Low pay for Teaching Assistant ?

[walker05]

My official title is 'Learning Support Assistant' i'm contracted to do a 37.5 hour week and paid on a pro-rata scale. My monthly take home pay is 1193 per month and i'm on a gross annual salary of 15,870.

I'm one of the 'lead LSAs' and have the job of ensuring that students' medical information is in place, up to date and that measures are put in place.
I carry out a variety of interventions and liaise regularly with the occupational therapist, nurse, parents etc.
Last year I was just classroom-based, and for this new role I have been given a rise of 20 pounds per month.

I feel like this pay is incredibly low for what i am doing, and it works out as below min. Wage.

Do others agree ? I do enjoy the job a lot, staff and kids are lovely, but I feel like I deserve a lot better, especially since I have a Masters and a Degree.
Any other TAs ?

Last year I was just classroom-based

You make it sound like being classroom-based wasn’t very important.

On a 39/40 week contract, it will always seem low. For a person on that hourly rate on a 52 week contract with 25 days annual leave allowance, it would be an ok wage - though still not equal to what is touted as the National average.
I would say that if the post entails that level of inter-disciplinary liaison and responsibility, then perhaps it should be graded as a Level 3 or Level 4 (HLTA) post. Do you have any HLTAs in your setting - how does your job description compare with theirs? Eg if they are expected to plan and resource sessions, is this comparable with you liaising with a speech therapist then planning, resourcing and carrying out the intervention sessions recommended. I think it is.

It's not a great wage but then it is a pretty straightforward job that doesn't require much in the way of qualifications and is in high demand. So to be expected.

It's not a great wage but then it is a pretty straightforward job that doesn't require much in the way of qualifications and is in high demand. So to be expected.

Yes, this is the point. If you left/got sick/were sacked-they would have stiff competition for your job (I bet about 50 mums at the school would apply) who would be over the moon to get paid £1200 a month for a term time only job at their children’s school.

Yes, we should all be paid more and it’s not a race to the bottom, but being a teaching assistant has never paid well. If you want to get paid lots, use your qualifications for a job that needs them.

TA jobs pay really badly but they get loads of applicants because they are so popular with mums with children

Agree that the salary is low, but you have to consider the value of being able to take time off without question during the school holidays and not needing to find or pay for childcare.

Instead of working as a TA, you could get a full time job paying more and be no better off as you're paying £££s for holiday childcare.

One thing that might help TAs who want to earn more would be for schools to run holiday clubs staffed by TAs who are paid the whole year round. TAs would of course be able to bring their own DC to the holiday club for free or very cheap.

The people saying they are teachers and earn little more than the OP...qualified teachers start on just shy of 24k and rise to 35k on the main salary scale that isn’t quite true is it?

yep of course sorry op I was lying!
I havn't worked up the pay scale as the school has no money!
My take home pay after tax/pension/NI/student loans
Is 1,572
So yes thank you it is very true!

That’s still a lot more than a TA on £900 a month. Not saying that you shouldn’t get more.

The OP stated her take home pay was 1193 and I said I am a qualified teacher taking home a few hundred more. Which is true

Yes but a teacher is likely to work considerably longer hours and therefore the actual difference in terms of hours worked, can be very little. Particularly if you’re talking about a NQT. Where I work the teaching assistants get in at 8:45, leave on the dot of 3:15 and aren’t expected to do anything in evenings, weekends or school holidays. As a teacher it’s easy to clock up nearly double those hours, particularly when you’re new to the profession.

(That was in response to Bigg)

Btw I think TAs are extremely valuable and I wish they were paid more. I also think teachers should be paid more. They are very different roles. You need far more qualifications to teach, the responsibilities are way more and the actual physical demands of planning , teaching and marking etc for over 100 pupils a day is insane.

TA jobs are in high demand, because it’s short hours, long holidays and family friendly. In contrast there is a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention.

I wonder whether part of the problem is a lot of TAs now are graduates or even qualified teachers, so perhaps feel they should earn more because of that. Of course, those skills help them to be great at the job. But it doesn’t fundamentally change that it’s not a highly paid role mainly because it’s short hours

the people saying they are teachers and earn little more than the OP...qualified teachers start on just shy of 24k and rise to 35k on the main salary scale that isn’t quite true is it?

A valid point.

None of the teachers we took on a couple of years ago have moved up the pay scale at all-we simply have no money. It’s very likely they will be stuck on their current pay scale for a long time!

But hey-BJ is promising a £30k starting salary for NQTs

The job isn't difficult and doesn't involve decision making. It's mainly an administrative role under the responsibility of someone else

That's simply not true in many schools. Lots of parents would be horrified at the amount of actual teaching their children are receiving from TAs.

Yes, some TAs do not much more than change reading books and laminating, some do much much more.

nails - it’s an issue of TAs are being expected to do things beyond their scope

However in my school the more experienced and qualified TAs do deliver some group and 1 on 1 interventions but these are devised by teaching staff, or if they’re published resources the teachers differentiate them. The teachers monitor progress and attainment and are ultimately accountable - often linked to performance indicators and pay. The teachers are also responsible for behaviour management too... there is a system for removing any pupil who isn’t engaged to work in a mainstream class.

So although some pupils probably go home and say ‘Miss Jones taught me maths today’ the reality is that Miss Jones was delivering a lesson which was scripted by someone else.

We have the added ‘issue’ in my school that most of the TAs are well qualified and prefer this kind of group work to supporting in class, they find it rewarding. So it’s not simply a case of TAs being exploited. We usually get about 20 applicants per post who are over qualified and could do the job easily.

Of course none of this detracts from the valuable job they do, but it does explain why they might seem to be underpaid. I sometimes ask our graduate TAs if they’d consider teaching and tbh they say no, they want their evenings and weekends and not too much responsibility

I've worked as a TA in a school and also in a private nursery. Personally, I think TAs have a pretty good deal. The problem is that nowadays everyone works really hard and a lot of people are underpaid for the job they do. The last job I was in, I was earning £17k pa with the statutory holidays (basically 3 weeks leave). Childcare was a nightmare because of the holidays and it was in my contract that if I joined a TU I would get sacked. In answer to the question, I don't think teaching staff are any different from the rest of the population and at least they are protected by their unions.

TAs aren’t paid very much because the entry requirements needed are very low. Unless the entry requirements change, the pay isn’t going to increase.

My friend is a qualified teacher
Has English & maths GCSE + other subjects
Degree
1 year PGSE course
1 year school placement
Also volunteered teaching various age groups
The salary reflects lesson planning, marking, curriculum, behaviour, days spent in school before school term starts etc

Versus

TA
Who can have or not have a degree
Assists in the school
The salary reflects the lesser responsibility