"Gold dust" school jobs

[Smartsub]

I am currently trying to recruit for support staff in school. I need kitchen, staff, admin and TAs. All term time only and all school hours. The jobs I've previously seen referred to on here as "gold dust".

We are getting hardly any applications and those we do get a poor. Admittedly the money is poor, but that's always been the case. Until a couple of years ago the difficult part was sifting through the 100s of applications we'd get for such jobs, now we rarely get more than a handful.

What's changed?

25 hours IS shit money. However you get out before 3pm to pick up the kids and you get their holidays off, it’s worth it. I was also able to childmind someone’s else’s kids for extra dosh when I’d finish.
My school now make TA’s stay to 3.20,meaning now having to pay for childcare out of the pittance. They also get stuck in school traffic so no time for much else except cooking tea.
If the pay is shite at least make the conditions workable.

This 👏👏👏👏

A role stuck in the 50's mindset that women work for ' Pin Money ' No wonder they're no longer beating your door down

I am in the US and these jobs only pay $17 -$20 an hour and people are just not able to work for such a low rate-a babysitter or cleaner gets $25 an hour for a lot less responsibility so the market will force the rate for these jobs up I think.

Worrying you’re hiring for these posts and don’t think they carry a lot of responsibility. Dinner staff are expected to deal with allergies, first aid, 1-1 support, changing children (primary age) and TA’s are being paid pot washing pennies for doing 1-1 interventions, phonics groups, high need 1-1 support. The responsibility is huge and the wages should reflect that.

OP I think this thread answers your question pretty clearly. It's full of intelligent, articulate, committed women, some of whom have professional backgrounds and educational qualifications equal to or better than their SLT, who are working flat out in responsible (if not ultimately accountable) jobs, often with barely the time to go to the loo all day, let alone have a lunch break, for less money than they would earn as cleaners. The child-friendly hours often don't turn out to be as child-friendly as they thought, and they don't earn enough to actually do anything with their kids in the holidays. The work is in many ways rewarding, but changes in schools have meant that the pressure, stress and expectations are inexorably increasing, and in addition some (not all) of them feel that they are treated like crap by their employers and teaching colleagues. Once, there were few other options open to them that didn't necessitate paying for childcare, but now other employers are beginning to offer more flexibility, which allows them to consider other options which pay more in return for less stress, less responsibility and much more pleasant and professional working conditions.

It's not a surprise that you're struggling to recruit. And I don't have an solution for you - school budgets are under massive pressure, the (often ridiculous) tasks required by the DfE increase all the time, and depending on your school type (LA, Academy etc), you may have no influence at all over how much you pay, how you recruit, and so on.

Agree with @Wandamakesporridge - it's just a database at the end of the day. If you have experience of another industry specific database (struggling to think of any right now!) it's the same thing. You know one, you know all of them. The most important skill is the ability to pick up IT systems quickly, attention to detail and can cope with utter chaos!

I'm a data manager in a school and my last 2 jobs have been at schools where I've never used the system. But it didn't matter because they all hold the same info and once you export it to Excel there's no difference.

If you've got primo Excel skills go for a data manager job. Much better pay!

@mamaism

spot on.

It depends on the level of TA. They are graded from level 1 to level 4. Within those levels there is a pay scale with some annual increments.

Many schools use a locally agreed pay scale.

I have a data role in a school and started with no SIMS experience. I did have large dataset experience in the NHS, report writing experience for non-data staff, getting data out of a system for various staff and also a big element of working with sensitive/confidential info. As with @spongedog I also think my passion for data and spreadsheets got me the job too. I love Excel formulas and so does my boss!! My husband is also the main breadwinner so I could afford to work in a low pay school job. Only after several years in post, I have been promoted and earn more (yay for independent salary setting in academies).

The £24k is the full time pay, not the pro rata for 38/39 weeks.

Yeah, starting at 17k for 52 weeks, 37 or 40 hours.

Bring it down to 44 weeks (term plus inset days plus 5 weeks holiday), 30 hours a week, and you are down to 12k.

@lameasahorse oh no they don’t! At my school most TAs are level 2 and are paid about £9.50 ph.

Ours work 38 weeks .

Most work 9-12 or 9-2.45.

For less stress and worry you get paid more as the cleaner or receptionist? And yet it's usually the ta who has the time to really get to know and boost/bring on the DC who need more help?
A good ta will help to free up the teacher as well.
It's not just the low pay it's the low regard and yes, many ta s are highly educated People who are doing it to earn money whilst supportingly their DC.ie a sacrifice rather than a career choice.

I wonder if there is an organisation for tas?

Re levels that's also a bone of contention.
I saw a government advertising on FB, schools train your staff eg ta.
What they were offering training in was way below the actual skills of ta working already without the qualifications??

Top of the pay scale in my school brings home just over £1000 a month. No prospect of any more. No progression possible.

It’s the National pay scale @lameasahorse . I’m a HLTA and earn a bit more but not a great deal more and I cover teachers for half of my day. I care about what I do and I’d rather do this than sit at a desk doing admin. I feel I am make a difference and that’s more important. However, I am well aware that I have the luxury of saying that because my DH is the higher earner.

*making

I volunteered for a couple of years at my DCs’ primary, hearing readers and looking after the library. I saw for myself, first hand, how high handed and dismissive some of the class teachers could be. Primary school teaching has too many Dunning-Kruger types who can’t see beyond the bubble of their own limited experience.

I remember one time after a long and busy morning with two year groups in the school library, my DS’s class teacher saw fit to come out and discuss his misbehaviour with me in the corridor, with other people in earshot. I was too tired and too ambushed to tell her (not in so many words) to FO.

It eventually dawned on me that I really ought to be getting paid for this, so I left for a supermarket job.

HLTA is an exploitative role where you’re often given whole classes to cover, often with little to no planning. Along with UQTs I think this is the start of a very slippery slope of the teaching profession not being a graduate profession.

This is deliberate of course from the government. My local college is now offering a level 5 diploma in education whereby the end result is qualified teacher status (QTS). It’s an alternative route to university and the entry requirements are GCSEs. Therefore it’s not strictly a graduate profession anymore if you can qualify at college.

We warmly welcome volunteer readers. They are so needed as we have so many children whose parents don’t open their book bags, let alone listen to their children read every night, as they should in KS1. Since TAs now have to support in lessons, there isn’t enough time to hear every child read often enough. No idea why you couldn’t have a drink @yesthatisdrizzle . We can’t have open mugs of hot drinks for safety reasons but water is fine. As for rude staff, well, they were rude.

@Sunquench I don’t plan but teach from a scheme of planned lessons in non core subject such as PHSE. I cover PPA.