AIBU or should we fund welfare officers in schools and leave teachers to teach

[CanelliniBeans]

Listening to lots of debates n this.
It seems teachers are not able to focus n teaching because they are so busy dealing with basic social issues, making sure students are safe and even fed properly, and able to concentrate. They also have an array of special educational needs and poor behaviour to deal with.
So, instead of giving teachers more time off so there's even less time to educate, why not relieve their stress by addressing the actual issues and spend the money on welfare staff in each year group who deal with everything outside actual education. If we already have them, get more of them. Let them sit in classrooms and deal with behaviour and safeguarding.

I think that would be a good idea. I suspect there is not enough money even for teachers, let along welfare officers.

I think we need to start taxing billionaires tbh, before we think about this stuff. There's just no money to do it.

Sounds good in theory but sometimes it’s the relationship with the teacher as trusted adult that fosters a child to confide the social issues. After Covid and 14 years of conservative austerity policies teachers would need an adult:child ratio of about 1:10 to undo the damage!

I dont disagree but where does the funding come from? There are many issues around this is schools.

TAs used to offer pastoral support and support with low level behavioural disruptions in class so the teacher could teach. But then more teaching was added to their role running booster groups, interventions and pre-teach sessions. So they now longer do this.

Then the budgets were slashed which means I'm going into my 6th year without any TA support at all even though I have taught many high needs children (behavioural, cognition and learning, and significant pastoral needs) during those years - and have dealt with violent attacks on myself and other children. I don't know of any schoools that have a class based TA outside of KS1 personally.

Teachers could do more if the curriculum weren't so overstuffed you can hear it groaning at the seams.

Less stuffed curriculum, the capacity for a slightly slower pace and the opportunity to consolidate learning would also help. There is a big problem with cognitive overload in children due to the curriculum. Address this, and a lot of the behavioural issues would be reduced.

Last week, I came on during the first lesson of the day. No one else in class and no phone to call the office to ask for someone to come down for 5 mins. My only option was to send the emergency 'red hand' which would have brought the Head Teacher to my door expecting a violent/severe behavioural incident or a severe medical issue/accident in a child. I didn't feel I could do that and tell him I needed the loo so I just had to manage until breaktime an hour later.

I know that last paragraph is an aside but there are many problems in schools.

There just isn't any money.

Many schools already do this. BBC breakfast did a report about it last year and went to visit a primary school which employs a social worker who has a relationship with families that need support for all sorts of reasons.

I don't agree. The teachers are not just there to stand at the board spouting facts for our information-sponge children to absorb and reproduce onto exam papers. Proper education means understanding the whole child and getting to understand their learning methods. A good teacher cannot be isolated from the wellbeing of their pupils.

The teacher is the one in the room with the pupils every day. You'd need one welfare officer per classroom to build the same level of mutual trust and understanding so rather than giving the extra jobholder a different title why not double the number of teachers and halve class sizes? We need better staff to pupil ratios and for teachers to have the power to trigger help quickly when a child's needs aren't being met.

It's too simplistic.

Teacher's relationship and connection to their students is a part of being able to teach.

There's no (non harmful) way to have teachers who don't have a holistic level of care towards their students.

Students who need help, are going to tell the safe adult they see every day, not the "welfare officer".

I think the answer is working on societies bigger issues (poverty, oppression, abuse) and finding the services that tackle these properly, not making up (and funding out of nonexistent budgets) a new role.

I read ot that the teacher wpuld still do those things but that the OP was suggesting an additional member of staff to do a bit more of the additional legwork. Not that the teacher wouldn't have a relationship with the children.

If a child is being neglected eg not being fed properly, then I believe there are protocols in place with safeguarding leads at the school.

I know some schools have pastoral care, perhaps more of those would be useful. However it's the job of social services to deal with neglect.

It's proper funding for society-wide support that's needed - not a handful of additional people in schools. They could start by funding Sure Start properly again. Properly funded healthcare, including mental health and addiction treatment, would be a good second. And decent social housing like they used to have in the good old days. They won't though. They'll say it's too expensive then pay through the nose for the consequences instead.

My kid’s smallish primary school has one. She’s full time, funded out of pupil premium. She does stuff on attendance, nurture groups, Lego therapy, break and lunchtime “issues” and generally takes kids that need to be out the classroom for a bit. She deals with behaviour. She also helps parents - stuff like signposting to other agencies, parenting advice, she’s helped a friend of mine with housing paperwork and on occasion she staffs the office too.

She’s invaluable and there ought to be one of her in every school.

Many schools already do this. The (small, deprived) secondary school my DH teaches at has a whole team of non-teaching staff dedicated to welfare and pastoral support. Each year group has one teaching head of year for academic issues and one non-teaching head of year for pastoral situations. The kids and parents know who to approach based on what the problem is, and, from what he tells me, it works really well.

I think the separation of welfare from teaching makes a school soulless. They do it at DCs 6th Form College- it's an artificial separation and might be convenient and efficient for the managers/ educators but it's not in the best interests of pupils / students.

Most schools where I am have Education Welfare Officers and/or Family Support Workers.

It doesn't work particularly well. I've worked in schools who employed a Counsellor and a Family Welfare Officer, who were great at their job. But in a school of 1,000 pupils they can't see everyone who needs them, and often (with teenagers) they need them NOW.

If someone is having a meltdown then they do need someone then and there, and the most likely scenario is that the counsellor is fully booked up for weeks. Also, if they've finally got up the courage to decide they need to tell someone or confide in someone what is happening, if you put them off they will close up again and probably not disclose whatever the issue is.

In addition, I've frequently had pupils who wanted to speak to me specifically - because I'd taught them 3 times a week since they were 11, and they were now 15/16. I'd built a relationship and they wanted to confide in me - someone they knew - not a complete stranger, which is what the counsellor/FWO were.

Having someone else sit in your classroom and deal with behaviour is just odd, to be honest. Behaviour Management is just part of every lesson. You never even get a TA the majority of the time, you couldnt' fund someone in every single classroom to deal with behaviour.

I’m in the U.S. my dd is in a wealthy school district. Each school has multiple support staff and I can’t imagine a school without them.

we have nurses. They handle all the complex medical issues for students. I meet with ours annually to discuss my DD’s asthma. They also deal with skinned knees and tummy aches as they arise.

we have counselors. The number varies by school so that there are enough for each student. They handle day to day stress. They can provide small amounts of therapy. They also curate each child’s educational program as they get older.

some school’s have social workers. Most of ours the social workers are responsible for more than one school so they rotate through the week. That is because there are not enough children at one school to qualify for services. They make sure children and families are connected to benefit programs and just generally support children in need.

Every school has a special needs classroom and team. I don’t know the qualifications of all of these staff, but I know that there is at least 1 rotating educational psychologist in the mix at the elementary level.

what we don’t have. Teachers don’t have TAs as a general thing. There is often another adult in the classroom in lower years, but that is because students may have 1:1 aides or 1:2 aides. Those adults contribute to the general level of supervision, but they really are there to support their students, not to manage the classroom.

basically, the professional support staff is large and just as important as the teaching staff. I know there are school districts that have eliminated the support staff, but that is just crazy. I can’t even see how a school could run effectively. I know we have ridiculous privilege to send our dd to the school she attends but it should be the standard.

Teachers at our school all do welfare, of course we do, but we have 3 staff members who are pastoral support only, 3 who are safeguarding and 3 who do a mix of both as well as things like attendance. They also take on assistant head of year roles alongside a member of slt or teaching staff. The pastoral and safeguarding teams are as well known to our students as we are. They go on trips, do assemblies and come and sit in on classes as well as having one to one meetings and carrying out intervention groups.

Many schools do already have a team who just deal with pastoral care. They don't teach at all. They cannot manage the numbers who either need or think they need this support. This is not even factoring in the kids with send.

This is part of job my job in school, the problems that arise tend to be the when the child is with me they are missing all the input from the teacher and often end up behind because they missed the important parts so the teacher ends up having to repeat what they have said so again takes up teachers time.

The sending a message to the office thing in the last paragraph. We message on Teams for this sort of thing. Or do it the old fashioned way - send a child with a note!

Off topic, I know!

Lots of schools already have Family Support Workers and/or dedicated pastoral staff.

Personally I think it doesn't change the fact that mainstream schools aren't set up to allow a sizeable minority of students to thrive.

Most schools have pastoral teams, most secondaries anyway And primaries will have something similar perhaps called a family liaison officer or similar to deal with pastoral needs.

I often think these posts along side the "we should introduce finance / first aid / DV awareness into curriculums", which have been in them for years, are started by people who haven't set foot in a school in 20 years. Schools are different now but that doesn't change a teachers workload, if they disclose their class teacher then that's who has to do the paperwork etc

What do you mean by, "instead of giving teachers more time off?"

I disagree. Welfare officers are a nice addition, but teachers need to develop positive and trusting relationships with kids, which will naturally lead some kids to seek pastoral support from teachers.

There's another thread where the OP (no way to know if it's the same poster as this with a name change, or a different anti-teacher person) where the chief complaint is that some schools are trying to reduce teacher burnout and improve retention and morale by giving teachers more time off. That thread got roundly voted as unreasonable.

Yes that sort of arrangement. The teacher would still take an interest in the children but not have the responsibility of dealing with everything