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 asked if they had any relevant teaching qualifications or if any of them were HLTA's the answer from the head was no. I'm aware in other schools of qualified teachers working as TA 's so asked in case this was the situation at our school.

Your child deserves a qualified teacher but this certainly won’t be the last time they don’t have one.

I presume at least 2 days they will do PE, so if that falls on the PPA time and the 'TA day', and if they also put music, French, assembly etc on the TA day, all of which usually have seperate teachers, they they will in practice have not much time with the TA

Theres no specialist separate teachers for music, PE or languages in any schools I’ve been in recently-it’s just the class teacher doing everything.

@Jap26 you are not being unreasonable in expecting your child to have a qualified teacher. Unfortunately this is how things are now-it’s totally crap. There’s no shortage of qualified teachers, just nobody prepared to do the job and insufficient money to pay them properly.

We have two excellent teachers who have been part time for years due to having children but want to go back to full time. They can’t, because there isn’t the budget to pay them so one is job sharing with a TA and the other with various supply teachers. They are both cross as they are carrying the class and doing all of the planning, assessment, parent meetings, displays and reports but only paid as a jobshare. They could leave, but other schools nearby don’t have the funding to pay UPS staff either and want MPS teachers.

A lot of TA's have the relevant qualifications, they just choose to work in a TA role. I would wait to see what standards are like before complaining.

I suspect you are right but the previous poster asked what I would like them to do and this would be the best solution for me but I don't realistically expect it to happen.

I would ideally like my child moved into one of the other classes who do have full time teachers

How do you propose that will work? That the school chooses a child and swaps them with yours? Don’t you think that child’s parents might also want their child in a class with a full time teacher? What makes your child more important?

Why not contact your local parliamentary candidates and ask them how they are going to deal with this? And if the Labour candidate says they are going to recruit 6.5k more teachers, ask how, exactly?

Do they have specialist teachers? At my DD's Primary they had French, Music, P.E and swimming teachers. That covers one whole day.

It's so not fair on the TAs. Doesn't matter if there's assembly, art, pe etc someone has to have over all responsibility for 30 children for the whole day and £12 per hour doesn't cut it. It's a disgrace. It used to be only HLTAs could be responsible for a whole class, then it became level 3s were fine to do it, then level 2s, now it's anyone with a pulse. Vote the Conservatives OUT on Thursday to have a chance of things changing.

OP's situation also happens if your child's teacher is Head of Key Stage, or a teaching Deputy Head in a small school. All schools will be very used to dealing with this

Is it an academy?

Legally it depends on the type of school. An LA maintained school must have qualified teachers, an academy or free school, no there doesn't need to be a qualified teacher.

‘Schools where QTS is a legal requirement
Schools where QTS is a legal requirement are referred to as maintained schools. Maintained schools are part of the state-funded school system in England – funding and oversight are generally provided by the local authority.
They include:

1. community schools or voluntary controlled schools (where the local authority employs the school’s staff and is responsible for admissions)
2. foundation and voluntary-aided schools (where the school’s governing body employs the staff and is responsible for admissions)

You must also have QTS to teach in a non-maintained special school. Schools where QTS is not a legal requirement In some schools in England, QTS is not a legal requirement. For example:

1. within the English state school sector, academy schools and free schoolscan employ teachers without QTS
2. outside the English state school sector, private schools or independent schools can employ teachers without QTS

Even where QTS is not a legal requirement, many schools use it to assess the quality of candidates for teaching jobs.’

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/qualified-teacher-status-qts

Mu child had a teacher who was covering the usual teacher's maternity leave but ended up going on long term sick leave and most classes were taught by the TA and HLTA. Thye had a few supply teachers come for a bit but to be honest the TA and HLTA were better than the supply and also knew the children and had their respect. I did feel it was unfair that they were doing the teacher job on an lower salary. I did raise it with the school but the solution of the supply teacher which on paper would seem the best wasn't really!

I started teaching in 2007 and it was something that was happening back then, and it's got worse since. My dc have TAs or supply teachers covering for their teachers on a regular basis. I'd take a TA over some of the dreadful supply teachers they've had any day of the week.

Loads of TAs and HLTAs are actually qualified teachers who couldn't put up with the stress of full on teaching anymore. As long as they can deliver what the teacher has planned for them I really don't think it will have any negative impact.

A few are qualified teachers, most aren’t.

I agree, OP, this is not acceptable.

It is not acceptable and yet, here we are, with many posters accepting it.

More dumbing down of our kids education, by this givernment, we should be complaining to our MP’s and councillors.

If we accept it, it becomes acceptable.

It's not acceptable

but when parents, or people in general, complain about the current state of education in this country, that's why.

Why do people think so many people try so hard to go to private schools too?

In reality yes they should but school budgets are squeezed and well …. Something has to give

Around here it's more than a few.

Ideally yes they should. But I'm a teacher moving schools where a mid size secondary now only have 2 qualified maths teachers and one is part time so I imagine it's a recruitment issue.

It's actually a bit of a myth that there's a shortage of primary school teachers. The shortage was never that acute and falling birth rates are reducing class numbers and easing vacancies further. Secondary is a totally different matter - there are huge shortages there.

It's more likely to be cost saving/accommodating a 4 day week in this scenario.

It’s becoming the norm, there are no teachers. It is outrageous and I hope you vote for a party who has a plan to recruit and retain staff

Private schools are losing staff too, mainly due to removing staff from TPS, this is absolutely not just a state problem

Conservative government took away the requirement for teachers in academies or free schools to be qualified, so you can complain but they're not technically doing anything wrong.

I've been the teacher in this scenario and it's a pita. You are paid 0.8 but end up doing all the planning, marking reports etc and are 100% responsible for the progress and attainment of the class. It's not a good way to do things but schools are constrained by budgets and lack of teachers.

I often hear that lots of TAs are qualified teachers. Not where I am. I've taught 20 years and never worked with any support staff that had a teaching qualification. Some of them had no qualifications at all. They were great TAs but absolutely should not be required to teach classes.

At our school a TA covers classes on a regular basis. It used to be HLTAs but now it’s level 2 TAs. They get paid a couple of pounds extra an hour. None of them are qualified teachers nor do they need to be.

Is it legal? Yes, we’re an academy so it’s perfectly acceptable. Complain to your head and governors if you want but if you’re an academy, it won’t make a difference. Academy chains don’t care. If you don’t like it complain to your MP, the Department for Education have made this acceptable. Think about who you are voting for on Thursday. Do the current government care about education? After 14 years in power and how the education system has gone down the pan, I’d say they don’t care.

Teachers have been writing about this on mumsnet for months but I’m not sure parents really pay attention until it’s their children that are affected.

TAs don’t want to do this but have no choice. We can’t afford to pay for supply teachers.

I would say that some TAs are better than having a supply teacher who doesn’t know the children or their needs whereas their regular TA does.