"Gold dust" school jobs

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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?

I was a mid day supervisor a few years ago.

Its the worst job I ever had.

Pay is insulting frankly. I had to do a first aid course, provide first aid to children, safeguarding courses, send courses, a makaton course...I left after being told I had to restrain a child with send without having restraint training.

Schools cannot function without good support staff. As you are finding op.

I've done these jobs too. I started as "the office lady " and then did finance and HR in schools before my current role. All the "responsibilty" in the roles my staff do falls to me or ultimately the head.

There's no disdain, we're at pains to protect our staff, hence being clear where where the lines of responsibility lie and it's not with them.

People can no longer afford to work in these low paid positions. Pay these staff more and you'll find it easier to recruit.

Id say my job has a lot of responsibility but not a lot of accountability, which lies elswhere. Its a subtle difference

Yes, we have to re-assign hours at contract renewal time to include LSA duties (at a lower rate than TA) because no one wants to come in. Occasionally, parents do take it, but only until they get a few month’s experience for a better job!

This has made me feel hopeful as I’m just writing my application for a gold dust job! I do notice that the workload sounds more than my current role (same pay), and I think my current role is underpaid.

Perhaps what has changed is the age of the demographic applying. Before, you may have had a lot of baby boomers, who were financially better off and could afford all the stuff they spouted about “giving back to the community”. Now, after Covid, they’re retiring: you’re getting my generation and younger applying, and we don’t have that security. Perhaps also the job gradually changed: when that older generation applied, TAs were pot washers who gradually took on more; now we’re expected to be teachers in all but name from the off, for a third of the price.

If that’s the case, the appalling wage levels for the responsibility levels are simply not doable for Generation Rent and Generation Tuition Fees. Also we feel ungrateful for the “care” we’ve received having worked for nothing beyond the boomer’s pensions, and don’t believe the guff about giving back (or we give back what we got). That’s the case for me anyway. The work barely pays for itself.

This. Our poor school office lady and gent work long hours and have a heck of a lot of responsibility for the pittance they're paid.

There are more vacancies than people looking for jobs and the world of work has massively changed. Flexible working is the norm, even in professional jobs.

Single status thinks they are less responsible jobs than being a refuse collector.

There was an interesting Twitter thread about this (started talking about teachers but then moved on to school support staff) earlier this week by an ed journalist:

twitter.com/miss_mcinerney/status/1526244491883167745?s=21&t=qCn_2_l7FIWQ3KJXBmOZQw

Yes exactly that

I think we do exactly the same job!

I have found that my admin team all have totally different contract some 22, 22 and 35 hours. Can you offer some flexibility? I haven't had to fill positions for a while but I do think the pay is poor which is one thing you just can't do without. We have pupil support assistants, are there any who could go on secondment to admin? Most of my catering staff are older and getting close to retirement but all lovely and hard working.

Where you advertise is important too. Do you have an online jobsite? We do and we share positions on the school social media.

I do think my team do a lot for their grade.

This is the key difference, ultimately SLT are held accountable but support staff still have a lot of responsibility. Saying they don't is frankly insulting.

I have one of these so-called “gold dust” jobs. It pays £100 a week and ties up my time 5 days a week.
In terms of family wellbeing, we’d probably be better off if I didn’t work at all.

A teaching assistant doesn't have a lot of responsibility, not if used correctly. They assist the teacher, the responsibility Iies there.

Where they're used for more than that, they're paid as unqualified teachers in my school.

We are the same in the nhs. 'Entry level ' roles that have previously been really popular are getting hardly any applicants. There are more vacancies than people out of work now and jobs at places like Amazon pay well and recruit fast and can advertise heavily

Loads of these jobs at my kids (nice leafy) school. Also plenty of SAHMs who would do it if the pay was decent, but as it's not they can't be bothered with the hassle.

You don’t think there is responsibility attached to the job?
That is incredibly insulting to TAs throughout the education system who support teaching phonics, , maths, art, ICT, languages and much more to children aged 4-18.
The small group work to help lower and higher achievers often mean planning , resourcing and marking - all with targets to achieve.
Nowadays a TA often teaches the class when the teacher is absent/ on a course ( this hapoens FAR more than you would think)
Pastoral care, 1:1 with children , some with significant learning or behavioural needs , first aid, safeguarding, dealing with angry/ concerned parents , teaching swimming , residential trips, supervising clubs, often having to be lunch supervisors too - all while being paid low wages .
oh - and the constant scrutiny - academy trust, ofsted inspections which add pressure.

You can’t recruit because there are better paid jobs out there , less responsibility , less scrutiny , no need to interact with parents, visitors , external professionals - and possibly with employers who are not so dismissive of how much their very poorly paid employees actually do for them, their students and their school.

I left my LSA/TA role because the money is basically an insult in terms of what we were expected to do.
I was hit, stabbed with pencils, screamed at and was still expected to work for so little with a lack of safeguarding for myself in place.
I was to attend annual reviews, liaise with outside agencies like SALT and the Ed Psych team. Not to mention differentiating work, intervention groups, the list goes on. I even had planning and marking to do!
Gone are the days when the TA would wash out paint pots and sort the reading books.

Also, schools are great for promoting and supporting the mental health of the pupils, but not of the school staff.

I’m now working for a local mental health charity. The money is better, but the more important thing is that I’m treated with respect and my own mental health is supported.

They are paid less than a rubbish collector, certainly. They’re paid about the same as cleaners, to have skills enough to educate children and encourage them into jobs requiring education themselves. Where’s the incentive, for themselves or to lie to the kids??

TAs take interventions and often classes. Some even get asked (or told, or are presumed) to plan. And yes, they support the teacher in class and so need literacy and numeracy skills at least. Plus first aid and dealing with reluctant or SEN children, or craft and art, or some other specialist knowledge. That’s a lot of skills for less than a refuse collector or cleaner, who spends their time in relative peace.

Poorly paid and not much opportunity to earn overtime which these days is needed. In my role I am split teach TA, intervention lead for ks2 and emotional coach all for £10 an hour. The paperwork is lengthy and no time to plan . You can get the same money or more doing jobs that don't carry the same stress.

I’m a TA and I love my job but I am now considering changing jobs when dc3 leaves full time education. I got my older dcs got summer and part time jobs that were paying more than I was getting (one as a labourer, the other at a Tesco distribution centre). That is in addition to the increased responsibility and constantly being asked to
do more.

I’m sure it’s area dependent too and the demographic of the area.
I live in a town where the parents are more than happy to work at the school. The town I work in is a different demographic and people from all over work there.
I work in the private sector and although teachers sit with the pupils at lunchtime, getting catering staff is another story.

TA may not have lots of responsibilities but they do have a lot of expectations put on them....support the sen child, lunchtime duties, half an hour unpaid lunch, deal with fall outs and scraps between children, record all said incidents etc etc and their pay definitely doesn't reflect what they are expected to do...same goes for the office staff!