To expect my reception child to have a qualified teacher?

I’m a TA and honestly, some of the supply teachers we get are very poor. I can do a much better job myself with the other TA. Our teacher was off recently and it was much easier and less disruptive for the kids to have someone there who knew what the work was and could just carry it on. I had a supply for one day and he was horrendous.

One of our Reception TAs had been a TA for so long she taught one of the kids' mums. She was amazing, vastly over-qualified but didn't want the stress of being a teacher.

A supply teacher would be very unsettling for little ones, my son's Y1 class had one for two weeks to cover paternity leave and there were all sorts of behaviour issues.

This is what a decade of underfunding in schools looks like.

No. There are two separate things being said repeatedly in this thread:

1. For short-term occasional absences where whoever covers is implementing plans written by the regular qualified teacher, having someone familiar with the students, the classroom, and the teacher's lessons is more valuable at that age than formal qualifications. If we could have TA's and cover staff who were familiar with the students, the classroom, and the teacher's lessons AND qualified that would be great, but that's not remotely feasible right now.

2. We have a widespread, critical teacher shortage and horrifically inadequate budget for employing them that needs to be addressed upstream at the national level. When allocating what is unfortunately a scarce resource, using qualified teachers for short-term illness coverage when TAs are able to do it is and should not be a priority. The systemic issues need to be addressed, but in the meantime schools have to figure out how to function best with the resources they have, and using qualified teachers to cover a few days of illness would be absurd when other classes are being left without qualified teachers for months on end.

Honestly, an experienced TA who knows your children is often better than a supply teacher.

Would you have preferred for the kids to be sent home if the school couldn’t find a supply teacher to cover?

@MaryBeardy I know a few teachers who went part time after maternity leave and their job shares are all TAs, so 3 days a week the children are taught by a qualified teacher and the other 2 it's a TA.

Also sometimes you genuinely can't get people in even when you try! I've just gone on mat leave as a full time secondary teacher and I was absolutely shocked at the poor quality of who applied for my cover. One qualified teacher who was poor at teaching and subject knowledge and one unqualified teacher with good subject knowledge but crap at teaching and seemed to have a temper.

If it's only for a few days they'll be absolutely fine - I think it's part of the crisis in teaching that people have been ringing alarm bells over, lots of good teachers now retiring or leaving the profession and aren't getting replaced. Even the new cohorts of trainees are basically getting waved through because we need boots on the ground (anecdotally from the trainees we've had, tiny numbers of trainees on our local PGCE course and the uni bending over backwards to pass them even where they're not up to scratch or call in sick at the drop of a hat)

The school is lucky it can still afford TAs. The education sector is on its knees and it will only get worse, so best conserve that anger OP as this won’t be the last time you’ll be upset by a lack of teachers.

No no no, it's better for your kid not to have a qualified teacher. Just marvellous. They're probably better than the actual teacher anyway.

Look at the people falling over themselves to say this.

If you voted Tory or did not vote in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019, you helped create the issue, though I agree many TAs are excellent. If you or the parent of another child think they can never do wrong or did not do basic parenting for your child, that has also contributed.

What surprises me is that there are people who aren’t aware of how critical it is in schools these days. It’s not going to improve any time soon either.

Honestly I think for reception it’s far better for a TA that knows the class to teach them for a short term absence, they will know the children and their routines. A new adult could eb very unsettling for such young children. Also echoing other comments about actual lack of supply teachers/no budget for supply, I work in a secondary and we sometimes have to split classes up and put them in with other classes if a teacher is absent

As a supply teacher for short term you might only get half an hours notice to get to the school, you might not necessarily be a teacher for that specific age or subject and basically following a plan that may not be very detailed and won't obviously know the pupils or routine, of course the TA would have to massively step up but to say the supply was useless is harsh and unprofessional and heresy.
They are fulfilling a need and have been required by the school. No I am not a supply teacher.

Don't forget many of those unqualified secondary teachers actually have a degree in the subject they teach whereas some of the qualified teachers do not!

Don't forget academy schools can and do employ many unqualified teachers for subjects in secondary as it is cheaper for them.

My sympathies to the teacher who is off sick and sending in cover work and the TA who is barely getting minimum wage covering a lesson(s).

YABU. This is very normal/standard in a lot of schools now.

Welcome to the teaching recruitment and retention crisis

Some secondary school classes are led by cover supervisors who aren't qualified when there is staff sickness. It's really not going to do any harm in reception, their working to the same key stage as they are at nursery anyway.

Our yr4 teacher went off sick, the two TAs carried on with the class between them. Sickness for longer and she quit, so TAs worked as class teachers all year Inc parents evening.

In reception the one TA has been there longer than either class teacher. I wouldn't assume TA means "silly slip of a girl who can onldo her own shoe laces

To soften my massive rant about the state of schools, I will say that on the plus side TA’s are generally awesome. They’re often massively overqualified for the job, very experienced, and could very easily become a teacher if they so chose. Most I know don’t want to because they don’t want the stress.

For a few days of illness cover YABU. The TAs will know how to implement the regular teacher's plans and know the children and the class routines. At reception age the familiarity will outweigh any formal qualifications for short-term cover.

It will be a joyous day when we make teaching such an appealing profession and fund our schools so well that schools have are plenty of fully qualified, excellent supply teachers who are already familiar with the students and classrooms to cover every absence. But in our current reality TAs covering short-term illnesses is appropriate.

It will be an HLTA who is qualified to cover (they are not paid nearly enough imo). Schools only really get supply for long term now as they have so little money. It's also much less disruptive for the children.

Schools can have insurance to cover cost of supply teacher but that only kicks in after 10 days. So schools will make do unless long term sick

Ideally of course all children should have a qualified teacher, ideally with a degree in a relevant subject for secondary level. In order to achieve this ideal, state schools would need to be properly funded, all families would be able to access appropriate support for early years intervention, and adequate SEN and specialist behavioural provision would have to be available. As it is, years of austerity have stripped schools of resources, removed much needed alternative support, and left mainstream schools struggling with insufficient staff and lots of pupils who are completely unable to regulate due to trauma or SEN (Covid didn’t help), many of whom would have previously been in specialist provisions but now they’re disrupting lessons in mainstream. Teachers are crumbling under the pressure and leaving the profession in droves. I’m currently in the middle of my teacher training and while I really really really want to do it, UK schools are massive shit show and I am very aware that I’ve made an insane choice, I just hope I can hold it together. Be grateful your child has an adult in the room who has the first clue what they’re doing. A couple of days without a qualified teacher is very minor when you realise the horrifying reality of the state of UK state schools.