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.

Not true at all. Children with EHCPs which states full time 1:1, will get funding to match. The issue is where the EHCP does not state 1:1, but the school decides it's needed.

More often, the (funded for 1 child) 1:1 is actually used for now general classroom support. This happened in my daughter's EYFS class (she has constant 1:1), until there were sufficient incidents for them to realise she needs that 1:1!

(School and 1:1s have been amazing since)

It depends on the child's needs, and what's set out in the EHCP. Some children (like mine) do need an adult stuck to them at all times, for their health and safety. And that's what in her EHCP.

There's a wider confusion on this thread between TAs and INAs. My daughter's INAs are not TAs. Her INAs have been trained to support my daughter and her needs, not the general needs of the class.

I agree that schools aren't funded properly and I have been saying this for years, have written to my MPs about it etc. But I also know that it is specifically the unfunded teacher pay increases that have pushed our local primary school into a deficit budget, and that this is what has prompted them to seek cuts elsewhere. Both of these statements can simultaneously be true.

It isn't about creating an us vs them narrative, or taking a shortsighted view. It is about recognising the fact that, when the government announces a pay increase for teachers, school budgets should be amended to reflect this - otherwise the government is seen by the public to be addressing the issues when it is actually just shifting the problem elsewhere and putting the responsibility on individual schools to fix the unfixable.

I am categorically not arguing in any way against the teacher pay increases. Of course teachers should be paid fairly, if not simply because it is morally the right thing to do then because we have a massive crisis of recruitment and retention within our schools. But governments shouldn't be allowed to take political credit for raising teacher pay if they are not increasing school budgets to match.

Yes, it happens a lot. As I said, LAs won’t fully fund EHCPs unless forced to. But they can be forced. Schools don’t have to fund the first £6k legally.

There's a wider confusion on this thread between TAs and INAs.

It isn’t necessarily confusion. Many 1:1s are actually called TAs by professionals, schools, TAs themselves and in EHCPs.

Pay rises absolutely should be funded but, when you look at the numbers, the unfunded element of the teacher pay increase last year does not equate to the level of loss of support staff. It's being used as an excuse to draw attention away from general underfunding. The more it's repeated, the more effective that excuse becomes.

In my school, for example, the unfunded portion works out to be between 9k-12k. Yes, the leadership of a school could choose to balance that out with the loss of a single member of support staff but it absolutely does not account for the widescale loss seen in some schools. I'd argue that the six-figure salaries enjoyed by academy trust execs are more to blame than pay rises.

How do some primaries manage it? We just finished reception which had full time TA and the class teacher has been there 29 years so cannot be on the lowest rung… and lots of other very experienced staff.

I don’t understand why some school budgets manage it and some don’t. I do know that one local primary school built brand new is being absolutely slammed by maintenance costs due to the insane way they builders set up the air con/heating (it cannot be turned off so it’s been eating electricity).

I can only speak for the local school for which I'm familiar with the budget. We have a £40k deficit in our budget arising directly from the unfunded pay increases in the academic year that has just ended, which has been paid for from our ever-dwindling reserves. We are a single academy trust and we don't have anyone on a 6-figure salary - nowhere near it tbh!

We absolutely do not want to lose a single member of support staff and we are scrabbling around looking for alternatives but everything else that can be cut has already been cut. So yes, this is a symptom of the wider issue of chronic underfunding but it is the unfunded pay increases that have tipped us over the edge at this particular time.

There are lots of individual factors which will impact on school funding - overall pupil numbers, proportion of pupil premium children, proportion of SEN children etc. Some schools also have more earned income from after school clubs, preschools, holiday clubs, premises rentals etc)

This is the issue right here. The expectations on you are insane and the amount of unpaid hours you’re expected to work mounts up quickly.
The wellbeing push at schools at the moment is about ticking a box in my opinion. I’ve yet to hear a teacher or TA at my school or others feel their SLT genuinely care about their wellbeing. I’ve been in hospital with management asking if x,y and z have been completed. I’ve cried and lost hours of sleep over my workload. But it’s ok because I did attend a wellbeing day this year.

Our primary has about two in each class but they don't have a teacher in every class!
Hlta if your lucky but usually a ta .
If we don't like it there's plenty of other schools is quoted if you dare to complain.

What size school is this?

3.5% of last year's pay rise was unfunded. For that to be solely responsible for the 40k deficit, the school's teacher wage bill would have to be over £1.1million.

My son's school has loads of TAs. I don't see how they could run without them, because they also supervise the yard during breaks, run breakfast and teatime clubs, and also run the holiday clubs.

In my day there was no such thing as a TA, but then in my day 11 year olds would supervise the junior and senior infants during lunch break, and I don't think anyone supervised us in the yard. We could leave as long as we were back when the bell rang.

It's a big school, but not huge. The teacher wage bill is just over £1.1million and the deficit is just under £40k.

We do probably have fewer ECTs and more experienced teachers than some other local schools, which obviously pushes costs up, but what do you want us to do? Kick out the expensive experienced teachers to bring in a bunch of cheaper staff instead? Our retention of staff is excellent and we count this as a positive for the school, but it comes with some costs.

My DC’s primary school has 1 class per year, plus a nursery, and there’s at least one TA in every class at my DC’s school.

Having said that, the number of pupils receiving pupil premium is well above the national average, so i suspect that’ll help a bit with the school budget.

My school is moving away from pupil 1:1s. It’s more about interventions constantly throughout the school day. Those with ehcps will always be part of that group and set movement breaks with a TA or they have a brain break within class.

We have 1 TA per class but they are not assigned to any individual child.

A massive increase in 1:1’s? Where’s the evidence for that?

It’s notoriously difficult to get an EHCP and even having one doesn’t guarantee a 1:1 for the whole time so TA as often work with different children

The school may want to move away from 1:1s, but if 1:1 is detailed, specified and quantified in F of any of the EHCPs, 1:1 must be provided.

What are your class sizes?

We only have TAs to cover PPA or 1:1 with pupils on EHCP (even then some of these are shared). There is no budget - relatively high income area so minimum pupil premium and very old building that is eating all budgets.

We have them in EYFS and KS1 but no more unless for 1-2-1 or PPA. Alphabet soup.

No, I'm absolutely not suggesting that there should be a revolving door of staff when they get too expensive. However, cost-saving and income-generating measures do need to be looked at.

A £1.1m wage bill for only teachers would be expected for, based on average wages, a 5 form intake primary. That would be a huge school for the primary level and would benefit from other economies of scale (headteacher/admin costing less per pupil or an increased impact of per pupil funding increases, etc). They are also hit gentler for the underfunding. For example, a 5 form entry primary would have an annual budget, based on per pupil funding, of nearly £5m. I'm saying this because I'd be concerned that a school like that justifying laying off support staff by citing the teacher pay increase would be being disingenuous.

If your school is smaller than that, with lower funding, but still with the same level of costs then you do have to question how the budget is being spent/managed, not least because, based on what you've said, the year before this one, the budget was only breaking even.

I'm sorry to labour this point but I'm very wary of the wage rise being used as an excuse, as I'm seeing it being used across a number of schools/trusts and in the public discourse. When you actually do the calculations, it alone can not be responsible for the extensive laying off of support staff.

I thought it was quite unusual to have a full-time 1:1 now.

Better for many children to have intervention work taught by the person qualified to teach it ie teacher, not someone on minimum wage.

Teacher pension increase is another thing that hit school budgets (not all funded) and support staff pay increases.

Schools that are not full but not small enough class sizes to enable school years to be mixed are the ones most hard hit by school funding crisis

I thought it was quite unusual to have a full-time 1:1 now.

This is what LAs and some schools would like parents to believe. LAs often make EHCPs vague and woolly so they aren’t worth the paper they are written on. This isn’t to do with what provision the child reasonably requires to meet their needs. It is about saving money. Which is why parents should appeal and why appeals are mostly upheld. A 1:1 TA/HLTA/LSA isn’t instead of input from teachers. That would be poor practice.

That makes sense. Does having more SEN and pupil premium help ? Or does it tend to fall short of what’s needed? I think if anything my local primary is below average (and also in an LA that is low funding per pupil historically)