To want a TA job

[QuestionAndAnswers1]

Calling all teaching assistants! How are you finding it? Is full time full on? How do you cope with the poor pay - I’m worried it isn’t enough money to justify the work?! Please share any tips or reviews!

This is the false equivalence that has ruined working life here. Dinner ladies are not TAs, do not have the demanding role and are not required to be so educated and knowledgeable. There’s no reason to say that one group can’t have a privilege earned through harder work.

@WaryCrow my feeling on it is you should only have to sacrifice your child’s school events if you are paid well. So I’d definitely want school lunchtime staff to be able to go if they can realistically be covered. Luckily it isn’t relevant as I don’t think any other schools hold their main events at lunchtime!

@jmh740 the friend said she has no idea what other schools near her do and she doesn’t believe it’s anything that varies by region. Just by leadership team. As someone else commented earlier in the post, how can she expect staff to want to stay and work happily on minimum wage and miss their child’s key school events.

Where schools can help is at least to reduce these events. Corporate employers and other schools can then try and have the flex when they are rare. At one point, our school had a family thing every fortnight and I think others often do. Luckily a new Head hasn’t continued that. Even my kids didn’t like it as they used to get upset when I then had to leave, never mind the child I vividly remember sobbing on her desk because her mum was never able to be there. So to be clear, I’m talking a once a year nativity/assembly and sports day which is a couple of hours.

I am taking all these points on board about the actual job though and thinking it all through. I do WISH it wasn’t as expensive and so much commitment in terms of time to train for the other careers I’ve looked at, plus I’m not getting younger so I’m very aware by the time I’ve trained, it has to be worth it in terms of years I can work I guess. I also need the time availability for my kids right now and frustratingly I’ll have loads of time in a few years as they got more independent. So I can’t help wondering if there are roles I haven’t thought about which aren’t minimum wage and do fit around school runs etc! A couple of friends do have jobs like these but have been lucky in finding them perhaps!

As a teacher working with TAs for a good few years their jobs have changed, with far more responsibility sometimes teaching whole classes but not earning that much. Teachers on the other hand earn far more with huge pressures on them to reach targets etc. I now do supply which I love as I no longer have to spend weekends and evenings planning and marking etc. it’s a big step to want to train as a teacher and you need to be sure you want to make that commitment. Certainly don’t consider it if it’s because you want the holidays. I used to spend days at the beginning of the summer holidays sorting the classroom and the same again at the end of the summer setting it up for the new class. This was Primary which is very different to secondary .
Alternatively there are also jobs in school kitchens which fit in with child care and you also get the long holidays.

As a teacher, I was never able to go to any of my children’s performances at school when I was working. I was fortunate to only work part time but think I missed every nativity my DD was in as they were always a Friday and I worked the end of the week.

They are all staff though and you can’t start just making allowances for some staff and not others. You can’t go to your child’s sports day because your job is more stressful.

I'm a teacher who loves my job, although it can be stressful. I would perhaps become a TA with a view to training as a teacher. I am a secondary teacher because I love teaching my subject to a higher level. The training and first few years can be tough so I would get on with them whilst you have support. If you do split teaching can be enough money to support a family. The top of the payscale is around £50K as a classroom teacher without extra responsibility. Obviously the benefits are a job that feels meaningful and pays relatively wellthe downsides are little flexibility in term time. But all jobs have their ups and downs. I work four days a week. If I worked 5 days my pay would be around £55k as I have extra responsibilities. I also do exam marking in the summer for an extra 1.5k. There are times when I have to do a lot of work after school with mock exmas etc. but genrally now that I am established I feel like I can probably do an extra 5 hours a week to get everything done. I can leave straight after school if I want to and do the work later onso it is flexible in that regards.

A lunchtime assistant could be on one level of pay less than a TA or could be the TS's doing it anyway, and it's what 11.30-1 ? so much less money if that's the only job
The actual dinner lady may be in by 9 to prep / cook the food ( depends how the school gets their lunches and where from ) may finish by 2 ?

To actually earn any sort of money the TA needs to do breakfast club / lunchtime duties and after school club thus 8.30-6

@Walkthelakes what makes the training and first years tougher? I’m assuming not knowing what you’re doing, planning lessons and you can now follow your blueprint more?! Just wondered for a bit more detail on that beginning stage - thank you!

Also, does anyone know - in a primary school, how much of the planning is down to you and how much is already prepared or available to download etc? Just wondered about that process as in the past before considering teaching, I’ve assumed there is a sort of national curriculum pack and you just present it almost. Now I’m not wondering about that process.

National Curriculum pack. If only ...

@dapsnotplimsolls totally forgive me here - but why isn’t it all planned and laid out and delivered to the class like that? Why do teachers need to spend so much time on their lesson planning and couldn’t that be streamlined? I’m just so conscious that teachers seem to be spending a lot of overtime on planning, is that fair to say?

No, there is no National Curriculum pack 😂.

You are following the curriculum, obviously, yes, but within that, schools do their own long term plans (which year group does what and when), and then either do their own medium and short term plans or they buy in lots of schemes, but these will often need almost as much replanning for your own class as starting from scratch. Even once you’ve planned everything, it can rarely be used the next year as either your cohort is completely different, you’ve had to move year group, you’ve got a new line manager who wants everything done on different paperwork or the scheme (or curriculum!) has changed.

In teaching, be prepared for early starts (I leave the house at 7.20 with a 10 minute commute and there are usually 5/6 people in before me), lots of time spent planning, assessing, ensuring every learner’s needs is met (much plate- spinning as you will probably have some children who are complete high fliers and others who are not yet holding a pencil/toilet trained), huge behaviour issues, daily marking and assessment, meeting parents, SEND paperwork which can be lengthy, micromanagement of your classroom/routine and lessons, regular lesson observations/learning walks-literally groups of SLT standing with a clipboard watching you teach, planning (and doing) interventions and displays (I quite like doing displays actually but you get so busy without everything else that having 6 display boards to change termly just becomes a chore), leading a subject (that you had no particular qualifications in and might change yearly!) or in a small school-5:6 subjects!… then weekly staff meetings, briefing meeting and planning meetings and home at 6. I try not to take much home with me, but depending on your year group, your marking might need to come home. In most cases, there are no class TAs any more so it’s just you and 30 children all day every day and all eyes/expectations are on you and how much you can achieve alone. Although you are never alone (as you always have a full class), it can see quite a lonely isolating role as there’s no other adults around for much of the day.

It’s also so inflexible now with any sort of home life just being seen as an inconvenience-ill children, their INSET days (which you will be working) and things like assemblies/sports day/nativities will all need negotiations or just missing. If your car breaks, your tooth breaks, roof leaks, bank wants to see you or if you need a GP/hospital appointment/blood test, you can’t get annual leave so hope you can just make do and go in the holidays/half term (which will be ram- packed with smear tests, eye tests, getting to the bank, mechanic, dentist and having things done around the house!

It was a lovely job for many years, but I don’t think it is any more. Of all my teacher friends/colleagues, none of us have children that want to or have gone into the job, whereas loads of us had parents who were teachers ourselves.

Some schools have resources in place, some don't. I'm a secondary teacher - there are schemes of work but I have to produce my own resources.

Just want to check you have also applied pro rata to the salaries advertised. TAs don't get paid lunch or paid holidays beyond standard 25 days ish. Most roles are 6.5hrs a day maximum.

I've just left my TA role, and until I left I didn't realise how much it took out of me, it was far from how my TA role was when I first began, it was no longer prepping for lessons or helping get materials ready, it was massively behaviour management, being a one to one with challenging students and not necessarily SEN, I've been bitten, spat at, Chairs thrown at me, along with many objects, punched, kicked and this was on a day to day basis not a rare occasion.

I think people enter into the role thinking it's all reading and counting when it's so far from it now

Even if the school buys in ready made schemes, you have to tailor it to your class.
e.g. White rose is a fantastic, comprehensive maths scheme. For each lesson, I'd only need to glance over the slides/plan but I'd need to print a class set of worksheets but for some, enlarged and cut into sections to reduce cognitive overload, find or make extension tasks, set up baskets of equipment for each table (dienes/counters/10s frames .... And probably go round begging other classes to make sure there was enough), Print date/LO stickers, mark the previous lessons work if I hadn't done it in the lesson and use that to have an idea of who might be in my focus group next lesson...So each 45 min lesson of pre-prepared supposedly 'ready to go' material, can easily take 45mins to actually prepare.

There was a time when getting a TA role was like finding a hens tooth as every Tim, Dick and Harry wanted a school based job.
Now there is a huge turn over of staff as the reality of the job is tough, carries a lot of responsibility and for very little pay. It’s also quite dangerous work sometimes.

Teachers obviously earn more, but it’s not family friendly and long, long hours.

Go into either with your eyes open.

I think it is getting better in terms of having planning in place. Our Secondary English department has schemes of learning for everythinghowever you are responsible for your class's progress and often you need to really change it to be suitable for the class in front of you. It takes a long time. Like anything you get better the more experience you have. Teaching requires a lot of academic knowledge of the subject, but also how to manage a group of students and the pedagogy of what makes a good lesson or learning experience. The first few years it would take me longer to plan the lessons then it would to teach them! Then they wouldn't go well and I'd have to replan the next one to try a different method or way of doing things. I still think it is a fantastic careerbut it takes a lot out of you in the early years. There is a reason there is a retention and recruitment crisis and I think it is because how tough the first few years are.

Hmmm, it’s not getting any better in primary, sadly.

The money is really poor.

I worked as a TA and the team were nearly all women with school aged children and partners in much higher paying jobs. The partners earning better salaries was what made it doable. But then it has a negative effect on the woman's pension, which I wish I had given more thought to tbh.

An excellent reply from @Shinyandnew1

If you work in a SEN setting, you may find that senior leadership are more accommodating/accepting of you needing time off/unpaid leave. It’s a very rewarding job. You will be given training on holds/deescalation strategies to avoid being physically hurt.

I was expecting some negative reviews and warnings of it being harder work than people give it credit for…but I feel like the vibe here is an overwhelming majority “steer clear” of teaching overall! Such a shame as I was thinking it could work well.

Working whilst bringing up kids feels like such a minefield. I remember telling a friend I was worried about returning to work and managing that around school runs and looking after the kids, especially with additional needs for one. She said workplaces have changed to allow for parenting, and I know she meant in the private sector, but I’m not even sure that’s true widely. Such a shame that something that should work so well in reality like teaching, doesn’t.

@Twiglets1 re your pension point, would a couple not share their pension pots if one is higher? And if they split up, would the partner with the smaller pension pot not be entitled to some of the larger pension? Just checking what you mean there and what you’ve found to be the case.

@Shinyandnew1 I was about to say those are long hours if full time but then realised I used to work longer if you chuck in my commute in my previous life. Difference is I didn’t have children - neither of which are within walking distance to their schools either, so need me to physically do the school runs.

Yes my husband will share his pension with me when he retires. However, I have become aware that women who rely on their husband/partner's pension make themselves economically vulnerable. Mainly from reading threads on MN not regarding my own position as luckily I have a good relationship.

I always felt confident when younger that all the finances were ours, as we have always had a joint bank account and joint finances. But I've read lots of threads of women whose relationships break down so for my own daughter, I'm glad she has a well paid job with a good pension so has economic independence.

Statistically speaking, lots of relationships do fail.