Should teacher and TA get the same?

[Crunchymum]

Parents contributed for a class gift (vouchers) for teacher and TA.

Organiser decided to give £260 to teacher and £140 . Was SBU?

My daughter has just finished reception and I organised the collection.

My DD has 2 teachers who split the week between them and has a TA which is there all day every day. All three of them have been amazing and my DD has always spoken very fondly of the TA.
Giving her less wouldn't seem fair at all. We split the money 3 ways and each received a voucher for £75.

^*a TA just works school hours and then goes home. A teacher has to put in masses of extra hours for lesson planning etc and has a lot more individual responsibility.

Plus there could be half the kids, or more than half, who barely get any time with the TA, who will generally be focusing their time on those pupils who have the greatest need for extra support and rarely needs to interact with the pupils who thrive without extra hel^p*

This post sums up the misconceptions of so many parents. This may be how TAs worked years ago but so far from the truth for many these days, and definitely not my experience.

Our TAs work the same hours as the teachers, and can sometimes be seen there longer. They take work home. They plan. They Prep. They work with a wide range of children - it's not great practise to have the teacher and TA always working with the same groups. It should be varied.

I think many people think all TAs are 1:1s or who only work with lower ability children.

Lipstick, I totally agree. To the children, teachers and tas are equally important people in their school life.

Our class collection is split so that slightly more goes to the teacher than the TAs. I don’t agree with it as I think it should be split equally, but it’s what the majority agreed. My youngest has a 1-2-1 TA, but she does work with the class with him too. One year a parent refused to contribute to her gift, but most parents were outraged at this, and it actually led to us also giving chocs to the office staff as someone pointed out they do lots for our kids too.
We also get small gifts for our children to give the teachers and TAs. Also the SENCO as she does a lot with us. Gifts are usually wine!

What happened to a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine with a card. Complete madness I’m glad my school don’t do this.

I give more to the teacher, yes they both work hard and a ta is invaluable in the classroom but the workloads and pressure that teachers have to deal with in unbelievable. So often the school children come before their own children and the hours they work outside of 9-3 is ridiculous. Despite what people on here think I’ve worked in schools where the TAs do walk out of the door at 3 (despite school finishing at 3.15) and walk in at 9 still not having a clue about the plans for the day. TAs also don’t have to spend ‘their holiday’ working like teachers do.

My sons finishing year 2.
In his eyes he’s had two teachers every year.
It should be equal. Teachers extra hours are reflected in their pay.

I’m a teacher and I think it should be split equally. I don’t have enough words to say how amazing my TAs are.

"The TA has the option of walking out the door 5 minutes after the children and not thinking about his/her job until 5 minutes before the start of school the next day if s/he chooses - the teacher, not so much."

This is so not what happens. Unless they have an appt/child to get to, none of the TAs I work with leave straight after the children and often they arrive early too. We run a free breakfast club between us unpaid. Many run an after school club, also unpaid. We aren't martyrs, just dedicated professionals who aren't in it for the money.

The gifts I love are the ones the kids make or the cards they write. One in particular I got this year was from a child that really struggled with writing so it really meant a lot.

I think this thread is quite indicative of the way people see TA's. They do quite a bit the parents don't see. Yesterday while all the teachers were doing lovely end of term activities our TA's were all archiving files.

Somewhere - I work as a ta now. I have a pile of work to do over the summer and will be maintaining the school SM over that time too. Infact at the airport this morning I have just added some fairly important information to one of our SM feeds - couldn't schedule it beforehand like I do some other posts as it only landed in my email late last night. I could have left it or ignore it but it is beneficial to school for me to act, so I did.

As I say, I've been a teacher and a TA (level 3, now level 4/HLTA) - I still work similar hours to before in term time, and always have some work to do at weekends and holidays.

I'm also interested in a response from parents who do the hierarchy gift giving now that several school staff have responded saying they prefer it to be an equal split. And, as said before, I know of at least situation where the teacher felt it so unfair she actually have her TA some of her gift to even it out.

If teachers - who actually know how much their TAs do - think TAs should have equal gifts, why do parents still think they should be treated so different?

And it's not a gripe from me. When I was classroom based TA my gifts were always equal to the teachers. And as a secondary school teacher I didn't have a TA anyway. I'm in a different role now and work across school instead of one class, so gifts are limited.

What happened to a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine with a card. Complete madness I’m glad my school don’t do this.

Well when my stepfather received umpteen bottles of wine and boxes of chocolate he generally gave them away as he didn't drink wine or eat much chocolate.

Somewhere- teachers are paid for the school holiays, TAs aren 't.

Somewhere- teachers are paid for the school holiays, TAs aren 't.

No they aren't. They are paid in the school holidays but not for the school holidays. Their salary is based on their working hours across the year, but then paid in 12 monthly installments, so they get paid even during times they are not at work. Saying teachers are paid for their holidays would be like saying a part-timer got paid for their days off just because their wages happened to go into their account on a day off!

Teachers do get paid for some holidays - 4 weeks iirr. Most TA contracts are for term time only, so 39 weeks only.

50/50 is fair in my opinion. The differences in their skills, knowledge, hours etc is reflected in their salaries. This is a gift. If you’re happy that they’ve both helped your child in equal measure, the gift should be the same.

I'm a former teacher and a TA now. I'd say the TA deserves it more as the pay is less then £9 an hour. For that I work equally as hard as the teacher during school hours- taking groups, supporting one to one, putting displays up and down, etc. TAs also do a lot of work which they aren't even paid for!! (think schooI trips which fall outside of school hours, helping out at summer fairs, evening performances, residential visits etc.)I often cover classes in teacher's absence. Of course, I don't have the same responsibilty for progress as the teacher does, but I am accountable for the children I work with and have to undergo regular observations and training. However, the teacher is rewarded financially for the work they do.

Having been on both sides of the fence being a TA is harder work compared to the pay than being a teacher!

Teacher's are paid a salary for the work they do and it's up to them how much work they do out of their contracted school day hours- their contract is to complete their work as necessary (which obviously requires evening and holiday work if they are doing a good job).

TA's are paid by the hour for the hours they work.

In short- they both deserve gifts of the same value!

We split it 50/50 between the TA and the teacher because we are equally grateful for both of them. It doesn’t matter what they are paid, we are saying thank you and it would be rude to say to one that they are less deserving of our thanks.

somewhere If the TAs walk out of school at 3pm when school doesn't finish until 3.15pm does it not occur to you that the TAs are probably only paid until 3pm? I doubt they just go home because they are lazy- what an odd thing to think!

I joined in one class's gift to teacher and TA (not divided equally). Same DS has a DIFFERENT teacher/TA who works with him out of hours - so I got her an individual small gift which I think she was quite surprised by. But she's made a huge difference to his abilities and confidence so I'm very grateful.

Older DS, class didn't organize anything, so I gave teacher an individual present, no regular TA so I didn't do anything there.

But I also got a shared present for the office staff. They do a lot to help disorganized parents like me and they've certainly saved my children from my lack of organisational skills on more than one occasion, have sat there with my sick and trembling child while waiting for me to pick him up etc, etc, etc.

Yes TAs paid hourly.
Teachers are paid a salary. Of course they are expected to work outside of school hours. You don't think they earn say £30,000 which plenty of teachers do, just to work 9 until 3.30 39 weeks a year do you?
That would be almost £30 per hour. Every teacher I've ever worked with joked about how they probably earn around 50p per hour after considering the hours they put in.
It is up to them when they put the hours in.
I was paid from 9am (yet allocated groups from 8.50 am😠) until 12 then again expected to be on a Rota to restrain unruly children in my unpaid lunch hour. Then paid from 1pm until 3.30pm. Most days certain parents couldn't be bothered to turn up on time to collect their children so soneone, usually an unpaid TA had to babysit them until their parent could be bothered to drag their arse out of the pub.

The job was rewarding though, just very low paid.

Bit controversial here but not only do teachers take ultimate responsibility for assessment and progress, parents evening reports etc, theyve had to get in tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt to get their degrees and PGCEs. I therefore don't really think TAs can complain about the pay discrepancy.