To think most people have no idea how little HLTAs/Teaching Assistants earn?

[LorlieS]

Anybody want to hazard a guess at the average monthly income of a ft HLTA/TA?

It really is quite shocking!

You are absolutely NOT being unreasonable 👍

My partner is a science technician in a secondary school and is considered a member of support staff, his take home after pension, NI is £1415 a month.

Around £10,000ish? Not enough whatever it is!

Yanbu I think that's why there's a shortage of them

If I had to guess I'd say the salary was £14k?

Sorry, mine was per year, not month!

I’m guessing £1,200 a month for full time.

I suspect it’s so poorly paid because it’s primarily work done by women.

On average it's around £12k pa (some a little more or less, of course).
For what they/we do it really is disgraceful.

@Robotbaby do you object to his being classed as support staff? He's not employed as a teacher.sat

sorry missing main point of thread: I wou ldn't have to guess, I know!

And no holiday pay! Even the teachers don't realise this 😑

The support assistants in our school earn around £900 a month but that’s for a 25 hour working week. It is shockingly underpaid. They are always whinging about it and I do wonder how they can afford to live on it and not go work in day Tesco full-time but I think the hours and the school holidays suits a lot of people, mothers especially.

Full time? That can't be right. It's not even minimum wage.

I've just googled and looked at some vacancies. They are all around the 22k mark.

As a TA, I know the answer. I work in London so I get a bit more because of this. Also, as an extra clue I got a 25% pay rise last year. It makes a difference, but only just.

They do get holiday pay. The calculations are term time plus legal holidays divided by 12.
Because the job is part time usually 8.30 to 3.30 max if that and 38 to 40 weeks at minimum wage I'd say between 800 and 1000 a month max.
Obviously science techs will be on a bit more, maybe up to 8k more.

Are you in London? 22k is not a standard ta salary. 16 or 15k max then pro rata down to school hours and short days.

It doesn't surprise me. But try working in HE. A friend of mine, who has a doctorate, was asked by a very well respected uni to design a new course for them and teach it for a year. Designing the course would involve weeks of reading loads of books to create a slimmed down reading list for students, creating the modules, targets etc and marking work submitted.

Their pay offer... £3k. Not 13 or 30, 3!!!

@JanglyBeads

No, of course I don’t object to it. I was just stating a fact as the thread is about teaching assistants, but because he’s classified as support staff I wanted to make that clear and that it’s relevant.

Ignorant teachers don't.

TAs are a vital part of my team and it's important to me that my teaching colleagues know what an absolute crap deal our TA colleagues have financially, so that they can give them perks in whatever way they can in other areas.

Factor in only working about 0.75 of the year - and only 9.00am - 3.00pm maybe

The pay is about £850 a month round here. The days of having a class TA are on their way out now as well, TAs are increasingly expected to support very high need pupils 1:1-which could be pupils who are very physical, have medical needs eg PEG feeding/hoisting or toileting needs.

Either that, or they are used to cover whole classes for teacher absence, which can be hugely stressful.

Full time? That can't be right. It's not even minimum wage.

It might be full time school hours, eg 9-3 or 8.45-3.10, but that’s not 37.5 hours ‘full time’ so the quoted salary is pro-ratad down. Then, it’s brought down again to term time only. Maybe it’s less than minimum wage, as it’s less than minimum hours.

No TA jobs round here are advertised as being £22k though!

No, I'm not in London, im NE England. I only had a quick look as I was just so shocked after reading here.

My DDs HLTA (her Key Worker - DD is Autistic) is worth her weight in gold. It's a mainstream school and they are so stretched. I'm on the PTA and volunteer in other ways trying to give a little bit back to the school in general, but fucking hell I'm just flabbergasted.

I work 3 days a week and earn just over £800 a month.

The money is crap but I absolutely love my job and work for "fun" money. We have quite a few single mums or dads with stay at home wives at our school and I don't know how they afford to live but I guess that's the same in a lot of jobs

Edited to say I work in a SN school and wouldn't want to work mainstream again. I don't know if I'm just lucky but they look after us so well with everything compared to how I was treated in mainsteam

Scale 3 Points 5-6 £23500-£23893 pro rata (Actual Salary £10890-£11072 pa)

This is copied from an advert for a TA locally. Most don’t state the actual salary which make it very hard to calculate take home pay.

@RainbowZebraWarrior The £22k salary is entirely misleading; no TA/HLTA gets anywhere near that. I know I'm one of the "fortunate" ones to be earning over £1k per month.
I struggle to pay the rent and provide for my 3 kids. I have a husband but he works ft in social care so doesn't earn a great salary.
Between us we come out with under £3k p/m with no other support. It's bloody difficult and I know we're by no means the worst off 😞

That’s full time equivilant, so a lot less than that in reality.