Long shelf life

I can almost hear the sneer in the statement attributed to a lot of supply teachers, that “stacking shelves at Tesco” is better paid than supply teaching (your report, 4 January).

Can I remind these teachers that their grievance is with whoever made this agreement last April that resulted in the present remuneration levels.

Their cause is not helped by implied denigration of another group of workers.

I know little of the circumstances of the people who stack shelves at Tesco; those who I have had dealings with have been both courteous and socially skilled. There will be some, dare I say it, who are better qualified than supply teachers.

I do wonder what support is given to school leavers who say they are going to become supermarket stackers rather than claim benefits. If this is teachers’ benchmark for low achieving, it must be difficult to mask with their pupils.

I recall reading that many of the senior executives of some of Britain’s most successful supermarkets did their share of shelf stacking in their early career. Shelf stacking is a job that will give an individual lots of workplace skills and sounds like it has as a reasonable reward system.

John Bromhall

Lanark Road West

Balerno, Edinburgh