To be sad that this woman was embarrassed about being a TA?

[jennymanara]

We were out tonight at a social event where most couples seemed to do well paid or high status jobs such as Dr or in the corporate world. I was chatting to one couple and the issue about jobs came up and she very embarrassed said she was a TA. Her job is really important and much more important than some of the others there doing work in corporate firms. It is a crazy world we live in where someone doing a valuable job is embarrassed about it because that job is underpaid.

I don’t have a degree, but I did the NVQ Teaching Assistant course... a year long course with ( at least) 10 hours a week placement. I had people come and assess me , watch me taking a group to show I was doing it in the right way... not dissimilar to student teachers... I have had 10 years in the job now... I go to a variety of trainings and I would say I’m most definitely skilled now. I do almost the same job as the teachers including my own planning sometimes . The only thing I don’t do is the number crunching , data analysis stuff.
Our school has teaching assistant s for 14 classes as well as some extra one-to-one support assistants and nursery nurses. We are not an academy we are a mainstream school . I just wish we were paid a bit more commensurate with our experience and duties.
Makes me mad when people say ‘just’ a TA ..😡

How anyone can be pig ignorant enough to state that being a TA is "not a very important job" really is beyond my comprehension.

Become a Healthcare assistant and have the same shot but work 12 months instead of 7

I’m a TA or LSA (learning support assistant) as my school calls us. I’m a qualified teacher and taught in a secondary school for 34years. I now work 4 days a week as a TA and live it. It’s so much more rewarding than classroom teaching. I mostly work 1:1 with kids with a huge variety of additional needs. Including severely autistic, 14 year olds with a reading age of 5, children with mobility issues, teenagers in our inclusion unit who are on part timetables and alternative provision at risk of permanent exclusion. A few years ago these students would be in special schools. Now they are all in mainstream. These students would not cope without their TA’s if I support a student in a lesson I have to be aware of their individual needs and strategies required to manage behaviour issues. I have to differentiate work at an instant to allow students to access material in a mixed ability class. I am paid term time only, as I suspect most TA’s are. So I don’t get 3 months off! I get paid for 9months of the year. I think the pay is reasonable but the best reward is making a difference to those individual students on a daily basis. I love my job. Unfortunately not everyone values what we do. We are not in a lesson to just hand out books and sharpen pencils as some people seem to think. Like many support workers we are undervalued by many people who don’t really understand what we actually do.

TAs are gems! But, if you're in a setting where people are talking about their jobs in a way which makes a TA feel embarrassed about their important and necessary role then it sounds like a crowd of rubbish people.

HOWEVER, if the high-earners were just talking about their jobs in a casual, non-monetary, non-snobby way then maybe the insecurity lies with the TA person?

My DB and SIL are in high-paid counter terrorism roles and earn a bucket as do most of their friends and they talk to me (teacher) and my husband (postman) with genuine interest in our jobs! We, in turn are interested in theirs. This has been a theme outside family socialising too. It really is the people you surround yourself with AND/OR how much you value yourself and see your worth as anything from a TA to a CEO!

The lack of formal high level qualifications for TA posts contributes much to the status of the job. I have known very variable TAs, some with Oxbridge degrees and some who could not spell or punctuate.

Recently, there have been graduate recruits from teaching who have noticed that the salary discrepancy between a top TA and a starting teacher is not huge whereas the TA’s responsibilities and accountability to management and OFSTED is vastly less than that of a teacher. It therefore makes sense in a way to choose the job which doesn’t cause, stress, illness and burnout.

A proper professional qualification with high entry standards would raise the status of TAs.

abiamber it is great that you are so qualified and it sounds as though you do a truly brilliant job, and have a lot of responsibility.

A few years ago these students would be in special schools. Now they are all in mainstream.

Unfortunately there were so many specials schools closed in the 90s that there are now a severe shortage of places in specials schools. There are also a lack of special schools catering to those children who 'fall between the gap of specialist provision and mainstream' these students would not cope without their TA’s and for students for whom mainstream is the best setting and who are able to truly access all aspects of mainstream (socialising, breaktimes, curriculum etc), with carefully targeted support which enables them - then TAs are essential. However for many children that would be better supported in specialist provision, they can end up in a TA 'bubble', supported and 'just about managing'.

Also do people not think that to do a job like Abiamber and others describe, there should be a set level of entry requirements? A TA job advertised at one of our local schools to work with a child with very complex needs in a mainstream class requires nothing higher than GCSE maths and English and 'some experience working or volunteering with children'.

Having worked in education for decades, been a teacher, a school governor for almost as long, and working with schools now, I can assure anyone who wants to know that TAs and HLTAs are the glue that sticks schools together, and sadly are usually the first for the chop when budgets are tight, because they are invisible to most people who don't work in or with schools. It's a real shame if someone thinks they are low status because some plum from a blue chip FTSE 100 company thinks that. The vast majority of people don't.

hazeyjane - yes, but it's so much cheaper to pretend it is an unskilled role deserving of low pay. The fact is, the respect TAs get for working with some of society's most vulnerable children is commensurate with the amount the rest of society cares about its most vulnerable. Society does not want the highly skilled spending too much time or resources on the needy, so tries to discourage it through low pay and lack of respect.

Judge people for who they are, not what they do.

Working in the higher power jobs often requires no extra brain power, just a lot more ego and confidence....

And many are unhappy, just stuck on the hamster wheel of expectation/debt. I chose to get off a long time ago and the time spent seeing my kids grow up was invaluable, memories of events I was able to be part of that no amount of money can replace.

One last thought....and one I always remember.....when you die, how do you want to be remembered?

Personally for being someone who helped others achieve their potential and made the world a better place through my work.

I went to a colleagues funeral many years ago where the eulogy was done by her boss and all she said was what a good employee she'd been. So sad.

I want my dds to be able to support themselves financially, so that rules out a TA.

It's all very well taking the moral high ground about what a marvellous person you are and how selfless, but if you rely on your partner and don't have to pay the mortgage then crack on. Others couldn't afford the luxury of such a poorly paid job.

It's all very well taking the moral high ground about how self-sufficient you think you are, but don't pretend people who are willing and able to do a skilled and valuable job (if it is done properly) are actually dim, unskilled or morally dubious for doing essential work you have chosen to turn your nose up at, Fibbke.

Where did i say they were dim unskilled and morally dubious? Apologies if we aren't all desperate for our dcs to earn 13k a year! Great if you are in a position to do it and you enjoy it.

You have repeatedly said it is an unskilled job, Fibbke, and your last post but one was so dismissive and rude in its tone as to imply strongly that you disapprove of people who have the "luxury" of being able to choose a low paid job - either that, or you feel that such jobs should be reserved for the low skilled who can't get anything better paid, of course...

Yes, it is a luxury to have a low paid job. At 13k a year with a morgage and kids to feed and clothe you need a partner pulling his or her weight financially. Not everyone has that.

Isn't society lucky that some people take up that luxury, then!

If you turn the concept of luxury around you come up with society and the education system availing of the luxury of having a workforce willing (or desperate enough) to do a job for so little pay. Taxpayers want an education system that produces literate graduates and a health system that is efficient and fit for purpose but it has to be on the cheap. The luxury of relatively low taxes combined with the expectation of excellent results from public services is the one to criticise.

"'Yes, it is a luxury to have a low paid job. At 13k a year with a morgage and kids to feed and clothe you need a partner pulling his or her weight financially.

So any job in which somebody couldn't be the sole provider of the family, but meant both people had to work to get by, is a luxury?

if you rely on your partner

The partner might also be in a low-paid job and be relying on the TAs income too.

Funny how the old idea of the little woman working for pin money while Himself slaves away at the real work refuses to die.

Unfortunately the little woman working for pin money is exactly why these wages are so low. They can ask whatever they want and they'll get it, it's an employer's market. There's loads of women who are desperate to find work around children.
A proper professional qualification with high entry standards would raise the status of TAs.
Or maybe it would do nothing more than contribute to the current devaluation of degrees and qualifications, and the poor morale of people throughout the country expected to jump through more hoops for lower wages. It certainly will do nothing to raise wages. There is already a very high entry requirement in most parts of the country, thanks to demand for these jobs: I expect less-good TAs are those who got the job years ago before it had evolved.

A lot of women i know are on the lower earning scale. If they didn't have their partners income too then they wouldn't have what they do. That's not just exclusive to teaching assistants but also retail workers, hairdressers, care workers etc.
I know a lady who has no kids, is 34, works as a morning TA and lives in a lovely house with her high earning husband. If she was single she wouldn't be able to afford to do that job but as I said, that would be the case if she was in any of the lower paid careers.

My mother was a teacher for years. Many of her TAs were single mothers with shitty exes who hadn't paid child support in years. They made ends meet by juggling two or more low paid jobs.

pinkglitter A bit shit though for single women and lesbians who have no chance of having a high earning man to make up for their low pay.

jennymanara - surely a lesbian has every chance of having a high earning partner to make up for her low pay?...Only single people are forced to live off their pay alone. Even a high earning person is financially better off with a low earning partner than no partner. That stems from the fact that £x + £y comes to more than £x + £0 . It's really not difficult to work that out!! Factor in any additional emotional, intellectual and physical benefits to having a successful partnership and you can see why human beings have not all given up on the idea of sharing their lives with someone else.