Do 1:1 TAs exist

[Emeraldrings]

After reading a thread on here I'm now really concerned. DS doesn't have his EHCP yet but it is being applied for.
Senco at nursery, padeateic team and health visitor all seem confident he will be awarded one. Senco, DH and I all fairly sure DS will not cope in mainstream school but if he does he will need a 1:1.
Yet on the other thread teachers, TAs and parents were saying 1:1 TAs work with other children too.
I know DS will need a 1:1 but are they really 1:1 or do they end up being used for the whole class?
I know I sound selfish but DS has high needs and I'm scared of him getting "lost" if he doesn't have a 1:1.
And I can't apply for a special needs school because his EHCP hadn't come through yet.
I'm so worried. He's 3 but not toilet trained, has regressed on what little speech he had, struggles to understand simple instructions, has physical difficulties, can't cope with change to routine, can't interact with other children, it's a constant worry.

In some schools yes, my best friend is a one to one for a child with very specific high needs.

Yes they do exist. My cousins works with a child as their TA in a mainstream school. I believe he is in year 3 currently and has had a 121 since Reception.

It all depends how the Echp is worded, you have to really pin them down in section f, my son is in mainstream with a dedicated 1-1 so it's possible, often it will say things like 'access to' which isn't the same as dedicated

Yes, in the majority of cases, 1:1 TAs do work with their charges, certainly in my county if they don't need 1:1 support to be in mainstream primary they don't get one! However, in many cases the EHCP will mention paired or group work, small scale independent activities etc. So the 1:1 may be working with other children too.

But there are some instances where the needs of the other children in the class are so high that inevitably all the staff are involved. It shouldn't happen but it would be very foolish to say it doesn't

Yes. My DS (16) has had a one to one from the age of around 7. He has autism and an EHCP. He actually copes extremely well with the work, but requires support with a classroom environment. He is in a specialist school.

My son has a full time 1-1. He's in year 3 now and she's been with him since reception. She does help out with other bits in the class (getting coats on etc) but she is very much focused on him. He has had an ehcp since year 2 but they funded a 1-1 prior to that as he could not manage at mainstream otherwise.

Yes 1:1 ta's exist.

The relationship between a child and their TA can be complicated.

Younger children and children with severe send such as autism can struggle with working with multiple people.

So at my secondary school we had a couple of students with severe autism and social anxiety. They normally had 1 person with them nearly all the time but would have other people introduced slowly.

We used to do 1:1 as much as possible but it was found that the students got really attached to them, to the point that that struggled to work independently at all.

So most 1:1 TAs will move away from their child at some point (and helping another child is really obvious and good reason for them to move) so that the child they are supporting develops some independence.

This is not the same as the 1:1 TA being requisitioned to work with other students which dies also happen.

In my school if we are short of TAs (illness,etc) the students who physically require support will be timetabled first and only then once physical safety is assured will education be looked at.

In primary that will mean that if he needs the TA for toileting, moving etc he will be a priority.

It depends on the child and their needs. I have been a 1:1 with a child with mobility challenges but no academic ones so once in class I was able to support other students, until the child needed to move around the class room/go to the toilet) leave early etc

It can be good for them gaining a little independence, working directly with the teacher or just in building peer relationships without an adult hanging around.

Other times I've been a 1:1 with children with learning difficulties and easy to dysregulate I would stay closer by and work with them directly.

We also had times (mostly during COVID) when we simply didn't have enough staff due to illness to cover all the children who needed support and needed 1:1s so those with EHCPs got priority but this was secondary.

They do but you need quite a strung minded TA who will happily say no to the hundred other things he teachers ask them to do in a day.

No, I need to stay with x was used a lot in my last school but I've also seen TAs who are supposed to be 1-1 working with several children.

My cousin is a 1:1 with a specific child. Not sure how common that is though. It's a mainstream primary

Yes. Definitely, yes. Both my so sons had a true 1:1, all the way to the end of secondary.

They do exist but I cannot emphasis enough that you will need to have this worded out strongly in the EHCP itself

Ipsea and other advocates are really helpful with advise when it comes to ensuring a well written document.

We have so many needs in our mainstream school children who would have previously been 1:1 are now 1:2 or 3 as government funding doesn't touch the salary needed for the staff member to be 1:1 and too many needs in the class.

1:1s do exist, especially with children with the severest of difficulties. However, it is more common a TA will look after a small group of SEN children, say 2 - 5.

I have a friend who worked 1 to 1 and lost her job when the child moved on to secondaty school and there wasn't the budget to keep her on, the child had high needs so she wasn't able to work with any other children

It depends on the EHCP. If section F details, specifies and quantifies 1:1 then it must be provided. It isn’t optional. But not all EHCPs include 1:1 and when 1:1 is mentioned it is often vague and woolly with wording such as “access to 1:1”, “would benefit from 1:1”, “opportunities for 1:1” or “or 1:1 or small group work” or… You may have to appeal to get 1:1 in section F and make the wording watertight.

I work as a SEN worker for the local authority, and I’ve been explicitly told that we are not to include anything about 1:1s or individual work within Section F, so I feel like this will be highly dependent on the LA. However, as people have said above, it is a legal document so if it says that he requires a 1:1, it has to be provided. However if it says something like ‘…has access to’ or ‘…may benefit from’ then this is not a required provision

1:1 support does exist however, it's significantly more common in primary than in secondary. In my area, none of the local secondaries offer 1:1 support. If a child's EHCP states that they need it, they either insist upon the wording being changed before the child starts at the school (usually what ends up happening) or they state categorically that they cannot meet the needs of the child and them don't provide it if forced to take him/her. They state that they just don't do 1:1 TAs as a support system at their schools.

Even at primary, I'd say that it's rare for a 1:1 TA to exclusively work with one child. It tends to be heavy involvement initially then stepping back to allow independence and checking in and supporting only as needed. Obviously, the higher the level of need, the more support that will be needed.

If a child's needs were such that they were unable to operate at all within mainstream without an adult actively next to and working with them at all times, I'd also question whether mainstream was the right setting for them. When this happens, the child tends to become a satellite, orbiting the class with their TA rather than ever truly being part of the class. In my opinion, a specialist setting is more appropriate there but it's incredibly difficult to move to one after starting in mainstream.

Yes they exist but not every child with additional needs needs constant 1:1, the echp will state what they believe is required, it's then reviewed - at 3 it will be impossible to predict what he will need at 6. My dd had 1:2 which worked fine. (She at 3 was non verbal so they predicted very high needs but she developed at lot before she started mainstream at 5

I’ve been explicitly told that we are not to include anything about 1:1s or individual work within Section F, so I feel like this will be highly dependent on the LA

And how much parents are challenging the LA because as much as LAs are doing things like this, they actually shouldn't be. It is not the LA's place to make blanket statements such as this and they are skating on thin ice doing so.

I hope parents in your area know the law, are appealing EHCPs, and taking action against discriminatory schools. LAs should not be removing provision just because a school says they can’t provide 1:1 that is required. There are limited reasons the LA can refuse to name parental preference and needing 1:1 is not one of them. What schools normally provide isn’t relevant if an EHCP states 1:1.

I hope parents are being supported to appeal in your LA, too.

As others have highlighted 1:1 can create dependency by child on the TA and leave the TA redundant when the child moves on .
And requires a strong minded TA who is neither left stranded in the corner in a little bubble nor constantly having to fight off helping too much with competing classroom needs.
Much better I think to have TAs who provide intensive rotating support to different high needs children.

In order to not include 1:1 in EHCPs LAs often like to misrepresent the evidence by claiming 1:1s cause dependency. The research actually shows a well trained 1:1 deployed correctly can have a positive impact. It does not need to cause dependency at all.

I wish they were challenging them more but, unfortunately, I've been in too many annual reviews where the prospective secondary has dictated what the EHCP stipulates based upon what they are willing to provide. The parents end up accepting it because they want that child in that school and think that it will all work out in the end. In reality, it doesn't and the kids (who have been used to having strong and effective support) suddenly lose it all and are practically abandoned.

The secondary closest, for example, offers no in-class support. The school's TAs are used to run additional lessons in core subjects for small groups of children and that's all they do, regardless of the EHCP.