TAs does your primary school have them?

[dhlihdhb]

Apparently our primary school has decided they wont have any TAs next year other than those with a one to one. Is that the norm? Have to say am pretty disappointed but not sure how widespread that is.

I think it's interesting so many are focused on KS1 needing TAs. I'd argue it's much harder in KS2, when the gap between the highest and lowest is much bigger (I've taught all year groups at different points). It's almost impossible to support children still working at Y1 level and also teach the Y6 curriculum well.

Regarding 1:1s, LAs are furiously moving away from this wording. Children with EHCPs are often expected to have a constant timetable of 'interventions' (which may well be 1:1) to justify their TA support. It's ridiculous because often they would be better with the class teacher delivering the learning and a TA supporting them to access it. I agree with a pp though that a big part of a TA's job is encouraging independence and that might mean leaving a pupil for 3 or 4 minutes at a time then continually checking in to ensure they are on task. That is in no way illegal.

In all but very unusual circumstances, schools fund the first £6000. If two children join even a tiny school (e.g. 50 pupils) who then need additional support, the school is expected to find the £6000 (X2) with no extra budget given. I agree if early intervention were in place, massive sums could be saved down the line.

A well trained 1:1 deployed correctly (this doesn’t mean acting unlawfully by not providing the 1:1 derailed, specified and quantified in F) does not lead to dependence and does not replace the teacher. This is what LAs like to tell parents and schools. It misrepresents the research and is why so many parents are successful when they appeal to SENDIST. Michael Charles, a well regarded SEN solicitor, wrote an excellent piece on this.

leaving a pupil for 3 or 4 minutes at a time then continually checking in to ensure they are on task. That is in no way illegal.

That depends entirely on the wording in F.

In all but very unusual circumstances, schools fund the first £6000.

This is what LAs want schools to believe. All EHCPs can be fully funded but LAs won’t do so unless forced. Section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014 means LAs are ultimately responsible for ensuring the SEP in F of EHCPs. That includes ensuring there is sufficient funding.

Well of course it depends entirely on the needs of the child. If building independence isn't a target, it wouldn't be appropriate. But the wording '1:1' doesn't by definition mean an adult never ever leads their side (and the actual wording 1:1 is increasingly rare anyway).

Your post didn’t mention it sometimes being unlawful depending on F. You made it sound like that was the case all the time and it absolutely isn’t.

1:1 detailed, specified and quantified in F is only less common because of LAs trying to save money. Parents should appeal where 1:1 is reasonably required but not detailed, specified and quantified in F because the vast majority of appeals are upheld.

School budgets are in a terrible state as a result of all of the unfunded pay increases under the previous government.

What would you like your school to cut in order to carry on paying for the TAs?

Fair enough, but regarding the majority of schools' budgets that is what is happening.

Not in our school. We are actually looking to increase our number of TA's but the biggest problem we have is struggling to recruit decent people. We interviewed 6 potential TA's the week before we broke up for summer, only 2 passed the basic skills assessment and they didn't interview well at all, so its gone back out to advert and we'll use agency until we can recruit permanent staff. At the moment we have 2 TA's in every class, we also have 3 HLTA's who cover classes and run interventions. All our EHCP children have TA support but not necessarily 1:1 unless this is actually specified in their plan, which is very unusual in this area unless they have personal care needs.

Ours has them and as they have mixed age classes they need them.

3 teachers (3 classes) plus part time PE and RE teachers
4 TA’s

Small school though circa 70 kids 4-11 so our ratios are good.

That's really healthy for a small school. Small class sizes and TAs. Mixed age classes by no means assures a TA unfortunately. It's such a shame it differs so much between different schools.

I have volunteered in my kids classes for 15 years, have a Biology degree, have bern a governor in a SEN school for 7 years and I was told I don't have enough experience to be a TA. I worked a science technician in a school and was also a head science technician at a college where i also covered lessons.

I worked in cooperate IT for 17 years,as well so I'm not too dim.

Incredibly there's lots of interest me teaching. Go figure

I know they have been talking about raising teacher wages again but this is where they need to increase wages first.
TAs wages were kept low because parents (mostly mums) didn’t have many other options for work, now they do! Paying them minimum wage is a disgrace.
I worked in recruitment for a MAT and what they were asking from support staff was insane for the money, then they were shocked they would leave. Increasingly I saw schools employing unqualified/inexperienced school leavers as that’s all who would apply.

I think one of the biggest changes the government could make is increasing support staff in school. Staff numbers can make a big difference to things like behaviour and take work off teachers to let them teach.

They are all like that here, there’s about 12 small schools in our learning trust (although ours is the smallest) and they all have similar ratios. A few are single form entry but the majority aren’t.

It’s why property prices are so ridiculous- the schools are all very good.

I'm sorry but no. This isn't down to teacher pay rises. This is down to the 14 years of chronic and deliberate underfunding of education by the Conservatives. That's like blaming the final straw on the camel's back rather than all the other crap he's carrying. Funding in education is still, in real terms, lower than in 2010. Schools are operating on a mixture of goodwill and the emotional manipulation of their staff.

Properly thought-out and sustained funding for the type of educational model that we want for our children is the only solution to this issue.

I left a TA job in a school I loved because I just got sick of the every increasing workload with no reward for performance or experience. We were also often asked to stay behind unpaid for meetings or do training in our own time. We were sent messages and emails in our personal time which we were expected to respond to, including a weekly email on a Sunday evening which we were expected to confirm we had read that evening! Meanwhile the staff room was decorated with posters telling us to look after our well being!!

We have a TA for every class from R-Y2 and then a TA for every year group (2 classes) from y3-6

The issue is that the teachers' pay rises weren't funded properly, pushing lots of schools into financial difficulties.

That doesn't mean that the teachers shouldn't get pay rises. It simply means that the last government's failure to fund those increases properly inevitably means that schools have to make cuts.

We still have a TA allocated for every class, in addition to TAs as required for children with EHCPs. Our (LA) primary can do this because of funding from a local charitable trust, which means it hasn't suffered anything like as much as most from funding cuts.

No, the issue is that schools aren't funded properly. If they were, any pay rise, for teachers, admin or support staff, wouldn't make a difference to the viability of maintaining an effective level of support staff.

Saying that it's specifically related to teacher pay is short-sighted at best and it creates a false 'them vs us' narrative rather than calling attention to the actual issue - overall funding of education.

How much does everyone think a TA should be paid? I’m just curious as it keeps being mentioned

I’m in Ireland and TAs are not a thing here. We have SNAs who are usually assigned one-to-one with the child. They are also not included in the ratios for school trips, et cetera as they are literally just assigned to the one child on the trip. They are paid more than a TA in the UK also, they start on over 27,000

For me, it wasn't so much the actual pay but the fact that last year I was being paid exactly the same as a new starter who had absolutely no qualifications (other than GCSES) or experience. My previous 5 years of hard work in that school counted for nothing nor did any education related qualifications.

@JSMill yes that makes absolute sense! Everyone deserves pay reviews and everyone deserves to feel valued.