Teaching assistants quitting schools for supermarkets because of 'joke wages'

[noblegiraffe]

Finally getting some mainstream press attention:

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/oct/09/teaching-assistants-quitting-schools-for-supermarkets-because-of-joke-wages

The article is very clear that schools cannot afford to pay higher wages for support staff. The DfE comment at the bottom says it is up to schools to improve support staff pay.

The education sector is falling apart. Teacher redundancies mean bigger class sizes. Fewer teaching assistants means zero in-class support unless your child has an EHCP. Recruitment issues mean that even if your child has an EHCP, they might not be able to hire anyone to support them.

The way provision for the most vulnerable students has been eroded over the last decade of school underfunding is devastating.

Thing is there is a generation of people on good pensions and that’s probably why there are volunteers around. Ask in a few years when more and more people are having to work into their old age to survive.
Its poor future planning, which we are terrible at in this country. Cut now and hope for the best later on.

We never had TAs in the 70s. I don’t really understand why they weren’t necessary then but are now. My class had 41 kids in it and just one teacher and they ruled the place.

SEN were taught in separate classes called Remedial classes and* *were subjected to massive bullying as a result. Hence no TA needed.

@JubileeTrifle the pension thing is a red herring.
No volunteers are going to keep volunteering if they are going home stressed and not looking forward to their next session.

They need the feel good factor. Leave feeling I made a difference to that kiddo. I enjoyed my session in school. They aren't going to come back of they feel threatened or unappreciated by the kids.

Older people are also very aware of their vulnerability to injuries generally they will avoid putting themselves at risk.

Like other posters - the idea that you can walk into a supermarket job and assume it is easier because it is 'low-skill' is misguided. Or that the hours are flexible and family friendly. You work as to the business needs of the store not what fits around you. Quite likely you will work at least one weekend shift. You'll be lucky to get Christmas holiday approved, or New Year, Easter, Mother's Day. Unpaid 45min break in a 10hr shift is normal. There's no sitting about on checkouts anymore and only one or two staff needed to man the self service. Likely you'll be filling shelves which is hard, heavy, repetitive work - long serving staff have chronic knee, back and shoulder issues. Even if you do dot.com which are shorter shifts - you have to fulfil the pick rate and the trolleys can get really heavy when full. You might see retail staff wear wrist splints for repetitive strain, you probably don't see the knee supports underneath their uniform - I knew of quite a few colleagues that had some kind of knee surgery. Oh and you swap the children for the joys of general public who all look down on you because 'it's only stacking shelves'.

"I don't understand why they weren't necessary then but are now"

@Jojofjo44
Really?

Sen is still an area that is massively misunderstood and in the dark.

I'd be absolutely amazed if back then they had separate classes?

Certainly in my school they didn't!

@WelshNerd
Definitely not.

School need's to be short and sweet.
No one would learn beyond 3.

At my first school in London, in the late 70s, classes were setted according to the colours of the rainbow, so 7R, 7O, 7Y, 7G, 7B, and usually 7IV. I taught some IV classes and so far as I could tell they had literacy, not SEN needs. This was the school's way of not offering literacy support. They said it wan't needed. It was my first year out and there was no differentiated curriculum. Those poor children. The school was so tight, if you had a class on the senior school site and were teaching in juniors, you had to leave them in the classroom on their own and walk between lessons( not during a break).

I left at the end of the year.

I don't think anyone is implying that working in a supermarket is easy, or necessarily family friendly. But the reality is that TA wages are so low that they are unliveable, and so TAs are looking for other jobs. The guardian line is that they're going to work in supermarkets, but I imagine many are taking other jobs, such as care work, which will require similar skills but in some (many) circumstances will pay better.

In the past, TAs could accept the poverty wages because the work fit around their family, and the work was often fulfilling. Now, the work has become harder because most TAs are either regularly used for cover, or else supporting students with very high levels of need, which is stressful in lots of ways. For many TAs, there has also been a bit of a mission creep- meaning longer hours are expected, so the job fits less well around having your own children. Obviously having the holidays off is a massive bonus- but not if you can't afford to do anything in those holidays!

It is reality that schools are finding it really hard to recruit TAs at the moment. And part of that is definitely people who were TAs finding work elsewhere.

Wasn't, not wan't.

Certainly in my school they didn't!

They'd probably be in a seperate school then, I went to a sn school, I have autism if I went to school now I'd be at mainstream with a TA.

Cost cutting under the guise of inclusion lead to what we have now, where very few get into a small amount of sn placements.

My school in the 70s/80s had no TAs. It also had no differentiation at all for different abilities and very little actual teaching. We were mostly expected to work through exercises in text books. Those that didn’t understand something, just didn’t get to learn it. The kids who found things east got shoved up a year group - then often shoved back down again when the secondary refused to take them early. The kids who found things hard got to stare at a page that made no sense and cry (as long as they weren’t disturbing anyone else). It was a terrible educational environment and I sincerely hope and believe that every primary school today is better than that, even with the current funding crisis.

It depends what city you’re in. I once lived in Liverpool and many schools there relied heavily on agencies for TAs or cover supervisors. I know that because I worked in about ten different primary & secondary schools over a 3 month period. I was always shocked by how much money they paid the agency and how little in comparison they paid me. The only winners were the agency.

The chair throwing and being sworn out sounds awful but on the whole, your job work day you described just sounds like it's got the stresses, ups and downs of most jobs tbh. Some bits that are tedious, some stressful and some ok and/or rewarding.

@Rosewaterblossom That is a high level of skill required for minimum wage or just above.

Quick question (and not one pushing for fewer TAs, just curiosity, as it is a long time since I was at primary school and my kids are only just there now).

When I was in primary in the 90s, there was one TA for the whole school, maybe two at a push. And over 30 to a class by the end of year 6. There were lots of SAHMs or mums who worked part time and they tended to volunteer for reading etc, so in practice there was always someone doing reading practice with someone (though untrained). Was this typical of schooling in the 90s, or was our school just very unusual? (Was standard CofE primary school in the south east, very much a mixed intake - some well heeled families, lots in the middle, some struggling, some kids who had been in care, some with dyslexia and looking back one child in my class clearly had FAS - so there were definitely children deserving of having extra support). Did ECPs exist then? Was the TA role done unpaid then (obviously society has moved more towards having two working parents full time, so what might have worked then does not now and I would not suggest otherwise)?

I volunteered at my DCs’ ‘nice’ Outstanding (but frankly rather insular) primary school 10 years ago. I felt taken advantage of after an afternoon spent issuing Year 2’s library books and chasing overdues for no pay, so expecting volunteers to handle kids with severe SEN is definitely taking the P.

And funnily enough I moved on to a supermarket job. Had to work every weekend and quite a lot of bank holidays, but at least I got paid.

Which is the case for a lot of jobs nowadays. Not saying its right people aren't paid more, but so many jobs require lots of higher skills nowadays without the financial reward.

My sister works in a school but as a cook, she works for an outside catering company. She's had to do her food hygiene to level 3, an nvq 2 in catering with maths and English too, food allergens level 3, manual handling courses. She handles some very high risk equipment, is lifting heaving equipment, is in charge of supervising the staff in the kitchen, does all the never ending paperwork with daily/weekly/monthly checks plus half termly stock takes. Does the ordering, cost comtrols etc. Never ending cleaning, is responsible for preparation and serving children with food allergies, some of which have an epi pen. Her and the staff serves over 200 children each day, has to have everything washed up and cleaned to a high level.of cleanliness, sets up and puts away a hall of god knows how many chairs and tables.. the list just goes on, all whilst wearing hot ppe. But she's only earning just over £10 an hour. The point is, I'm not trying to demonstrate a race to the bottom, but so many jobs are full of people doing an awful lot of very responsible tasks which also require lots of skills and training but they are being paid shit money. Care work is another prime example.

I’m a school governor and have just attended a session with 25 other governors from different schools across 2 counties.

Key theme without exception was budget squeezes and massive increases in SEN need, with the added bonus of recruitment issues across governors, teachers, TAs and cleaners.

People do not realise many children who would ideally be in a specialist school are now in mainstream due to cuts and poor policy. Even with a 1:1 TA they may struggle. I heard 2 stories of teaching staff being (seriously) physically assaulted this week.

People who come on to say ‘volunteers’ are the answer show their naivety as to the problem. I’m a volunteer, as all governors are, and in my day job am a senior exec with multiples degrees. There is NO WAY I am remotely qualified, or equipped, to do what a TA does for even a single day. Furthermore the idea a vulnerable child would have a revolving door of volunteer TAs is so preposterous it can’t even be considered a sensible suggestion.

TAs deserve fair pay for the work they do without question.

I agree, and definitely a bad idea to expect volunteers to take on this vital role.

The chair throwing and being sworn out sounds awful but on the whole, your job work day you described just sounds like it's got the stresses, ups and downs of most jobs tbh. Some bits that are tedious, some stressful and some ok and/or rewarding

And what minimum wage job do you think this is like? Oh, hang on, you exempt many of the things that make it different from other work and then say it's like other work.

I hope it wasn't a teacher who taught you to argue so badly.

And one more very noddy question: others have mentioned that agencies draw massive profit. What are they doing? I mean, in the sense of are they providing supply or temporary teachers to fill gaps for illnesses etc (which could still be a massive cost, esp with covid circulating).

@Karrots

Gosh, that is depressing, but maybe you have answered my question as to what might have been typical in the 90s - fewer kids with extreme behavioural or SEN issues in mainstream.

You've clearly never worked a minimum wage job working with the general public! 🙄