To think that lots of TAs, LSAs and school administrators leave because of the money?

[Lulutheevilguineapig]

I'm in this situation atm and although I love my job, I'm seriously starting to look for something else.

I get why the money is poor; we get school holidays off. But I'd honestly prefer to work holidays and not take the hit to my salary. I know this is part and parcel of working in a school, but I just don't know how anyone who doesn't have maybe a wealthy partner or some other source of wealth can stay for long in the job.

And on another note, if you were a TA/LSA and left due to the money, what did you go on to do?

IME it’s because they don’t need a full time wage because they either have husbands that support their family financially so they can afford to work for pocket money, or they have school age children and will get top up benefits to supplement their income.

The job itself is enjoyable even if there is a lot of pressure. People feel obligated to their schools because they care about them and they love their children and their colleagues.

@Echobeachfarawayintime

Your post backs up what I’ve been trying to say; we have HLTAs who don’t earn that much more than normal TAs, but are now expected to carry out duties way above their pay grade, IMO.

If schools are struggling to recruit TAs/HLTAs, then asking for a degree or giving them people-management responsibilities, this is NOT going to attract more applicants.

I see posts sometimes on here like, "I get punched and bitten daily, don't get a break and don't get to leave on time, and I earn minimum wage.'" and I think, why martyr yourself like that?

Again, the best type of TA at secondary school is a graduate thinking of a career in teaching or perhaps doing a part time masters.
Our local uni offers a part time B Ed on one day a week if the student is a TA in school and has plenty of hands on experience.
It's the way to go for the future

The recent graduate is a good type of TA - not necessarily the best for all pupils as some seem to prefer older TAs, others prefer younger. However, we don't get many of them applying any more. You can only recruit from the pool (or trickle) of people who apply and we have no recent graduates who applied this academic year. Maybe teaching as a profession has become less appealing to graduates or maybe they just prefer to apply for better paid starter jobs, who knows.

Having unis on board by offering primary teaching degrees, part time in conjunction with schools would make a big difference. It then offers those becoming TAs career progression.

It is also a cheap way of gaining a degree, particularly if the LEA part funds them

As a slight digression, we have a local NEU representative coming in to our school next week to talk about better pay and conditions, etc.

With talk of a possible Teachers’ strike, I wonder if support staff will be asked to consider doing similar?

I hope support staff go on strike separately to teachers. If they strike, it would also close schools, showing how vital they are to the education system.

Unfortunately they may be even less able to lose a day's pay than teachers so I'm not sure if they would.

Some are striking now.

We also have a local NEU representative coming in next week and they have made it clear they want teachers & support staff to attend to discuss pay and the possibility of striking. I would vote to strike either alongside teachers or separately to them, whatever the union feels would be most effective. TAs are paid so little that arguably they have less to lose from missing a days pay. I know that many of the TAs at my school will vote Yes to strike action and will support the teachers in their potential strike action too.

I would definitely support a strike by all Education staff. It’s easy for me to say that, because I can afford to lose a day or two of my pay. I’m sure there are many TAs, and teachers, who really can’t afford to be on strike.

Let’s see what happens.

From teacher friends and experience with my own DC, I know how invaluable a good, highly experienced TA is and what a difference they can make to the children who need them most. I decided a few years ago that I wanted to change careers to something I'd get more out of (previously in finance and hated it). A TA role would be perfect as I currently work with autistic children in a voluntary role and love it and would happily do more training. However, I currently earn more in my part time, wfh, totally flexible job than I would full time as a TA. Teacher friends tell me that local schools struggle to get suitable applicants for TA roles and get applications from parents of children at the school who have no experience/qualifications. I'm sure this is because the only way this will be a financial attractive role for anyone is if they would otherwise have to do a minimum wage job and pay for child care.

The difficulty with increasing pay for TAs is that on paper, the lay and conditions are not bad for roles that often only require GCSE qualifications.

I think the alternative would be cuts to TA numbers. The DCs’ school are looking to cut TA numbers by half for natural wastage but for the TAs they do have to be better paid and better qualified. Many are now actually qualified teachers looking to take a step back.

Is there an argument that you’re better with 5 highly skilled TAs at £25k than 10 with no qualifications at NMW? Parental volunteers and office staff could cover some of the workload.

Parents only want to volunteer up to primary school age - they don’t want to volunteer to work with groups of potentially stroppy teenagers at secondary school!

This. Lots of jobs fit into school hours. And they're much better paid than TA or the typical 10-2 cafe assistant which gets suggested on here as the best to hope for.

Office staff? They're some of the busiest roles in a school.

It doesn’t matter how much experience you have - you can’t be in two places at once. You cannot be simultaneously running reading interventions for a weak year 4 group, while also supporting a teacher in class for Year 2 maths, while also managing the behavioural outburst of the child in Year 3 who is waiting for the results of their autism assessment (so no EHCP or associated funding for 1-2-1 support yet), while also running the speech and language intervention for the reception child who needs it, while also taking a group for Year 1 catch up phonics, while also sitting with a Year 6 child to act as a reader in a practice SATS paper because he has dyslexia…

Just be aware that although the NEU have been (sneakily) recruiting support staff they have no pay bargaining rights for school support staff. Only GMB, Unite and Unison can negotiate pay for school support staff.

Some of our support colleagues have joined the NEU and didn't realise that it will only fight for teachers' issues.

@RoseGardenSummer

Thanks, that’s useful to know.

I’m actually in Unison, but most of my TA colleagues seem to be in the NEU.

I’m going to the NEU meeting anyway though!

Can you explain a bit more about this as I’m with the NEU and they’re consulting and I beleive then ballotin Support Staff. Are you saying they’re toothless for Support Staff?

Even people who aren’t qualified beyond GCSE level deserve to be paid enough to survive on.

I think it’s fairly obvious from the rest of your comment that you have very little understanding of what a TA is typically expected to do. Or how schools work in general tbh. It would be a good idea to find out before blindly supporting the cost cutting measures at your children’s school and get a real understanding of how this could impact them.

In addition to the above post with which I agree, I don’t think that having a degree necessarily makes a person a better TA.

I’m qualified to A level standard. I know I’m a really good TA, not just academically, but having compassion and empathy towards our students.

I agree with @Puppers post that is.

You're right @AlinaSquareQueen

I think the degree conversation might have started because another poster said she was overqualified as a TA, as she had a degree, which is why she said she was better paid. I said that really isn't uncommon.