TA salary

[ionising]

I live in a North Eastern market town. A few years ago I was a TA only level 3 so not a HLTA. I earnt 23k PA. level 2 salary was around 21k and Level 1 around 18k.

My friend down south says she earnt 12k as a TA. Really?

I thought it was meant to be grim up North.

Don't know where you're working but the school I work at in West Yorkshire pays no where near what you got!

Most TA jobs round here (Home Counties) pay less than £7,000 a year.

The vast majority are part time on 20 hours per week or fewer. Most are for just mornings, some are just afternoons, most include lunchtime supervision.

TA provision at secondary level is decreasing as budgets for SEND have decreased.

Salaries are so low as school budgets are particularly stretched. The ‘naice’ areas tend to have the lowest per pupil funding as the historic funding formulae took account of local deprivation index. Schools in more affluent areas also tend to get less funding from pupil premium so it’s a double-whammy.

Very affluent areas such as Wokingham simply don’t have the budgets to pay for TAs.

if I could get a TA job at £25k I’d quit teaching and do it tomorrow.

Which local authority is this OP? I live on the border of 4 local authorities (South yorkshire) and top scale HLTA is around 18K. Don't know why a HLTA would be on more than a teacher.

if I could get a TA job at £25k I’d quit teaching and do it tomorrow.

Me too and I suspect so would thousands of other teachers! There is something about this that really doesn’t sound right.

They probably just forgot to write pro rata on the advert.

Am I the only one who would hate to be a TA?

Just never appealed, even slightly.

Full time cover HLTA at our school, 8.30am until 4pm earns £21k, the rest earn between 10k and 13k. You were very lucky OP - I don’t think I’d have bothered teaching!

I’m in West Yorkshire btw.

I promise you all it is not pro rata and applies to every job as a TA in my LA. They all pay the same from primary to secondary. Even the special school pays the same depending the level.

That's why my TA to NQT was a worry. However I can earn up to around 40k as a main scale teacher hence why I changed.

Did not realise we were all onto such a good thing. No wonder people rarely leave except me and oh is sick of being a TA.

Salaries are not so low primarily because of stretched budgets. They're so low because they're one of the few jobs that parents can take that have virtually zero impact on their own school age children, hence they are popular.

I don’t know, honey but it really appeals to me. I’ve been a secondary English teacher for 30 years and I’ve had enough of the pressure and blame culture. Being a TA would enable me to still use my skills and still help young people but without all that. I’m sure there are things I wouldn’t like, but I definitely fancy it.

You’ll only get up to (just below) £40k if you go to UPS3 which involves significant hoop jumping and extra workload.

Teachers also have long hols but their pay isn't docked in that way.

Yes it is. Teachers are also paid for 195 working days plus 20 days holiday. The pay is equalised out over 12 pay packets a year.
However teacher jobs are not advertised as pro rata.

Quite Sausage. It’s why teaching pays less than other post grad jobs.

You’ll only get up to (just below) £40k if you go to UPS3 which involves significant hoop jumping and extra workload.

True but I am already on 30k
compared to three years ago on 23k.

It's not that unusable for TAs to teach staff including SLT. Our TAs are trainers in manual handling and team teach etc. They deliver the training as trained trainers.

A former colleague of mine is now semi retired and works as a TA, she's a auditor senior suicidal worker and worked as a manager in the probation service for many years. She got bored of retirement (also took redundancy) and TA part time hours term time only suit her but she is really over qualified. She delivers training to SLT and teaching staff around safeguarding, domestic abuse, risk assessment and multi agency forums around child protection, MARAC and MAPPA. They pay her a separate day rate for that though which is more than her TA rate but less than getting a private training company in, so it's a win win.

*former senior social worker

WHile the OP hasn’t said her actual town (unless I missed it) she said North East and that this pay was usual around the area. I found these ads that suggest it’s not that prevalent... seems surprising she’s so surprised if nearby jobs pull in this much.

I’m an SEN TA. I get bitten, kicked, punched daily. I have training in restraint and positive handling which I use regularly. I am exhausted permanently! But, i love my job. I love the kids. It’s a passion, a calling. And it fits around my current life perfectly.

But the salary is really poor. I work, officially, 32 hours a week. It’s usually more like 38-40.

I am supposed to have a half hour (unpaid) lunch break each day. I rarely get this as the kids usually need me during lunch time.

I take Home just over 1k per month.

To clarify my pictures - thenigher salary is pro rata. The lower is actual and very low.

I was surprised that my friend from down south only had a salary of 12k.

Those towns Hartlepool and Boro are not far from me.

Most TA jobs are around 25-30 hours a week, and around 43/44 weeks (term time + paid holiday) so unless the hourly rate is very high its not well paid.

Not pro rata here. This is level 2.

www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/teaching-assistant-level-2-darlington-1120610

Level three is up to 23.7k