Should my child's class have a qualified teacher everyday?

[Jap26]

Aibu to expect that my year 5 child has a qualified teacher everyday at school. Teachers have been announced for the next school year and the year 5 teacher is part time doing 4 days a week, no teaching cover has been arranged and the plan is for various TA's to cover the 5th day. The school have confirmed that with ppa time for the class teacher they will only have an actual teacher 3.5 days a week. None of the TA's have any relevant qualifications. As an ad hoc arrangement to cover sickness I think this is fine but they are planning do to this every week. Before I complain I just want a reality check on if this is standard practice

I would take my dc out of a school if they were being taught by a ta for that amount of time.
i understand that TA’s are used for covering lessons if teachers are off for whatever reason, but to be timetabled in as a teacher, no, this is not right at all.

The problem is retention, particularly of exoerienced and highly qualified teachers (a subject honours degree as well as a PGCE in secondary). Teaching is a pretty awful job now and has been since Gove became Education Secretary.

@Yousay55 might happen at the next school you put your DC in

Tell me about it.

My daughter is an excellent teacher. But a couple of years ago, at the end of an outstanding appraisal, her HT asked her what her aims were for the next year. She replied that she was intending resigning and doing something else, as the job was affecting her mental health, and she had no leisure time.
The head was really concerned and said he didn't want to lose her, and was there anything he could do to keep her. Off the cuff she said that maybe going part time would help. By the next day, a new contract was being drawn up, and she now does 0.8.

So having an excellent teacher for your child four days a week, and a good TA (with the excellent teacher's planning) for the fifth, is probably a result for many parents and children, if the alternative is losing the excellent teacher altogether.

Most schools do not have separate specialist teachers for music and French, these are taught by the teacher. I would also not want a TA teaching PE, where behaviour management and safety can be very challenging.

Do you not rate a PGCE?

By complaining you are only adding to the headteachers probable stress and won’t achieve anything.
This is a lot better than some schools and at least the children will have someone who they know: knows them. Like others have said, the timetable is usually worked out so the TAs are supporting either assemblies, music etc so not expected to teach the maths.

Rightly or wrongly this is the norm in a lot of schools and teachers have a right to be able to work flexibly, and is becoming more common. TAs are invaluable- don’t put them down.

I agree teachers have the right to work flexibly.

Do TA’s not have the right to do their job as an assistant?

Do TA’s not have the right to be paid for the role they are being asked to do during the day they have been asked to act as a teacher?

Do TA’s not have the right to request PPA for the days they are required to teach?

I would also like to add that you mention the stress of a headteacher. So is it ok to pass on that stress to your team?

Nobody wants to work with children anymore because let’s face it children are horrible! I worked in that field before and Christ it was horrendous. Throwing chairs, spitting, slapping, name calling, disrupting everyone, on a daily basis. The pay isn’t high enough, the rewards aren’t great enough and no one chooses to deal with that daily so here we are.

You are not being unreasonable, but the school may have no choice. I think the issue may be more to do with ‘austerity’ and long term mismanagement of the economy.

YANBU but sadly schools have a huge retention crisis and there’s simply no money. I work in a school, if you want to be political about it the government have run education funding into the ground. We don’t have enough money to buy glue and new books. It’s common in my school for classes to be covered by TAs for PPA, meetings, sickness and days off for part time teachers. There’s no requirement legally for there to be a qualified teacher in the classroom. It’s wrong, and the kids get a raw deal, but that’s the sad reality of state funded schools in 2024.

Academies can do whatever they like. It’s why teachers went on strike many years ago to try and stop them. But everyone moaned at teachers striking.

It’s highly likely there won’t be any qualified teachers in the next 5 years quite honestly.

Move to Scotland! Children can only be taught by GTCS registered teachers. That includes private sector where they were dragged kicking and screaming into requiring properly qualified teachers. Can't say all is perfect (far from it) but you cannot use TAs to cover classes. A local authority tried to introduce sports coaches to cover planning time. Knocked right back by parents.

No I work in a secondary school and the tas are no where near qualified and are not allowed legally to be in a classroom with a teacher present they are there to support. I would literally move my child school if this was the case this is shocking

There is conflicting advice op I’m posting from a Scotland perspective- others I’m assuming elsewhere are posting from another but in Scotland it is sharing the law to not have a real teacher and others saying teacher retention crisis there’s too many here and are all dying for jobs so it really depends where you are I guess but in Scotland this would be unheard of thank god that’s your child’s education

It is only getting worse. I've been a secondary school teacher for roughly 30 years. As a HoD I had a teacher leave at Christmas; they are getting out of teaching. Despite being an outstanding school with a really good ethos we couldn't replace them.

The best we could do for long term supply - and this was teaching GCSE and A level in a subject - was an unqualified instructor. Who was bloody useless. I have repeatedly raised concerns as the person responsible for that subject and was told 'This is the best we can do. This 'instructor' has an A level in your subject. (Done 20 years earlier). They have a degree in something entirely unrelated to education. They don't have a teaching qualification, but they've worked as a cover supervisor on supply for a couple of years. This is the best the agency can send us'.

And so, for the majority of the year my Y13s had 50% of their course delivered by a person who didn't really have the knowledge, couldn't teach it, and knew nothing about the exam requirements/how to structure the answers. One of my Year 11 classes had all their lessons delivered by this person. It wasn't possible in January in a secondary school to re-jig the entire timetable so that I was covering all the classes. For eg, when 3 of the Y11 classes were on - I was already teaching an A level class, and therefore couldn't 'swap' classes with the unqualified teacher. I do not imagine their parents know that this person was utterly unqualified to teach my subject. I have pupils needing an A grade for UCAS, who want to study this subject at University.

It will have definitely affected those pupils' grades and some won't get into their first choice uni. This is where we are in teaching.

In response to all those saying teacher for 4 days and LSA for 1 is fine, I’d like to say I tried it as a teacher and it didn’t work.
The school was delighted as it was cheaper for them. I got paid 80% of a full salary but still did 100% of the planning, marking, meetings, reports, assessment, parents evenings, displays, other paperwork (social services, ehcps, SEN tracking).
I decided it was a mug’s game and went back full time. I am now burnt out and planning to quit altogether.

I wasn't suggesting the TA would be teaching PE (although would likely be supporting the session), but that they could be with the PE teacher during their teachers PPA time, so less time with non qualified staff

Ahh I see. Again though, most schools that I know of, don’t have a separate PE teacher. I teach all PE lessons to my class, except an occasional term where a peripatetic PE teacher comes.

Even when the TA covers, I’d assume the teacher is still planning all the lessons, so the TAs will be provided with good quality lesson plans to follow. I’m sure the school will have thought carefully about time tabling and a lot of the “easier” lessons are probably left on the day the TA covers. I don’t think this is that unusual. Also curious to know how you know the TAs don’t have qualifications? Im a teacher and a lot of the TAs at our school do night courses and some are even qualified teachers who have stepped down to being a TA for an easier life now that they’re older etc. But the pupils parents wouldn’t necessarily know this. Have you made an assumption? TAs are generally good at what they do, so I honestly wouldn’t worry, and don’t think that complaining is really going to get you anywhere anyway, the school have no doubt made that decision as it’s what works best.

ven when the TA covers, I’d assume the teacher is still planning all the lessons, so the TAs will be provided with good quality lesson plans to follow. I’m sure the school will have thought carefully about time tabling and a lot of the “easier” lessons are probably left on the day the TA covers. I don’t think this is that unusual. Also curious to know how you know the TAs don’t have qualifications? Im a teacher and a lot of the TAs at our school do night courses and some are even qualified teachers who have stepped down to being a TA for an easier life now that they’re older etc. But the pupils parents wouldn’t necessarily know this. Have you made an assumption? TAs are generally good at what they do, so I honestly wouldn’t worry, and don’t think that complaining is really going to get you anywhere anyway, the school have no doubt made that decision as it’s what works best.

Just wait until secondary where your child’s Maths lessons will be taught by anybody, literally anybody that has a C in A Level Maths or a string of cover supervisors for years. If they are lucky, they will have a qualified Maths teacher by GCSE.

Right now, during the last couple of weeks of the school year, there are still hundreds of maths teacher jobs being advertised on the TES. New adverts are being added during the summer months as well. It is such a shit show with recruitment and retention and parents have very little idea until it is too late.

It seems pretty normal for TAs to cover the teacher’s PPA time. In my son’s school they also use external PE providers and have a computing lesson and Spanish lesson provided by another teacher so this also covers the PPE time. The result is that they don’t really see their normal teacher much on a Tuesday, so in reality they only have her 4 days a week as the week is set up so that she does most of her PPA on that day.

You quite probably wouldn’t even know about it to be able to remove your child. The school don’t have to (and probably wouldn’t) tell you in the “teacher” is unqualified. It’s possibly already happened to your child anyway with how widespread the problem is.