TAs does your primary school have them?

@APurpleSquirrel are the teachers full-time? How many pupils?

My DCs school is a tiny village primary with only 2 classes (mixed year groups). One class has a teacher, 2 TAs (one will be a 1-2-1 TA in Sept) & is advertising for a third. The other class has a teacher & 2 TAs.
All TAs are full-time.

When schools announce who will teach each class in the coming year, they usually say which TA will be in the class.

If section F is for say 25 hours and I have 3 children who all have that. Plus there are 2 children awaiting ehcps who cannot be in class due to their behaviour (As in they choose to leave/hide) It has become impossible to reach these levels anymore.

Id say around 18 of my class are on the SEN register. 3 have ehcps, 1 has extremely challenging behaviour (no ehcp) The school have made a decision which meets all the needs it can. It’s really made a difference this year.

Of course, some schools also get extra funding for SEN pupils who need 1:1 support and then misuse this funding by having the TA support the whole class, but clearly, they shouldn't be doing this as that then means that the SEN child for whom the funding was allocated isn't getting the support that they need.

Do people know whether they are going to have the same number of TAs in September as they did when school closed for summer

It may vary a bit from school to school as to how things work out, but typically a higher proportion of pupils with SEN will result in higher costs for schools (because they typically have to fund the first £6k of support costs from school budgets) whereas a higher proportion of pupil premium children results in more income because of the extra funding that those pupils attract. Schools are expected to demonstrate that they are spending that extra income to benefit the pupils to whom it is attached, but if that could include employing TAs etc if that was deemed to be the best way of helping to address the inherent disadvantages that those children might face.

We have 2-3 per class for a three form entry primary school. Not sure whether they are all FT and some will be 1-2-1 I assume.

I'm not sure how you've done your calculations, but I have no idea how you could staff a 5-form entry primary school on that budget, even with cheaper inexperienced teachers. Not after you've factored in NI and pension costs which are obviously impacted by the pay increases as well.

As for our financial management, we've had external "experts" come in and look at it (voluntarily through ESFA and an independent commissioned by the governing board). They have concluded that the budgets are managed tightly and that the only way realistic way to reduce costs is to reduce staff costs. So we either need to get rid of our experienced and expensive teachers or cut back on support staff. We don't want to do either but sometimes tough decisions have to be made.

We also benchmark against other local schools. We know that the proportion of revenue budget spent on leadership team salaries is lower than average, and that our average teacher cost is higher than average. We spend a higher proportion of our overall budget on teacher costs and we have a higher staff retention rate. I don't know what we can do about that unless we proactively find ways to manage staff out once they get too expensive, or start treating staff like shit so that they leave of their own accord. Given that we believe that the quality of education on offer is heavily dependent on the quality and wellbeing of our staff, neither of these are seen as reasonable ways forward.

Our primary focus at the moment is on developing income generating activities to help plug the gaps, but those are long term measures that won't resolve the immediate pressures on our funding.

Perhaps the situation at your school is different and cuts to support staff don't need to be made. But all schools are different and I can only speak for the one that I know well.

A lot can depend on parental attitude too. So you may live in a low income area so more children on FSM so school get PP. But if the demographic is mainly of a culture that values education, school will get parental support which will back up the work done in school.

That makes sense. Does having more SEN and pupil premium help ? Or does it tend to fall short of what’s needed? I think if anything my local primary is below average (and also in an LA that is low funding per pupil historically)

I thought it was quite unusual to have a full-time 1:1 now.

This is what LAs and some schools would like parents to believe. LAs often make EHCPs vague and woolly so they aren’t worth the paper they are written on. This isn’t to do with what provision the child reasonably requires to meet their needs. It is about saving money. Which is why parents should appeal and why appeals are mostly upheld. A 1:1 TA/HLTA/LSA isn’t instead of input from teachers. That would be poor practice.

I thought it was quite unusual to have a full-time 1:1 now.

Better for many children to have intervention work taught by the person qualified to teach it ie teacher, not someone on minimum wage.

Teacher pension increase is another thing that hit school budgets (not all funded) and support staff pay increases.

Schools that are not full but not small enough class sizes to enable school years to be mixed are the ones most hard hit by school funding crisis

No, I'm absolutely not suggesting that there should be a revolving door of staff when they get too expensive. However, cost-saving and income-generating measures do need to be looked at.

A £1.1m wage bill for only teachers would be expected for, based on average wages, a 5 form intake primary. That would be a huge school for the primary level and would benefit from other economies of scale (headteacher/admin costing less per pupil or an increased impact of per pupil funding increases, etc). They are also hit gentler for the underfunding. For example, a 5 form entry primary would have an annual budget, based on per pupil funding, of nearly £5m. I'm saying this because I'd be concerned that a school like that justifying laying off support staff by citing the teacher pay increase would be being disingenuous.

If your school is smaller than that, with lower funding, but still with the same level of costs then you do have to question how the budget is being spent/managed, not least because, based on what you've said, the year before this one, the budget was only breaking even.

I'm sorry to labour this point but I'm very wary of the wage rise being used as an excuse, as I'm seeing it being used across a number of schools/trusts and in the public discourse. When you actually do the calculations, it alone can not be responsible for the extensive laying off of support staff.

We have them in EYFS and KS1 but no more unless for 1-2-1 or PPA. Alphabet soup.

We only have TAs to cover PPA or 1:1 with pupils on EHCP (even then some of these are shared). There is no budget - relatively high income area so minimum pupil premium and very old building that is eating all budgets.

What are your class sizes?

The school may want to move away from 1:1s, but if 1:1 is detailed, specified and quantified in F of any of the EHCPs, 1:1 must be provided.

A massive increase in 1:1’s? Where’s the evidence for that?

It’s notoriously difficult to get an EHCP and even having one doesn’t guarantee a 1:1 for the whole time so TA as often work with different children

My school is moving away from pupil 1:1s. It’s more about interventions constantly throughout the school day. Those with ehcps will always be part of that group and set movement breaks with a TA or they have a brain break within class.

We have 1 TA per class but they are not assigned to any individual child.

My DC’s primary school has 1 class per year, plus a nursery, and there’s at least one TA in every class at my DC’s school.

Having said that, the number of pupils receiving pupil premium is well above the national average, so i suspect that’ll help a bit with the school budget.

It's a big school, but not huge. The teacher wage bill is just over £1.1million and the deficit is just under £40k.

We do probably have fewer ECTs and more experienced teachers than some other local schools, which obviously pushes costs up, but what do you want us to do? Kick out the expensive experienced teachers to bring in a bunch of cheaper staff instead? Our retention of staff is excellent and we count this as a positive for the school, but it comes with some costs.

My son's school has loads of TAs. I don't see how they could run without them, because they also supervise the yard during breaks, run breakfast and teatime clubs, and also run the holiday clubs.

In my day there was no such thing as a TA, but then in my day 11 year olds would supervise the junior and senior infants during lunch break, and I don't think anyone supervised us in the yard. We could leave as long as we were back when the bell rang.

What size school is this?

3.5% of last year's pay rise was unfunded. For that to be solely responsible for the 40k deficit, the school's teacher wage bill would have to be over £1.1million.

Our primary has about two in each class but they don't have a teacher in every class!
Hlta if your lucky but usually a ta .
If we don't like it there's plenty of other schools is quoted if you dare to complain.