AIBU to be concerned about no TAs in Year 2?

[Whatwerewetalkingabout]

Maybe I am unreasonable I don't know, but I was shocked yesterday to find there was no TA in either of the Yr2 classes at DCs school. The teacher seemed a bit stressed out already, 30 in the class. For a bit of background school classed as "outstanding", Laurus Trust Academy, several pupils in class on SEN pathway but no help as obvs on waiting lists being 6 year olds.

Last year there was only 1 TA who was shared across Yr1 had a dedicated TA in reception. I also here rumour teacher had to buy some library books out of her own money to replace unreturned books from last years pupils.

I know the school won't get much in the way of pupil premium because of the catchment, but there are still kids struggling in class with SEN and many of the parents including myself are not high earners 20% tax rate, just average, although obviously privileged to be in a "naice" area.

I really don't know what to do, should I speak to the head, to my MP? And there's always PTA fundraisers going on, which I always donate to when I can, but the lack of essential resources has really shocked me.

I do supply teaching and there is rarely a TA in year two who isn’t a one to one TA.

I’ve been in reception classes where there isn’t a class TA. And I’ve been in reception classes where there isn’t a one to one TA either, so just a teacher.

I'm a primary school teacher (Northern Ireland). We have 2 P3 classes (year 2 in England) classes with no assistants. The third class does as there are 2 statemented children (& one waiting an assessment). I regularly buy books and resources for my class. I spend hundreds every year. Write to your local council but the principal won't be able to do anything about it. Every school is underfunded and struggling with a growing population of children with special educational needs with no resources, training and enough adults to support them properly. It is an impossible situation and staff, kids, parents are struggling because of underfunding, lack of provision and little to no training. It's only the beginning of that school year and we are all exhausted.

I've never known year 2 or above having teaching assistants

There is no TA at all in my class this year, neither 1:1 nor floating. There is no money for one. It is tough - I'm alone in the classroom, it's difficult to get the teaching done because of the class management aspect, and there's no question some of the children do have SEN, just undiagnosed. It's certainly not ideal.

I'm really sorry to hear so many teachers are struggling and having to buy resources with their own money, thats shocking! My DCs teacher already seemed a little stressed and they've only been back a week. I couldn't do it, teachers need the resources to be able to do their job with such large class sizes too, and children who have undiagnosed issues and struggling.

I lost my job as a TA due to budget cuts coming from government. The school I work at now have skeleton staff with more need each year. I saw teachers crying in the staff room re.behaviour last year so I’ve no idea how even less staff is going to help, but there’s no money.

It’s been a long time since primary schools were able to fund a TA for most classes.

schools these days tend to put (1:1 excepted) TA suppprt in reception and year 1 she maybe year 6 for sats.

it’s normal now and contacting mp or similar won’t achieve anything

Yeah, fuck it. Who cares.

At DD's school the only class with a dedicated TA is reception. After that it's based on need. Her class has had a full time TA all the way through. The current year 2 don't have one.

I would be concerned, but looking at previous replies it seems to be a common issue unfortunately and I'm not sure what you can do.

Our school appears to be an outlier as they have a lot of TAs - it's a pretty big primary (3 classes per year group) and they have between 6-8 TAs/HTLAs per year all the way up to year 6. I think most of them are floating around classes unless a child needs a 1:1. The school is quite well known to be really good for SEND provision though.

Wow that's surprising. Just looked at my dc primary- 3 ta in reception, 2 or 3 every year after. Some floating support eg the 3 higher level teaching assistants and 1 ppa/interventions and then there's 4 elsa/nurture staff and 1 inclusion coordinator.

YANBU. My ds left primary school in 2019, and even then we were buying library books, stationery and other basics. It was a small village school in a rural area so funding was really low. It had mxed age classes but we did at least have TAs.

We were lucky to have a PTA with two non-working mums who must have spent 10 hours a week each, fundraising. We also had numerous parents working at a large local employer who offered "match-funding" so if we did a sponsored activity, they would apply to double it. One year we raised £72,000 which was basically an extra £650 per pupil, and it still didn't feel well-funded.

Since then it has got worse. Reading practice and a lot of maintenance work is provided by volunteers.

I’m surprised it’s not the norm in lots of schools. My DDs in year 2 and each year 2 class has its own TA, plus then there’s another for 1 to 1 for a child who needs it. There’s also a shared ELSA TA and an SEN lead, as well as a few general TAs who are shared where needed. I would be worried if there wasn’t a TA, how do they get through all the individual reading a few times a week with each child, or take small groups out for targeted work?

You can’t use PTA funds for staffing; it’s for consumables, trips and the like.

No but you can use it for almost everything else, which redirects state money back to staff & their pensions. And you can used DBS checked volunteers for reading practice, and for a whole variety of non-teaching things.

In our primary school (affluent area) there’s a ta in every class, sometimes two of them if there is a child with SEN

the after school club income also funds one of the school TAs

DC's school just has a floating TA for each year group above reception. From year 2 upwards they usually work mornings only. This caused real problems for DD before she got her 1 to 1 TA as she really needed more support as she went up the years.
As it is her supposed 1 to 1 ends up as more of a 1 to 2 as there's a severely dyslexic boy in the class who also needs support, and neither child's EHCP covers a full time 1 to 1 (yes I know I could complain about this, but as DD's needs aren't academic it actually works really well).

Unfortunately this is the way it is. Funding is just insufficient. When I started teaching there was no limit to class size and there was no TA.
As a teacher I would rather the limited resources were spent on providing catch up programmes for struggling children.
Funding for children with an EHCP is partially funded by the school which is why they will use a TA to support more children than the child with the EHCP.
Some schools rely on the goodwill of parents to offer help in a classroom.

lots are saying it’s a funding issue, so why is it that some schools can afford TAs in every class and some can’t? We’re in an affluent area in the South East and there’s a TA in each class. Does our school get more funding than others?

Schools get funding per child. So a large school which has filled each class to 30/31 pupils is going to get a lot more than a small school which might only have 24 children per class.

Unfortunately, this is now what mainstream education looks like. Very little funding for support staff and this of course means teachers are even more stretched than they were before.
I did 22 years as a primary teacher, leaving about two years ago for good. One of the best decisions I ever made for both myself and my family.
The recruitment and retention crisis in education is only going to get worse.
Something needs to be done - and urgently.

My son is in Year 6 and as far as I'm aware, the only TA's are his 2:1 TA's. Unfortunately I think it's normal now.

Yes there is a lack of staff. If I am being cynical my autistic four year old hasn't begun school on a reduced timetable just because he might not cope with a full day but because of staff issues. They might say it is isn't that though.
Although his school does have a TA in each reception class and a few in each year.

I’m lucky my ds had a TA in yR to Y2 - the school prioritised money for staff.

They also had a full time Forest School teacher - that person was then able to float around when staff needed time off or out of the classroom.

This meant school spends almost nothing on supply staff.

You can see some info about the school’s spending online when you look up.

You could ask the school from that point of view, if the cost of supply teachers is through the roof compared to similar school. But it’s a decision by the school’s leadership so you won’t change it

Sounds normal. My kids have always had 30+ in the classroom and there’s never a permanent TA. Just floating ones for kids who need extra support. In p1 our school (probably city wide though I’ve never checked) has 3 instead of 2 classes so the class is 20 or so instead of 30 or so. That’s lovely and helps them get a good start.

There is a well being lead who can take children out to the nurture room and a language teacher and a PE teacher which I guess helps the main teachers get their breaks.