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

Yes, I have seen their budgets as am a governor. No they are not running in deficit, nor did the current head inherit a huge surplus. There is no huge benefactor. The only extra money is about £15,000 a year raised by the PTA which pays for the coaches for school trips and swimming lessons and approx £5k from the village residents association.

They don't employ any supply teachers due to already having 2 extra teachers on staff on top of class teachers to cover sickness and PPA time, which is more cost effective.

Parents are asked for a termly contribution of £10 towards stationary supplies, it's not compulsory. It's a nice but not especially affluent area, parents are nurses, teachers, TA's, cleaners, builders, plumbers etc. No wealthy bankers or Lords and ladiesthat I'm aware of.

Thats the norm

Our school have the head stepping in to teach on the day the reception teachers are not working. I think specialist teachers (pe, French, music etc), another teacher from a different class or a head/senco etc stepping in, that's ok but not the normal ta having to cover both their own job (presumably, unless they get an extra ta from somewhere those days) and the job of a fully qualified teacher is ridiculous. I love the tas and they're great with kids but (bluntly) a lot at our school aren't highly qualified, some just have gcses plus the level 2 qualification and then they struggle with some of the grammar and spelling requirements and the general knowledge (my son was in trouble for arguing with a TA that Heracles is the correct name not Hercules and she literally cited the disney film as the reason she was right. Yes he's precocious and a pain but he was correct and i think a teacher with a degree would at least have thought to say "lets look it up together").
Also it's a massively unfair ask of a TA paid basically just above minimum wage. Its not what they've signed up for either. Other than removing your child though, there isn't anything you can do

Is it the norm? - possibly in some schools.

Is it ok? - depends on the staff concerned. But not ideal.

Am I surprised? Not at all. Retention and recruitment have gone down the pan over the past few years.

Teaching needs to be a better job, new teachers need to be able to buy a house, have a job free from undue stress etc.

Lots of issues have played into this crisis.

Before now and Thursday have a think about this.......

If your not happy now, wait until secondary, daughter Y9, top set taught by a TA, cover supervisors for other lessons.

Complained to your MP?! Why didn’t you just go the whole hog and organise a petition to parliament? 😂😂

YANBU OP. But the school will not have the money to employ another qualified teacher. Blame the current Conservative government. I am a centrist by the way who has voted Conservative and Labour at various times. But I agree with many Conservative MPs that the current government is a disaster.

If you’re that outraged, why don’t you take the time to find out what the TA is like as a teacher? Ask to go and sit in the class for an hour to observe him/her teaching. In my experience TA’s are more than capable (sometimes more so) of teaching a class that they’re likely to have been working with for a while. Just because they’re not ‘qualified’ as you say, doesn’t mean they’re not able to do the job. But obviously you are able to assume that they aren’t good enough to teach your offspring because… why? Because you don’t think it’s right? How can you possibly assume that?

@Saski24 do you really think a teaching qualification has no impact on performance?
Of course children should be taught by a qualified teacher. What next? GPs replaced by someone who has completed a weeks course on medicine?

I actually think education funding is a serious issue. I felt my MP should be aware that there was a teacher retention and recruitment crisis, and that budgets hadn't kept up with inflation and therefore the impact was children not having qualified teachers for the whole week, or at all for some subjects.

People seem very passive about accepting children dont need teachers even though all the evidence suggests that good quality teaching is one of the biggest drivers of outcomes.

As I say, my conservative mp thought it was bloody marvellous children not having qualified teachers and felt that education was well funded.

So, i would petition parliament about this issue but the response from my mp made me feel the government didn't care. I have been involved in lobbying for send funding though. Which got nowhere.

You are definitely not being unreasonable! Nor is the school for doing the best it can in the current circumstances. We all know what to do on 4th July. (Use your vote wisely!)

I have been disappointed that education seems to be nowhere on the political agenda.

Yes, the absence of discussion has been very disappointing.

Of course I don’t think a teaching qualification has no impact on performance and I don’t believe I said that. All I said was that a lot of TA’s have worked with their classes for years and have more than enough ‘on the job’ training while not necessarily having a teaching qualification. It is possible to be good at your job without having a degree/relevant qualification, I know a lot of people who didn’t go to university that work the same job as those that did and are just as competent. I merely suggest that she tries to find out for herself what the TA is like before assuming he/she is not able to teach for one day a week to a high enough standard.

It's no longer required by law that classes are taught by someone with QTS (qualified teacher status).

Thank Michael Gove for that.

You can also thank the conservatives for the current funding/retention and recruitment crisis in schools.

@Saski24 I think all classes should be taught by a qualified teacher.

i know you do x

In England, no.
In the three other UK home nations, you do have to be a properly qualified teacher and there are professional standards, registrations etc.

This is becoming the norm and as soon as all schools are academies then a qualified teacher will be a thing of the past. Salary will come down but stress levels will still be the same so people will just leave as they aren’t paid enough for the tasks set.

some TAs are very good however I’ve worked with some who couldn’t do the work I was setting the kids as they didn’t understand fractions. One asked for a mark scheme for a Y2 arithmetic test as they couldn’t work it out.

I’ve also worked with some qualified teachers who were hopeless and they had to put the strong TA in there.

this will happen throughout your child’s education. My Y9 kid had maths taught by 18 year old cover supervisor so barely older than the kids!

excellent TAs are leaving as the pay is rubbish and they can earn more in a supermarket for less stress.

When my son was at school the teacher only worked in class 4 and a half days as the other half day was for lesson planning. He's 22... So I think it's probably normal even if most of the time we aren't informed. I'd be more grateful they weren't using a succession of temporary cover as our school did that and it was disruptive and shocking

@Shinyandnew1 my DD has a separate language teacher. However he also, because her reception teacher is PT until next year, took them for 2 days per week. Next year he will be working across the 2 schools in the group so won't have a dedicated class as well.

The funding was cut this financial year for the school and they need a serious repair.

That did not happen at my DCs school. They had a qualified teacher all the time with preparation time outside of teaching time. That was under Labour though.

As far as I know this wouldn't be allowed where I teach in Northern Ireland (primary school). Classroom assistants wouldn't really be expected to cover a sick day either unless in our school we were really stuck. Our classroom assistants might cover an hour or two if you've an appointment or something. If a TA is covering a day they should be getting a teacher's wage. It might be standard though in other parts of the UK. 🤷

This is very normal and not at all worrying in my eyes. My son has a TA one day a week too as his teacher is only 4 days, he also has the Head Teacher for one lesson a week, he has PE 2 times a week with 2 different PE teachers so over the week he is taught by 5 different people. I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill

YANBU but funding is forcing schools to do this.

After Thursday, when an MP has been elected for your constituency, you should write to your MP about school funding.