To think the general public don't understand the job role of a Teaching Assistant?

[notyourmummy]

This might turn into an "I'm a TA, ask me anything" and that's fine.
Having been speaking to both my family and parents at my children's school, I've realised that there's still a common misconception that TAs only make displays, mix paint and wipe snotty noses... what do you think a TA does at your child's school, how much do you think they're paid and what hours do they work?!!

I should add, I know of at least two people who have had their postal ballot through the post since the closing date. I'm still getting random Christmas cards/letters from November and December on occasion, so it was definitely a major factor. If we'd been allowed to vote online, I suspect the result would have been very different.

I’ve clearly missed something newsworthy here. Why would a member of the general public know or understand any job, unless they’d done it themselves?

Aside from using the job title as a clue, or looking up a description for a vacancy on-line how could I or anyone else possibly know?

The teachers and assistants in DD primary school had the skills and bucket loads of patience to teach 30+ kids, day in and day out. They’ll never be paid enough imo, I support them just as I do others who have low paid vocations that require skill, empathy, dedication and resilience. But no, I don’t know the exact requirements for their job.

Why do I get the feeling from the OP that I am supposed to know? Am I supposed to know? How am I supposed to know? Did I miss this class? It’s hard enough knowing what my job entails half the time without having to know what everyone else’s is.

The crux is that if schools were adequately staff with qualified teachers TAs wouldn't and shouldn't be in sole charge of an entire class of children. As is they are because (largely women) have been happy to do the job for crap pay because its within school times. The role has evolved and changed because the government don't want to address the issues and sort funding out. TAs should be just that- an assistant to the teacher and not absorbing any part of their role. The same is happening with healthcare and its not good.

Why do you assume that?

Have you personally explained this to the mass population, before angrily accusing everyone of wilful ignorance?

Are random members of the general public in a position to specifically action the issues listed here?

Do you think attacking the mass public for their unintentional ignorance and lack of power to help you, will actually help your cause?

Ironically, it’s educating the general public and not alienating them anonymously on mumsnet that may actually help “all
the people” understand what it is you’d like them to know!

Why are people being so arsey? When they first brought in TAs the teaching unions challenged it on the basis that TAs would end up being used as unpaid and untrained teachers. It’s exactly what’s happening.
As PP said it takes advantage of mostly women who need to find school hours work. Which is an inevitable effect of an economy still built around male work hours reliant on the idea that women are at home raising the children.

I’ll say what I think OP, and then read after to see if I am right:

I think TAs get paid about £8 an hour (or minimum wage at the most), no pension though or any extras

they have no official qualifications

they are responsible for pretty much everything, other than lesson planning, parent evening or grading kids, though they may even do some of that. They;

• Teach lessons/part of lessons
• Helping all kids during lessons
• doing 121 with kids who need 121
• spending time with kids with SEN who are on IEPs
• helping specific kids with specific tasks (reading, writing)
• tidying up classroom
• holding the fort if teacher is absent/sick
• keeping records of kids’ progress
• playground/lunchtime supervision

basically they do what teachers do but at less pay

Most general public do understand just how hard they work and are baffled as to why they are only paid peanuts for it. The general public has no control over how much they are paid.

We could really do with stopping this us vs them attitude.

OP asked specifically about the general public, not parents

Absolutely agree with this.

The FTE pay of our TAs at school is 19,200-21,000. But they are all paid for 44.6 weeks of the year not 52 and then noone is on the full time hours (which in our LA are 36) so the maximum i have seen a contract is 32.5 hours. It works out around 15k but tax and pension come out of that too.

My thoughts on the role;

Support small groups in class, do phonics & reading with children 1-1 and in groups, support children on a 1-1 or 2-1 basis, do interventions with children, work on EHCP targets on a 1-1 or small group basis, support children at meal times & break and lunch times on a rota, sit with children in assembly, cover the class when the teacher needs to do planning or other work.

work 32.5 hours a week
paid around 15k

@Puppers why didn’t they know? Sounds like terrible communication between you, them and school. Didn’t you do handover at the beginning and end of the day or did the child enter the class without support?

Part of the issue is that the role of a TA varies from school to school, and even for class to class. There are several 'levels' of being a TA also, from a general class RA, to a 1:1 TA to a HLTA who is planning and delivering lessons.

Even within my own school the role of different TAs is huge,

The TA in my DS class is amazing she is the reason my DS and a couple of other kids who struggle with school even make it through the door in the morning. She deserves to be paid 4x what she does get! I know she works much more than 9-3pm.

Most posters have said TA work 8:30-3:30 Mon-Fri so that a 7 hour day = 35 hour week
Lowest PA salary quoted is £19,200 so that’s £10.54 hourly, but the salary is pro-rota take away at least 7.4 weeks for unpaid leave during school holidays (outside of holiday entitlement, which I guess might differ depending on LA).

So take home is less, around £16,462

By way of comparison, we have Coordinators who support our Project Managers (our teacher equivalent) - they plan, program, allocate, progress and report on work, mop up everyone’s admin, deal with angry residents, have to understand and keep up to date with latest Legs and Regs, HASWA, NRSWA, NEBOSH, understand and employ Prince2 and Kaizan but don’t get paid for it as they don’t need the qualification, they must know the specifications, the commercials and the contract terms, they manage the site agents, the operatives, and quite often - the client. They’re the cog that keeps the whole thing going and they work “to the needs of the business” - albeit flexibly in our business but not in most. They are our TA equivalent but the job doesn’t have the same pull on your heart strings, vocational dedication factors..

Average take home salary £25k
Average working hours 50 £8.75 per hour.
Their extra salary will be spent on childcare.

Swings and roundabouts 🤷‍♀️

Schools now are much more inclusive, or at least try to be, than in the past.
There were more specialist schools for children with send. Many schools had inclusive rooms/classes for those children who needed more support than just being in the main classroom.
Very high need children often weren't in the main classroom and disruptive children were often removed too.
There were often less children with EAL or no English at all in classes.

I'm not saying the above were perfect. They weren't and many of the previous practises stopped for a very good reason.

However, what now happens is that pretty much all mainstream schools have children with a vast range of behaviours, send, language, etc. with less and less funding, and many of the support agencies just don't have the capacity. Waiting lists are huge. We can wait 2-3 years before a child is finally seen - as an infant school, this means some aren't actually seen in the time they are in our school!

On top of this the curriculum is more full than ever before, with more stuff to get through, more demands on teaching time, more assessment in more years (currently there are only 2 year groups in primary school without some form of formal assessment) and more pressures from places like OFSTED in schools.

Ignore the media's reasons for why some teachers have been striking and look at what teaching staff are saying about the state of education now. This is al part and parcel of the same thing.

I'm a TA in a secondary school. I teach maths interventions, literacy lessons with 14 very difficult and week ability students. I'm diabetic trained supporting a student with ASD/ODD &ADHD. I support year 10 students with planning work experience. Year 11 students with next steps and collage applications and I take them in my car on visits to the colleges. I also run the intervention room for students that are out of lessons due to high anxiety. I work with the students the teachers can't deal with. I'm frequently told I'm a bitch and the fucking hate me. I send weekly reports home to parents of students who behaviours that are beyond belief. Parents who don't believe their son/daughter has ASD or ADHD and has constantly kicked the back of another students seat. Students that are totally out of control at 12 and the parents response is 'my son/daughter wouldn't do that' 'It's your fault, your not understanding little Jonny'. There's a thousand students in the school and 'we' dont understand children....
There's nearly 30 students with EHCP and 'we' dont understand children....
Each teacher has to teach 30 different students for five lessons a day, five days a week and 'they' don't understand children...
There's 7 TA's in the school who totally understand which parents don't enforce any displine at home.

Do you have any specific training in dealing with SEN?

@Greatly

Nope. Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking a GCSE science bottom set class. Half had EHCPs and the other half just didn’t want to be there and spent the whole lesson wacking each other round the head with books, walking around the room and swearing.

I am actually funded for one child with an EHCP but I spend the lesson dealing with the other half who are behavioural. Zero learning is ever achieved.

I don't think I'd want to do your job with no specialist training tbh.

@Greatly

Yeah I am not sure what draws people into this profession. I am talking about Teachers and Tas. To willingly be abused daily by SLT, students and parents is mind blowing. It’s incredibly sad.

I have a dual degree in childhood/youth and sociology. This is my final academic year in Ed and then I’m out of here 👋.

Why do you include unpaid overtime in the calculation of your staff wages but assume no TA does unpaid overtime when calculating their wages?. Your FT wage is 25k, their fulltime wage is 19k. Thats the didference in wage.

Half of a whole secondary school class had EHCPS ? Does your school have an abnormally large number of EHCPS overall or is it just this year group?

Pay for my local authority (taken from a job advert):

“£18,522 to £19,448 pro rata equivalent to £9.60 to £10.08 per hour.”

This equates to a maximum of just over £13k

I've been slapped, punched, kicked, spat on and told to f off, been called a c and for this I earn just shy of £12k a year*

What do you think you should be paid to put up with verbal and physical abuse? I wouldn't put up with that at any price. Just get another job.