To think most people have no idea how little HLTAs/Teaching Assistants earn?

[LorlieS]

Anybody want to hazard a guess at the average monthly income of a ft HLTA/TA?

It really is quite shocking!

Very few of our TAs work a 30 hour week. Hours have been cut and cut because our funding won’t cover full hours. My hours have been cut and cut too - I started full time for 40 weeks per year. Now I’m 24 hours for 39 weeks.

to be fair that’s not really an hourly pay issue though, that’s a number of hours issue.

14 quid is 2 pound an hour more than I earn and I live near Oxford, so a fairly expensive area to live too.

TA are vital as a mum who's children have 1:1 to be able to attend school. Problem in that its not a sustainable job for many people due to only being paid term time and usually maximum of 30 hour week.
I don't know the answer

TA salary should not be based in any way on what you (or any teacher) thinks is ‘fair’ and befitting their lower than you status. Apart from anything, many ta’s are highly educated and qualified. The op is a qualified teacher. My sons ta has a doctorate in astrophysics (I’m not sure you get any more ‘subject expertise’)

They should be paid according to the value of the work they do- many children with SEN could not be in school without them, they are relied on to make up ratios for everything, they plan and deliver lessons when teachers are doing other things, and generally make the school day actually possible.

30 five year olds and one adult, who has to fasten every shoe lace, zip every coat, clean up every spilt water bottle, clean every scraped knee, answer every question, deal with every meltdown from a child with asd, supervise every toilet break, take every ill child to reception, listen to every child read, sign every reading diary, make every classroom display, find every lost bit of equipment, tidy the classroom then set up the next activity, deal with every child with adhd who jumps about all over the place, speak to every concerned parent, put letters in every book bag, supervise every hand wash etc etc etc- all while teaching to a standard to please SLT and ofsted?

Without ta’s schools literally couldn’t function, and their pay should reflect that.

But it really should if that's your argument. How on earth are you going to recruit highly educated subject professionals if you pay them a few grand more than those with no quals? This is partly why so many tas are qualified teachers, it's not worth the extra time and stress as uc tops you up to almost the same anyway.
Great to have these as tas but you've lost the teacher!
Both pay needs to be raised. But teachers far higher if you want good skilled teachers. Tas can be trained, fairly quickly, the jobs are not comparable.
Schools should not be expecting tas to be planning outside of meeting their students needs. Certainly not curriculum planning or lesson content planning. Their focus is mostly pastoral.

I am very lucky in my school and our TAs are made a salary not a wage - so even though my "hours" are 32.5hrs and we work term time only - I am paid to the pay level scale for my grade - we aren't pro rota.

I too have a teaching degree and took the step back to be a TA and if I wasn't at my school I'd have to change careers!

However, what TAs in general are being asked to do is more than being a support staff!
Some Level 3 TAs are expected to cover teacher absences with no other classroom support.
TAs being asked to plan and assess their interventions.
TAs are responsible for 1:1 children (who may be violent/ peg feed/ need daily physio etc etc) without any additional payment. And in some case deliver the planning and resources for their 1:1 child or children as many 1:1 children are now 1:2 or more.
TAs working with other professionals SALT, physios, local authority advisors to support children.
And many many other tasks they are expected to do as part of the job. It is no longer a photocopying and displays job as that is seen as a waste of our time as we should be supporting the children (which is right) and sometimes it isn't a finish at 3.40/4. Many work unpaid hours to get things done - make resources etc.

Just above Minimum wage for a teaching assistant and what we are now expected to do is wrong, especially when we could earn the same wage in a supermarket without the stress, pressure and becoming more regular violence, but like other jobs which are 'women's' careers like healthcare assistants, carers etc the pay is shocking and that isn't going to change any time soon.

@Boomboom22 you don't think £1000 a month in take home pay is enough difference between an ups teacher and a TA!

TAs also don't have a nice teachers pension to retire on, nor will the our pay go up more than 2-3% per year. Even if we move up a grade we are talking what 50p an hour if that!

You can't.

The job is part time.

“Their focus is mostly pastoral.”

See that illustrates the complete ignorance re the role. It absolutely isn’t mostly pastoral by any means and no TAs can’t be trained quickly.

Most of my day is teaching small groups, supporting lessons and delivering EHCP and IEP interventions. We read those documents, timetable and work out how to deliver the targets to often quite challenging children. I use my years of teaching experience daily to do the above and also to get quite tricky concepts from the main curriculum across to children who are often the most difficult to teach in groups during lesson time. In addition we run and organise most of the spelling, reading and homework. We have to input safeguarding concerns on the main system which are fairly frequent. We have intensive interventions such as the hefty government driven phonic schemes( which actually request high quality staff), speech and language schemes, computer reading schemes etc given to us often with minimal training, if any. We are expected to have a very good working knowledge and understanding of all SENs and the ability to adapt work and interventions accordingly. We often meet visiting professionals such as Ed Psychs, SALT etc. We are expected to have buckets of patience and resilience and are often the ones in the front line for the most challenging behaviours which we are expected to know how to defuse and manage.We are expected to be able to deliver this high quality support 24/7 to Ofsted standards- which we do.

I love my job, my school and all the staff I work with but my job is not mostly pastoral and we can’t be trained quickly. We are expected to come with the skills as there is no time or money for training. This is why so many TAs where I work are teacher trained, quite highly educated or highly experienced in the field.

Also I don’t know what it is like in other schools but our teachers are doing all their own prep and admin because our TA hours are totally taken up with delivering important and necessary interventions. The days of TAs just cutting out resources,washing up paint pots and wiping noses are long gone. No school has the luxury or finances to employ somebody to do that.

It is utterly outrageous that the government are totally oblivious or just don’t care about the realities of demands put on TAs, the need for high quality staff or how inadequate the pay is. We are heading for a staffing crisisas so many TAs are older with smaller mortgages or with partners that can support their dire wage. As we all retire or leave for better paid work (which is happening) the ability to recruit is going to get worse and worse.

I would actually love to see anybody with minimal education or expertise deliver back to back Little Wandle intensive lessons with several groups, 5 days a week and a) manage to keep up, b) have an excellent knowledge of the sounds in all phases and c)know how to ensure that all children including those with often quite severe SENs and behavioural difficulties walk out of your sessions having grasped everything so they’re ready to proceed to the next day’s quite highly prescriptive lesson.

It is interesting that training materials recommended by the government( that you get next to no time in the school day to look at) are filmed being administered by teachers and request highly trained staff but apparently staff with minimal qualifications and experience are equally capable of delivering the same programme.🤔

Intensive phonics is one intervention of many that TAs are expected to deliver- competently.

well, TAs are paid more per hour than teachers in many cases! and most TAs don't realise this! I've been both, and TAs are far better paid in terms of what they do than teachers are

I’m really not getting the pitching teachers against TA thing. Teachers are underpaid/ TAs are underpaid. This thread is discussing TA pay and it is outrageously low for what is required to do the job and the job itself.

Mostly pastoral. Ha!

Have another read of my post about all the things I do, including teaching and even planning/adapting a lesson depending on the circumstances.

Schools should not be expecting tas to be planning outside of meeting their students needs. Certainly not curriculum planning or lesson content planning

Yes, our TAs are following the planning that class teacher has done -I wouldn’t expect them to be doing any separate planning.

Whilst I agree that they’re both underpaid, teacher pay needs to be significantly more than TAs. The OP and other examples on this thread are people who have given up the teaching job they’re qualified to do for the relative ease/better hours/lower workload of a TA and have been prepared to take a big pay cut for it. We’re already lacking in teachers so increasing TA pay without the same rise in teachers’ salaries would only exacerbate this issue.

It has to be acknowledged too that the trade off of the lower pay is the hours and convenience, especially when you’re a parent of school aged children. People are often prepared to accept lower pay for a job that has other perks/benefits eg shorter commute/lower stress etc, not just in teaching but all industries.

Keeping pay artificially low to stop teachers leaving is a ridiculous suggestion. Wages need to be relevant to what a job entails or people won’t do it and the role won’t deliver what it is supposed to.

Several posters have listed the skills needed and what the job entails both of which are at odds with current wages. You are choosing to ignore this.

And re “convenience” where I work most of us have adult children as TA hours don’t work with the school run and wages aren’t enough for childcare. It is a myth that schools just employ mums from the gate. Most mums are working and not at the school gate anymore. TA roles also require a skilled workforce, not somebody with zero experience or qualifications. Being a mum is not enough.

I agree teachers need to be paid more.

But I think its very dangerous to have an education system that relies on people needing a convenient job to deliver it.

There has been a huge push to have more children with complex needs in mainstream schools. A lot of them have pretty much their entire education and therapies delivered by a TA and very often an element of planning and leading review. There really needs to be an actual SEN TA career path, with modules on safeguarding, personal care, neurodiversity, physical impairments etc). The whole relying on someone who wants a convenient job and can get by on low pay, means by the time they have the expertise to help children regulate and progress childrens learning, they have headed off to earn more elsewhere.

I agree.

In my local authority the majority of TAs are on grade 4, which has 2 spinal points with about 15 p hour difference. That’s it, once you have done 2 years, you can’t progress any further.

We do have HLTAs which earn considerably more but for obvious reasons they are few and far between.

Spot on!

My DD had a role as TA in an "inclusion class" She was only 18 and this was her first job. The SEN teacher was excellent and taught her a lot. But the teacher didn't work on Fridays so DD was paired with another more experienced TA at the beginning. Later on DD was meant to lead the class by herself...
I know, there are so many wrongs here, but I think it highlights the staffing crisis caused by not paying decent wages & minimising the importance of the job.

If you have a degree why do you work a minimum wage job? Would it not be better you using your degree and working full time. You would end up with a very good salary and your husband could work part time as he earns so little. Then you would not be struggling for money.

@SUPerSaver721 Because neither I nor my husband want to do that? I would, however, like to be paid a wage worthy of what I do as a TA (as all of my support staff colleagues would agree).

Your saying you are skint and you both work minimum wage jobs. I dont know why you dont use your degree to get a higher paying job.

@SUPerSaver721 I was a teacher for years. It almost killed me. Literally. I'd rather be bit skint with a happy marriage than wealthy and sick with an ailing relationship.

@LorlieS The thing is you can't be that happy if you're on here complaining about your financial situation and lowly paid husband.

It seems to me that the situation with TAs/teachers is very similar to what the situation with doctors/nurses was before nursing became a degree educated profession. Nurses were completing many tasks that used to be junior doctor tasks but people were still under the impression that nursing was largely unqualified and “care based”. The solution was to educate the nurses to degree level. As for pay, nurses and doctors start on about the same pay but doctors’ pay goes up quicker and the top is higher to reflect the more difficult tasks that they do. In other words, if TAs are obligated to complete such difficult tasks, rather than just being “pastoral”, then educate them and pay them to reflect this. You could have a postgraduate teaching assistant qualification or a full three year degree for those people with no undergraduate experience. Create a new profession with a scale of progression-it’s possible, we did it with nursing.