20 years, turned to supply work when discrimination and harassment left her unable to teach full-time.

In a moving speech she told her fellow trade unionists on the last day of this year’s Nasuwt conference how supply teachers urgently need to organise themselves and fight declining pay and withering conditions.