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!

@happypillsareworking I also personally can't moan- my contracted hours are 8.35 til 3.55 but I'm paid a salary not a wage! But I know from other schools / friends in different they do the same as myself for a much less wage! Hence it being something I fight for, for others!

@LorlieS You can’t complain about the low pay but then also scoff at anyone who suggests getting a better job 😂 and yes, you were complaining as you mentioned you and your husband struggling to make ends meet…You either love your low paid job and accept that the pay is shit, or can’t accept that the pay is shit so decide to leave.

TAs do get paid too little for what they do, yes, but that’s not going to change any time soon (if ever).

I actually do think TAs are paid enough for what they should do - the problem is that so many are asked/made to do a lot more than that.

The qualifications point is a bit of a red herring - yes, lots of TAs are highly qualified. But because they don't need to be, the pay doesn't reflect the qualifications. People with high qualifications are choosing to apply for the jobs but the jobs aren't requring them to have those qualifications so don't pay in line with them.

One of our TAs has a PHD and is referred to as Dr Surname. Another of our TAs took her GCSE Maths and English exams last year in her early 30s. Before that she had no qualifications. They both get paid the same (I assume, I don't actually know) because they both do the same job.

Our TAs finish at 3pm when the school day doesn't finish till 4:30 or later. They are not required to attend staff meetings (they do have to do inset but get paid for it). They are not required to plan or mark. They are not required to teach a whole class. They would not be involved in IEPs, EHCPs or multi agency meetings unless a specificed 1:1 teacher (which comes with higher pay and a qualification requirement). They are not expected to do any work in the evenings, weekends or holidays. What they do do is work with individual children and small groups to help them to what the teacher has planned and taught, lots and lots of supervision and support of children and lots of displays, admin, setting up and clearing away. They are absolutely essential to our school but they don't need the high qualifications that some of them have to do those things. Our staff choose the job because they enjoy it, it's low stress and it's convenient for their families.

In other schools, I know the TAs would not recongise the expectations above. Instead, they are expected to act as teachers but for half the pay. That's what isn't ok.

Wow, the TA's in your school wouldn't last 5 mins at my school - I do on average 10hrs work at home a week, rarely get a full dinner break and work well over my normal hours. Some don't and they're massively frowned upon!!

The role is part time and that will impact on take home pay. This is harder to do something about.

But i struggle to see that an hourly rate that sits around minimum wage as enough for the role as it is.

A higher hourly rate for the part timeneds would make it much more manageable for people.

As i say, i work in a school, and i am on a higher rate of pay than a TA and my role has the same essential criteria of a Maths and English at a grade C. I dont have a degree and have never struggled to find work well above minimum wage so i dont accept the arguement it has to be around minimum wage due to entry criteria.

I was a full time HLTA working 36 hours per week with children in care but I didn’t get the school holidays and my pay was 27K pa. My take home was 1600 but this was in 2014.

I think part of the issue is a lot TAs and HLTA work Monday- Friday but it’s not quite considered full time hours and then most aren’t term time only. So yes the low figures sound shocking and they do a great and important job, but it’s essentially not a full-time job for most. There is an argument they should get paid for the holidays though.

generally speaking though wages in this country are far too low and it’s become all too normal for working people to need benefit top ups.

Fair point- it's a pay and hours issue!

You're making a choice with this job, time over cash. I guess other support roles in schools (IT, Admin, etc) have the chance to earn more as they're able to do a full time role, not limited to term time only.

@rainydaysandwednesdays Haven't got time to read the rest of the thread so someone else may already have addressed this. But you won't find any primary schools that give ANY support staff full time roles, and very very few in secondary. They are all term time only. Why do you think schools would have spare money to pay staff when pupils are not on site? It's bare bones funding. Caretaker and cleaning staff will be the only support staff in school when schools are closed. Sometimes the school business manager goes in, but they may not actually be paid for that.

I'm primary school office admin. I am paid for an hour more than the TAs each day. We ALL do more for free though, go in early or stay late during term time, or work through some or all of our lunch break. If I go into school during the holidays to do stuff like sort the archives, have a clear out, sort cupboards etc then it has to be done voluntary. I don't think many people realise that there is a LOT of goodwill in schools where staff who are already low paid do extra work here and there for absolutely nothing.

People always say that the advantage is "all those holidays". They don't factor in that FT non-school staff get quite a lot of holiday too PLUS bank holidays for a lot of people (I've had 6 weeks in the past, plus Bank holidays), and those holidays are paid days, unlike school staff. People also always forget that when their kid is off for INSET day, while THEY see it as being part of the school holidays, they completely forget that for school staff it's a working day. My non-school friends always forgot and when our kids were little would be texting on INSET days and asking what I was doing with my day. "Er. I'm in work?"

And where do our bank holidays often tend to fall? During the school holidays. So they're not EXTRA days on top of holiday days.

Add up the school holidays. Oct half term 1 week, Xmas 2 weeks, Feb half term 1 week, Easter 2 weeks, May half term 1 week, summer 6 weeks. 5 INSET days off that, so that's 12 weeks unpaid holiday for school staff, some of which they might go in for free. That's around 6 weeks extra holiday than many non-school staff who may get 6 weeks, to take when they like, when they NEED it (hen weekends? big family birthday weekend away? funeral of someone who isn't close family? No problem) and when holidays are much cheaper (half the price then school holidays).

The school holiday thing is not "all that" unless you have young kids, and many experienced TAs no longer have young kids. That's me. I CAN do it because DH pays all the bills, and I CHOOSE to do that job because I'm passionate about education. M;y kids are young adults so don't need me to be there during the holidays, so travel and holidays are still costing me an absolute fortune because of the school holiday markup. But, my colleagues are awesome, the kids are wonderful and I feel very needed, so job satisfaction is high. That's the pay off and why I choose to stay there.

@notyourmummy but that's your fault. You're not paid to work more hours so don't!

In a job where contracts are temporary year on year and SLT make it clear that if your children don't achieve you won't have a job next year it's hard to follow that mantra.

It's not even that half the time, is it? It's because you're passionate about giving the children the best experience they can have. Our government doesn't fund schools to provide paid provision to that extent. The "over and above" is staff working for free.

@notyourmummy after 3 years you have to be permanent.

It is very hard and I feel for TAs as they are so important and I hate that we've cut so many from our school due to funding. It needs to improve.

Interesting what you say about being accountable for progress as that is on my shoulders not support staff

miniaturepixieonacid

Your description of what TAs do bares little resemblance to what we do.

If TAs aren’t delivering EHCP, intensive phonic programmes, SALT and IEP interventions who is?

I've never heard this! I imagine, like everything else seemingly, academy trusts can ignore this if they want to, as all support staff in our trust are on year to year contracts and have always been!

@TheCircusOfLife In 20 years of working in education I'm yet to meet a TA/HLTA that has "no qualifications".
But clearly working in Chemical Engineering you have more of an idea than I do so fair enough.

@notyourmummy we're an academy. Maybe investigate as I'm sure you can't be on a temporary contract forever!

A quick google shows this so not 3 but 4

Dwindlebug - Clasroom/subject teachers and the SEND department. SALT tends to be visiting professionals but supported by SEND dept.

Interesting read

www.gov.uk/fixed-term-contracts/renewing-or-ending-a-fixedterm-contract

miniaturepixieonacid

How on earth can classroom teachers delivering multiple lengthy IEP and EHCPs properly and teaching ? We have masses of interventions listed on EHCPs and IEPs that are out of classroom interventions. SALT, Physio, emotional literacy etc… Who is delivering all the intensive phonic programme groups too? The several full time TAs we have struggle to deliver it all within the timetable so I don’t get how teachers are expected to do it whilst teaching an intensive mainstream curriculum.

Is that a private school or a school with very low SEN numbers

@notyourmummy

'' Wow, the TA's in your school wouldn't last 5 mins at my school - I do on average 10hrs work at home a week, rarely get a full dinner break and work well over my normal hours. Some don't and they're massively frowned upon!!''

I don't think you're attitude to work is as admirable as you seem to think it is. People like you are actually part of the problem.

Schools can get away with advertising for people with low/no quals/part time hours knowing that when staff start the job the rest of the put upon staff will 'frown upon them' for simply doing the job that they're paid to do within the hours they are paid.

You shouldn't be going above and beyond on a regular basis and being a martyr - it isn't kind, helpful, sustainable or being a team player in the long term.

I'm not a martyr, if I didn't do what I do, the children would not get what they deserve.

Dwindlebug Teachers don't deliver that much of them, we write them. SEND dept deliver them - 8 teachers (3 full time, 2 part time and 3 1:1 with EHCP children). SEND teachers come in and out of lessons to withdraw children/work with them as well as having their own classrooms where children go for lessons and support.

We have a high proportion of SEND children but low overall numbers because it's a small school (300 with about 20% SEND). And yes, private - so teachers can do more of the individual work as class sizes are all under 20 and largely under 16.

Not representative of a state school, I am aware. But it means our TAs are actually doing the work that the salary was designed for. In the many schools where TAs are doing everything, it is the job that has changed, not the salary. And it's not acceptable that so many are having so much piled on them for so little renumeration.

@notyourmummy

"I'm not a martyr, if I didn't do what I do, the children would not get what they deserve."

I do understand what you're saying, I'm sure you're an amazing asset to the children you support, and no doubt very caring so I'm sorry if I came across rather harshly - BUT I hope you understand that what I'm getting at is, if people like your good self keep holding up a crap failing system then nothing will EVER change (because the people at the top who hold the purse strings don't care unlike you) so sometimes as awful as it is the voluntary stuff needs to stop so that the shocking system can be exposed for what it is - underpaid women doing the governments job for them!

It will hopefully be short term pain but longer term gain!

miniaturepixieonacid

Sorry but in your previous post you omitted to say it was a private school with 8 teachers doing the work that TAS are expected to do in the state system.

How is that relevant? You won’t even be needing to deliver the intensive phonics scheme state schools have to.

You’re in cloud cookoo land if you think state schools have the money to replace TAs with teachers to do the hoards of interventions that have to be done.😳