Would the role of a midday assistant suit /entice you

[Mickeyfish]

Our school is applying for 2 midday assistant positions. 1 and half hours a day. Weve had not one response to the advert and no applicants have came in its made me think as to why is that ? Do people not find the job ideal if you had children of school age

I’m guessing the pay isn’t great, and being in the middle of the day it would stop you doing a lot of things.

Pay is too low. Especially if you incur travel costs to get to the school. Responsibilities and managing behaviour perceived as too difficult.

Can be difficult to fit round other jobs

I deal with school funding so know that there is no money available to make the job more enticing

It would interest me! I'm surprised some mum's haven't thought it would be a nice way to get back into work after time off. Although, with that perhaps I'm assuming a MC area where women haven't all gone back to work through financial necessity. If the latter, maybe that's the issue? Does it finish just before pick-up or is there an hour or two where they'd have to get home and come back again?

I wouldn’t because I imagine it pays peanuts for a few hours work at an inconvenient point.

Are there that many women these days who don’t work till kids are at school, then only want pocket money?

The timings are (obviously for a reason!) just so awkward ... even if you are a SAHM you probably want to go out for the occasional day, visit an elderly relative etc rather than have to be available 11.45-1.15 for example.

I do know someone who is a midday supervisor, she is retired, recently widowed and was looking for something to fill her days & she loves being around DC.

I suspect if you needed the money you would need to be working much longer hours. I suspect the pay is not enough to entice people for ‘pocket money’.

Nope. Not for me because it would hugely impact my freedom during the day and I’d be constantly click watching.

my daughter is at private school and we as parents regularly get sent emails with such vacancies as you are describing. They even add the incentive that I would be entitled to 25% off fees, but no, I wouldn’t be prepared to do this.

caveat - if we needed the money I would obviously do it or any other poorly paid inconvenient role to help my family. I realise I am fortunate.

I was a lunch time supervisor until recently. I used it as a way to get back into work after been a sahm and did it about 5 years, I gave it up because I found a job with more hours and better pay. While my dcs were still at primary it suited me and o enjoyed the job.

Terrible pay and you can't make plans for anything else. Your whole day revolves around 1.5 hours.

I started in September. I only do an hour a day. The pay wasn't my motivation ; I'm a qualified teacher, 'retired' aged 50, 6 years ago and was looking for a job that added some structure to my day.
I work in the evenings, too, as a cleaner.
So far, it's been ok. Harder than I expected, behaviour wise. I had more control and better behaviour management when I was teaching.
Lovely kids, overall.
I'm giving it til Christmas to decide if I'm staying or not.

The hours and pay are lousy and the job hard. I’m not at all surprised that you have no applicants 😢

90 minutes a day at what £10.42? So approx £15.63 a day? Unless you live within walking distance it's simply pointless. By the day you get in the car, drive to the school and drive back, you'd then have a tiny amount of time to do anything before picking up the kids. So you're entire day is botched for the sake of £15.63 (less once deductions are made). Also willing to bet you'd be working for more than 90 mins. In a noisy, hectic environment, probably having to scrape food off the floor, or manage behaviour....yeh no not an attractive job.

I’ve finished working now and would like a bit of pin money, I don’t need it though and breaking up each and every day for what? £16 a day with no time off in term time isn’t going to cut it.

I suspect if the job was extended to do an extra couple of hours in the morning supporting elsewhere in the school and playground duty there would be more interest.

Given that you have to work 16 hours a week to qualify as being "in work" for benefits purposes, a 7.5hr per week job in the middle of the day is really unhelpful. Could you make it a job that also covers providing a breakfast club for at the start of the day, so that it is 16 hrs per week? If you charge £1.50 for breakfast club you only need 15 pupils a day to come to breakfast and you can cover the additional wages and cost of food so it will more than break even

1.5 hours a day at minimum wage I'm guessing?

11.44 x 7.5hrs = £85.80 per week, and that's only going to be school weeks. That's not even the cost of a week's shopping for me, and for a lot of people they'd potentially be having to drive there and back, or drive there and hang around till their kid finishes school.

It's just not enough hours to entice anyone. I'm looking for something that fits around the school drop off and pick up but 1.5 hours right slap bang in the middle of the day everyday would be very unattractive, unless it was paid hugely. But I assume it would be minimum wage.

I do the role. I enjoy it and find it fullfilling most of the time although it's a relatively small school that I work at. I don't need the money though. If I did I would have to find alternative employment because I drive there and back too. It's keeping me in employment and I'm contributing to a pension. It then allows me to do the school runs which is what I want.

I went into the role last year but I had been out of work for 6 years because of ds and so it was a good stepping stone back in for me. I am now gradually increasing hours and doing a bit extra to fit in with his needs so it was ideal for my circumstances.

So 7.5hrs per week term-time only. If we assume £11.50 per hour that's less than £3,300pa.

For people who need to work for money, that's not enough. For people who don't need to work for money, it's a lot of disruption to your day for very little in return.

Have you thought of adding other hours to this contract to make it more attractive e.g midday supervisor for 1.5 hrs followed by cleaning or TA work for another 1.5 hrs to bring it to the end of the school day? That would make it more attractive for people needing to do school pick-up.

A job of only 1 1/2 hours a day pays pocket money.
People who need to work need a salary.

Those that don’t need the money wouldn’t want to be committed to the times needed every single day and those that do need a bigger wage packet

If the school is in walking distance it still means walking to and from 6 times a day usually. It's a lot when the pay isn't great.

I'd find it really inconvenient. Take kids to school, go home. Two hours later you have to go back to the school for 1.5 hours, go home again. Then a short while later, go back to school to collect the kids. You'd be forever to-ing and fro-ing to school!

For those saying could you add TA role to it, unless there is a vacancy coming up at the same time, schools can't afford to just add TA role to their staff. Number of local Primaries do have TAs that also double up as MTAs but that would probably be because they started as TA and then a vacancy for MTA came up, no-one else wanted to do it so TA was asked to fill the slot

My mum used to do that - but that was back in the 70s when we lived in a tiny village with one bus in and one bus out, the husbands all took the one family car to work, childcare was but a distant dream, and she was desperate to escape the house/endless coffee mornings. It might have only been 'pocket money' but she loved it.

Nowadays it would be very different. 1.5 hours in the middle of the day would cut into the day massively and curtail what you could do. Unless you can make it a proper p/t post I doubt you'll get m/any applicants.

Nope
For
All the reasons given above