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.

I've been a volunteer in a primary school. My role was to listen to children read, and sometimes help out on school trips. I was there every week without fail (one afternoon a week) and had the time and opportunity to build up a relationship with the children in my allocated class.

I'm now a TA at the same school and my role is worlds apart. My main role is as a 1:1 with a non-verbal child who is still in nappies. I have training in several specific interventions that he needs on a daily basis. He understandably becomes frustrated at not being able to communicate, which leads to daily violent outbursts. I've been bitten, kicked in the face, had hair pulled out, and been left with scratches and bruises.

Nappy changes require two members of staff to be present. With no support staff, how would the teacher manage that?

When a child has a meltdown and starts throwing furniture, we need one member of staff to evacuate the rest of the class and to stay with them and a second member of staff to keep the child as safe as they can during the meltdown. How would a teacher manage all that with no support staff?

Secondary schools don't have classroom TAs

Don’t say that too loud, Lynn Truss will hear you

These children shouldn’t take away from other children’s support but schools often use a child EHCP TA to avoid having to pay their own classroom TA and asking that TA to also look after the rest of the class. That’s what happened with my child despite him being funded for a full time 1-1 TA.

What you'll also find in secondary schools is several children with EHCPs being put in the same class, and 1 TA to cover them all. If available.

Would you want that for your child? I certainly wouldn't

Good for them!

The funding a school receives for an EHCP doesn't cover the cost of the 1:1. First the school has to fund the first £6000, then the amount received as top up doesn't cover the actual costs- wages, national insurance, pension contributions- of employing a TA. So, on top of not being able to employ 1:1 staff because no one wants the job anymore, it costs the school if they do manage to fund someone.

Do you mean that there are no TAs in the classroom at all, or are there no general TAs, but there are 1-1 TAs? In the first scenario, there cannot be any children with EHCPs/high needs, and in both there must be lots of children across the school who would benefit from extra support in class, who don't get it.

My friend has been a TA for about 15 years, she's done numerous courses and is excellent with the kids. She's currently got an additional role with counselling the kids as well. The amount of referrals to her is ridiculous and it takes a lot of her time sorting out which ones genuinely need to see her and which are trying to get out of lessons. I don't think she has additional pay for this and recently the teachers she has been assisting have been on their phones all the time in class, not bothering to lesson plan etc etc etc. She has always taken supplies in at her own expense but then I think they treat her appallingly because she does so much. It really isn't on, especially when she is doing a lot of the teacher's job. (She is a TA with the youngest children but the counselling is all ages of primary).

I'm in care and people are also leaving as supermarket wages are higher.

Genuine question:

I went to a primary school (90s) with 650 kids, class size average was 30. There were zero TAs in the school. Why is there nowadays such a need for TAs? What role do they play now that wasn't being fulfilled in the 90s?

Not at all an argumentative post, I'm just interested as I read regularly about TAs being so important, but didn't feel as a primary pupil that anything was 'missing'.

Thanks for anyone taking the time to answer.

My post should have quoted the previous poster who said that her children's school had got rid of classroom TAs and replaced them with a teacher who did interventions and cover for class teachers.

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

@noblegiraffe Yet people keep voting Tory and the public passively accepted the Academy programme even though it was obvious that it was not going to improve education. The “not-for-profit” academies pay huge salaries to senior leaders whilst paying student-facing staff such as TAs a pittance committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/165055/tens-of-millions-of-public-money-used-to-prop-up-poorly-managed-academy-schools-with-potentially-excessive-levels-of-pay/

TAs in my area get between 20-26k term time only. I know some areas the pay is a lot worse.

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.

The warlock report was 80's and the first part of childrens act was 1989 iirc.

So prior to this children with send and sen were still not educated within mainstream schools and many still were institutionalised and in special schools.

Nowadays children have echps and where appropriate can be educated alongside their peers. Except the theory and the budget and ability to employ these specialist tas doesn't match what they do.

TAs aren't paid for their holidays in schools I have worked in

A great example if this is people my age (I was primary in 80's) are now parents of children in the special school I work in who attended the same school and we even have ex pupils who work there.

Most would be educated within MS nowadays but unfortunate without the staff to support them as they don't pay enough.

It’s about time. Around my way they are asking for graduates to become TAs, because the job they’re asking us to do includes teaching and planning lessons. For typically 12k a year, often less. And no, they can’t recruit. I’m getting loads of begging emails from agencies I left over two years ago. What do people expect? How does this country expect people to live with house prices through the roof and suggestions that we should all be volunteering? You cannot have an economy that runs without pay unless you distribute food, clothing and housing for free too!

You are ignoring all the children who weren't in your classroom that existed, but you couldn't see. Special provision, or just not in school.

Many of them would now be expected to be educated in mainstream schools.

@RosettaTheGardenFairy I went to a Primary school in the 70s and no TAs. I got my mum to get the next level maths book and taught myself maths as was ahead from the level they were teaching in class. Very few tests or assessments. If you were in the mid-range academically you probably did okay, higher or lower probably not so well.

’Naughty’ children went elsewhere

Part of it is there was a move to close a large number of special schools.

I am a grey ( though I call it distressed blonde) volunteer, and an ex teacher to boot. You would have to drag me kicking and screaming and then tie me down with duct tape so I didn’t run out of the gate to get me to volunteer in a school, the offer of tea and nice biscuits doesnt even start to touch the sides. I volunteer in places where I enjoy relaxed adult conversation and company, in a pleasant environment, where I don't feel obliged/ pressured to spend my own money on basics like pritt sticks , where I am not in danger of catching nits , ringworm or threadworm, where I don’t have to see colleagues in tears or listen to foul language from parents, or smell school lunches cooking or kids toilets.

Been there, done that. No thanks. People working in schools in whatever capacity should be valued and paid properly to do the job they do, to even think of replacing them with well meaning volunteers is shameful.

That isn’t acceptable.
Violence towards teaching staff and other pupils and schoolchildren in nappies ?
If a child isn’t toilet trained, or violent, Mainstream schools are not the place to be.
I’d rather stack shelves than be abused and have to change messy nappies.
Why are so many children still in nappies when of school age?!

1. Nobody working in a school has the time to do this. Anybody working in a school with time to peruse forms or run a pop-up event is already in front of a class. Tea and biscuits left the building long ago- no room for those in anybody's budget. Embarrassing when you are supporting a parent in floods of tears in an after-school meeting and can't offer them a cup of tea.
2. I don't think you understand what TAs actually do. They aren't floating about doing macramé with small, dainty groups, or prettifying displays, or doing the photocopying. Very few of them have time to do reading interventions. Most are there because children with EHCPs (and hence with demanding additional needs) need 1:1 support (which isn't fully funded either). How many retired pensioners could cope with catching an 8 year-old who climbs fences to escape, or restrain a violent 11-year-old who smashes doors, walls and windows, or manage a child who deliberately hurts other children and adults?

@noblegiraffe is right. Schools have been scraping by with inadequate budgets for over a decade. No extra support came in during Covid, and it's brought schools to their knees. When wider mainstream inclusion was brought in under Blair, the promise was that funding would follow the child. Support for those children has been eroded for many years, and the unsupported children are not coping. Why should children with severe additional needs just have to hope that an untrained 80 year old volunteer turns up to support them? They need the support of properly trained, well-paid professionals.

We could get the money for pay for this by not cutting taxes for high earners, and by clawing back the fraudently disbursed Covid related payouts.

Classrooms do not need TAs if all the children can follow and understand whole class taught lessons.But do you understand the level of SEN in mainstream schools? Children who are non-verbal? Who can never follow the lesson? They deserve an education too.