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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Teaching assistants taking lessons

89 replies

wantstosleepnow · 07/10/2011 18:42

I am prepared to be told IABU Wink

My 3 DC all attend the same primary school and it seems that the reception TA takes the class by herself on a friday, and my yr 4 DS says that a TA takes his class on a fri afternoon. This TA is one of the mums from his class, she has only been a TA for a year. I find it hard to believe she could have done enough training to manage a class by herself.

I also think that it undermines the teaching profession to use a TA, as AFAIK they have little or no training at all.

So AIBU to think that TA should be just that, teaching assistants?

OP posts:
LindyHemming · 07/10/2011 20:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BusterGut · 07/10/2011 20:46

An HLTA takes my class for a day every week and the children love her.

Her lessons are planned by me and usually follow a regular pattern. Literacy is spellings/dictation/drama/story; numeracy is a weekly competitive test plus a game or easy-to-administer activity (linked to the week's objective); then RE (yes I do hate it) and music (yes, I hate that too) in the afternoon. However, another teacher plans all the RE and we run 'Musical Express', so again, planning is clear.

The children love the HLTA (yes, she does slip in a 'show and tell' without me knowing!). She has also chosen to do the PPA and enjoys working with chidlren throughout the school.

She has been thinking about doing teacher training (as another 2 TAs have done), but the over-riding problem is that they don't have degrees and would therefore need to fund 3 year degree courses. I can't believe that they scrapped the TA-to-teacher course, which, I thought was great because the TAs started the course with great behaviour management techniques. They are also put off my the vast amount of planning that teachers have to do!

cyb · 07/10/2011 21:21

Hopefully soon all TA's will have to have a minimum of a Level 3 qualification in Childcare learning/development TA'ing whatever

Mums helping out on the odd school trip and listening to readers does not a TA make

BusterGut · 07/10/2011 21:25

Euphemia It's just not allowed here; even non-contact time is covered by a teacher, we can have a classroom assistant take a group, but never the whole class.

We would never, never, ever, ever be able to afford that. (Are you in the same country as us?)

Hulababy · 07/10/2011 21:28

I am a level 3 senior teaching adssistant. As with all out L3 TAs in our school I can cover first day teacher absence and PPA cover. None of our L2 or L1 TAs are allowed to.

However I am fully qualified. I am also a qualified teacher with QTS and several years experience. 4 of our TAs are qualified teachers. Another has HLTA although is not working as a hlta at our school.

But this is soon to change. Although it is legal for L3 tas to cover PPA it is not best practise. Therefore our school is changing the way they work. There will be two HLTAs covering all PPA and the other TAs will no longer do PPA, although will do first day sickness cover for their class teachers. Myself and another L3 TA have just been appointed as HLTAs for this role.

Hulababy · 07/10/2011 21:29

Oh, and as a HLTA we will be responsible for our own planning, delivery and assessment. I think my role will be as an ICT specialist across key stage 1.

alistron1 · 07/10/2011 21:31

I'm a Level 3 TA, and I have a maths degree. I have led on whole class numeracy sessions...but with the teacher in situ.

I do know of experienced TA's covering a lesson in an emergency, and in some situations that might be preferable to having a supply teacher in (eg continuity of care..)

In a situation where a TA is covering they will be doing so where a teacher has planned/differentiated work and activities.

In order to obtain a Level 3 qualification you have to have a minimum of 300 hours classroom time and produce a portfolio demonstrating that you have met a multitude of standards (about 20 or so) for each of the 15 modules the course comprises.

scarlettsmummy2 · 07/10/2011 21:33

Haven't read all the posts, but I would say it depends wholly on the capabilitities of the teaching assistant and what other qualifications they have. A good friend of mine is currently working as a TA in a school in a deprived area while she waits to get something more senior. She has a phd in child psychology and I know she is great with children. It wouldn't faze me in the slightest if she was taking some classes.

BusterGut · 07/10/2011 21:33

Our HLTAs have PPA time, but, quite honestly, we need them to fit in with our weekly plans, so we plan for them. Therefore the PPA time they get is spent familiarising themselves with the plans we have written, and getting resources together.

NorfolkBroad · 07/10/2011 21:34

OP this is a subject very close to my heart. At my (lovely) school I work as a PT teacher in one class and do supply teaching on other days as and when. More and more this supply cover is being given to TAs (because they are alot cheaper), all PPA is also now covered by the TAs. Our TAs are brilliant by the way but this is causing a number of tensions not least the fact that it is eroding my job!

The TAs often feel put upon and compelled to do it but also they do not like having to "plan" work, mark or assess it in the way that a teacher does because they are not paid enough. It is also difficult because in some classes the teacher no longer feels like the team leader as it were, in the cases where the TA has been asked to cover alot. I think a whole day, on a regular basis, is too much for all of the above reasons.

pointydog · 07/10/2011 21:35

Of course schools would be able to afford that if priorities were different.

And hula, I don't think it matters a jot if you are a qualified teacher if you are employed as an assistant with an assistant's responsibilities and an assistant's wage.

flicktheswitch · 07/10/2011 21:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Hulababy · 07/10/2011 21:40

Well yes, I agree that in terms of for MY sake it would be better not to be employed as a TA. But for the sake of the children then they are getting a qualified and experience member of staff teaching them, they are not being shortchanged in that sense.

But schools are not breaking any laws or anything by having L3 tas covering classes. TAs (not HLTA) can delivery lessons planned by teachers. HLTAs can actually plan and teach too.

In an ideal situation schools would employ teachers on teacher's conditions and pay to cover PPA and absence. Some schools do manage this - but it comes from the school budget - it is down to what they feel is best for the school and the school's priorities.

pointydog · 07/10/2011 21:44

It is not about what is best for the pupils though. And so that is fundamentally not right.

Hulababy · 07/10/2011 21:48

I agree with you regarding the TAs conditions etc - and it is why some of our TAs objected to doing PPA, and why we now have the two HLTA roles anout to kick in.

I still have reservations over the HLTA positions tbh - in that it is still in many ways a cheap teacher. There is little between the two roles bar the pay!

However, at our school, to have a qualified teacher employed as a teacher to cover PPA would mean we would have to lose TAs. We currently have TAs in every classroom - and we need them with out higher than avaerge level of ESL and SN - and that would be reduced.

007alert · 07/10/2011 22:01

I teach reception and (degree and PGCE with far too many years experience). I have a TA who is similarly qualified. If I am out on a course then she is not able to cover my class. This is because however qualified she is, she was interviewed and subsequently employed on her abilities as a TA. She has chosen to do TA work so that she can pick her children up from school and have evenings and weekends to herself. So if I'm out, supply is brought in.

If in the OP's case, a reception class is being taught for an entire day by a TA then I would be very unhappy. As eople have said, a TA can carry out teaching planned and assessed by the qualified teacher. This often means that the teaching is slightly stilted and inflexible as the TA has not had the input into the structure of the lesson, nor has the motivation to adapt and alter as he/she goes along to adjust to the needs of the children on that particular day. The class teacher can, and I frequently do, radically change plans on the spur of the moment if they seem not to be working with the mood of the class at the time. A TA delivering pre-planned lessons would not have that flexibility.

This doesn't even begin to touch on the issue of TAs being misused and underpaid for a teaching job, or the erosion of the status of the teacher.

As an aside, OP, if your dc has no class teacher for the whole of a Friday, the teacher must either be an NQT, or have a position with management responsibility, giving additional non-contact time. If it is the former, then I would be very concerned. An NQT, in my opinion, would not be able to plan appropriately for a TA to take their class for a whole day. (and I speak as someone who has mentored NQTs for the past 5 years)

pointydog · 07/10/2011 22:07

"This doesn't even begin to touch on the issue of TAs being misused and underpaid for a teaching job, or the erosion of the status of the teacher."

egzackly

yellowkiwi · 07/10/2011 22:16

I wonder how those TAs who are planning to do a teacher training course will feel when they graduate after 4 years and find they can't get a job because all the teaching jobs have been given to TAs.

BOOareHaunting · 07/10/2011 22:21

YABU. TA's can cover PPA, any TA employed as level2/ grade C now can take a class for a small amount of time. It's in the job description. Mostly they use HTLA's who are employed to cover PPA and to get that status you have to prove you reach the attainments and be monitored/ observed taking lessons.

In my class we have 1 teacher, and 3 LSA's. The 3 lsa's are a qualified teacher, a qualified level 4 practitioner who has 1/2 their degree now (teacher in training!) and a level 3 qualified practitioner. They do not use a teacher to cover during PPA/ illness etc. (This teacher had an op last term and we had a fab a lunchtime supervisor f/t to help) Oh and BTW the class teacher doesn't have a degree because when she qualified it was the certificate in teaching. (the lsa teacher does!)

It's not what you've got but what you do.

The TA covering reception may well be early years qualified and therefore be a practitioner of the EYFS.

BOOareHaunting · 07/10/2011 22:25

I should add my school is SN for pupils with SLD/PMLD so it's better for the pupils to have someone they know and who knows them running the class than a supply teacher they don't.

yellowkiwi · 07/10/2011 22:39

petition

NorfolkBroad · 07/10/2011 22:39

yellowkiki good point!

madmomma · 07/10/2011 22:52

I'm a high school TA, and the horrible truth is HT's IME will do whatever balances the books so they don't lose their own jobs. That frequently means lower ability classes being shortchanged by rarely having a QT teaching them. But, some TAs are brighter and better with the kids than some teachers. It's wrong though.

Daughteroflilith · 07/10/2011 23:03

Well, I was turned down for a position as a TA. It was a marginal decision, but I was told I didn't have enough experience with children. I have a degree in English and experience with a charity teaching English to adult non English speakers. If TAs are more highly qualified than me, I can't see the harm in them taking the odd pre-prepared lesson, or listening to reading. They may not have been formally told how to do these things, but they will have had lots of time to learn from how the teacher does them.

As to the whole business about them not having their own TA, and being alone in the room, and dealing with a violent child by themselves,in my day you never had TAs. It was one person in a room with 30 kids. Admittedly, there were not so many SN children integrated into mainstream, but they managed.

fourkids · 07/10/2011 23:28

A very good friend of mine is a TA. We have been friends since we were tiny, and she is the most lovely person. However, she has just a handful of CSE's to her name - and she is regularly left to 'teach' classes of secondary school pupils when the teacher is away. Sometimes in subjects she has no qualifications in at all.

Although I love her dearly, I find this absolutely horrifying. That isn't a judgement about her. it's a judgement about a system that leaves children to be taught by someone, who not only has no degree or teaching qualification, but has no 'A' level, 'O' level, GCSE, sometimes no CSE in the subject. Just a handful of printed notes to work through. How can that in any way be right?