To think a teaching assistant job isn't that desirable?

[Midge1978]

I’ve wanted to be a primary school TA for a while but I’ve heard several accounts lately from teaching assistants feeling put upon and it seems the same sort if things - having to replace a teacher at short notice with no extra pay, having to supervise large amounts of children single handedly at break times and being made to work longer hours than agreed. Are there any teaching assistants out there who can shed any light on this at all? Thanks x

It's a shame really as the abundance of applicants allows the government to get away with the shitty wages for the role, because they know the positions are easy to fill.

The government does not set the wages for TAs. There is no national pay agreement.

Salaries are set by the LA, Foundation Trust or Academy Trust.

Anything that's term time only is desirable in that lots of people will want it. It's true that the salary is poor, but if you take away the costs of holiday childcare for school aged children, it suddenly looks a lot better. It's also not a role that you need a degree for, which means it will attract even more applicants.

The TA in my class is amazing and essentially "works to rule" in that she stays in the staff room until the minute school starts and she generally leaves bang on the bell. I've had comments from other teachers but I don't blame her at all

This resonates with me. I was an LSA for 8 years and was definitely made to feel bad for arriving and leaving on time. Many of the other LSAs turned up half an hour before class every day and were still slogging away at 5pm each evening. No paid overtime. I wouldn't do it and it didn't go down well.

I got fed up with the gradual decrease in training, shit wages and the increase in the expectation that an LSA is there to take up the slack when funding fails the school and the teachers and the system can't cope.

Our primary kept on employing NQTs year after year to save money and this increased the load on the LSAs who had years more classroom experience. The expectations just increased every year as class sizes grew and the needs of the children grew. Rewards for the LSAs seemed to shrink. The unspoken undercurrent was always that the reward of working with the children should be enough in itself and there is always plenty waiting to take the job instead so put up and shut up or bugger off. In the end i buggered off.

In our school only level 3 TAs and HLTAs take classes but much more frequently than they should. You're kind of expected to stay late for stuff like summer fairs and stuff but I suppose they wouldn't say anything if you didn't. We do a school trip which ends up being a 12 hour day and you get not a penny more pay which annoys somewhat. A lot of us work extra hours when necessary but not all that often. Residentials are a bugger cos you're on duty 24 hours a day for no extra pay but they are a blast and again not compulsory.

We do have more responsibility nowadays and are expected to teach not just sharpen pencils and do displays but unfortunately the pay doesn't reflect this.

It is a fantastic job and of course there's the weekends and holidays which are great. Working with kids is rewarding and fun so overall I'd say yes it is desirable but the pay is woeful and needs to change.

Yes I buggered off too for a lot of the reasons mentioned I stuck to my hours and the other ta's bitched about it, some of the older jaded teachers took the piss out of me and I found the nurse/carer side of dealing with the children with toileting issues harder than I ever imagined esp as I have dd with a lifelong disability, I'm just not comfortable around other people's private parts and that's my problem not the child's so only fair to leave and be replaced by someone totally comfortable as it's an unavoidable part of the job

A TA job was desirable to me when I did it because because I was motivated by supporting children with Sen. Fantastic job. It was tough and a lot is expected from a TA. It seems to be looked at as some nice little term time job for parents and in reality it’s nothing like that.

I never had to stay behind for meetings. I left Bang on time. However, I did sacrifice breaks and most of my lunchtime unpaid to support the one to one child I had who was totally unable to cope during unstructured time. That was my choice.

I love that job and really miss it.

I've done both and in my case I did pretty much everything the teachers were doing including planning and delivering intervention sessions for up to 20 students, taking classes for absent teachers, taking students out to teach separately including planning and delivering material for these sessions and having targets associated with their progress, exam marking and duties. I went back to teaching as the work I was doing didn't come close to matching the salary. The only thing I didn't do as a TA that I do as a teacher is mark loads of homework. Willing to accept that this isn't usual but suspect with more and more ex teachers taking TA roles that it will be becoming more common. I went back to teaching, at least I get adequately paid now for not doing that much more.

I've done teaching, TAing and everything in between. Some TAs have a tough job and the money is beyond pants! It has changed an awful lot over the years!

All the best bits of working with kids and being in school, with none of the crap

Absolutly

Yes you can be asked to look after the class, orgaomose groups, plan work, assess and target, plan and organise etc

BUT teachers get the stress of planning marking targeting and are given unrealistic expectations

Plan maths literacy science art etc then the school play PE trips,

School reports, levels, etc which that are responsible for all the children making progress

It depends on the school and what they define the role of a TA as. "All the best bits of working with kids and being in school, with none of the crap" certainly didn't ring true for me in my first two TA jobs a few years ago.. in the first I was always port of call for an autistic child in the class who the teacher couldn't be bothered to plan for and had no work or activities catered to him, just the class work which I was expected to adapt, and his severe behavioural problems weren't dealt with, he was just 'sent out' with the TA. Poor boy. Also meant I was often his punching bag. I left pretty swiftly. In the last one I covered the class for three afternoons and one morning a week. For three years. I taught interventions and 1:1 sessions all afternoon every day except for the ones I was covering. When I was covering the planning and reaources should have been in place but 70% of the time weren't! All the
intervention sessions needed to be planned and resourced by me. They all needed to be marked by me, and any lessons I covered also to be marked by me.
And for THAT pay. I also wrote IEP's as usually with NQT's I knew the children better, dealt with parents before and after school, had to know the curriculum targets etc inside out, and got paid a bloody pittance for all of it.
It was never an easy job. Luckily I had an English and then an Early Years degree and lots of experience working in schools and with children but it was overwhelming. I left and trained as a teacher and on to SLT but some of my TA days were just as challenging as my teaching ones. Easier, yes, but never easy, and never all the good parts.

There are some TA jobs where its all 9-3 and photocopying and helping out, but none of mine ever have been.

Ds1 did a TA role after he got his degree. The school was incredibly supportive of him and he went on to do his PGCE and is a fantastic primary school teacher now. He's very grateful for the wonderful TA's who support him and knows that he wouldn't be able to

do his job without them.
Sorry posted too soon.

I will add the pay isn't absolutely terrible if you were employed years ago. That's because you became an hlta to lead classes and plan.
In my county those jobs are now a payscale lower.

As a top of pay band hlta the pay is about £11.50/hr. FTE C £22,000.

What I find now as I'm looking to move jobs possibly (for more challenge/experience rather than being unhappy) is a job equivalent in description to mine (e.g. Cover supervisor on secondary school) the pay is £8 (ish) p/h. That is to be employed basically to teach when teachers are off sick, training or on PPA.
These jobs use to be covered by qualified teachers or supply teachers.

And it's not the choice of schools - it's the complete lack of efficient funding from the government and that's what teachers jobs have got harder. Because they have to also take some of the slack of what TAs use to do because due to the change in conditions many now work to rule.

Is that £22k FTE pro rata (if the hlta were to be full time 37 hours a week and 46 weeks a year) or is that actually what they take home?

That's if they worked FT and 37 hours a week.

Most contracts are 29-35 hrs per week for 40 weeks of the year and then you get 5/6 weeks holiday pay as well. So take home is more like 15/16,000.

But that take home is more than a FT min wage job for 37 hours over 52 weeks.

Realistically most TA take home 9-11k a year which is less but they work around school holidays so childcare costs don't exist etc.

For me the issue mostly lies with increased expectations of TAs within lower payscales. They no longer pay hlta wages for cover supervisors. They pay level 2 wages which originally the job description was to work with small groups of children under the direction of class teacher.
Covering whole classes all day is not small groups!

There are several different 'types' of TAs

• the ex teacher

• the mum

• the wannabe teacher

The latter are most prone to 'going the extra mile' ime.

Ex TA here. Massively depends on schools but in two schools I worked in as well as the normal group and individual support of children, reading with children and resource making I did the following.

Regular cover of a whole class during teachers planning sessions with a lesson plan left and short term teacher sickness for the whole day in the later case sometimes, with another TA.

Marked books

Was involved in planning meetings and implementation alongside the teacher.

Created some lesson plans from themes given to my by the teacher (whole class)

Created lesson plans with no assistance what so ever for the children in my group some of who had quite complex learning needs.

All for about £140 a week
In those schools I absolutely felt that I did almost as much IN school as the teacher.

I'm other schools I sharpened pencils, read with kids and emptied paint pots and minor classroom support.

And yes to no breaks or dinners because you needed to eat with the children who needed supporting, running after school clubs for no extra pay.

Please note before anyone jumps on me I said I felt I did nearly as much IN school in those two roles. Obviously I'm aware of the extras done of school.

*out of

I agree OP. This is exactly why I finished with my TA training, not fair on myself and more importantly not fair on the children. Sure is a poor state of affairs atm.