‘Flexible use of support staff in keeping lessons face to face’

[Skinnyfrappewithmilk]

One of the points made by the education sec for return to school this week.

Are they planning on paying a decent wage for support staff then?! I’m a TA and having to claim UC as my wage is so poor, quite frankly it’s an insult.
I’m so angry reading that…our pay and conditions are already awful, I can’t quite believe the cheek of it.

The problem is we are all "good willed" out. In my school anyway. Plus to be honest we are far more likely to catch Covid from the children as we are working more closely with the children (plus we deal with the behaviour so a often spat at etc). But we will be there tomorrow with a cheerful smile and get on with it.

@Spikeyball
"I hope they are not expecting schools to use children's 1:1s."

Of course they will. Most of the TAs in my school are 1.1s.

I don’t get paid anything comparable to my teaching colleagues precisely because I don’t have their training and expertise. Who on earth thinks it’s a manageable solution to put me in charge of classes??!

Because the next 3-4 weeks are going to be exceptionally difficult for all sectors of the economy - unfortunately we all have to make some sacrifices to get through it!

Keeping schools open at all costs is not the answer.

But if those costs are huge - think about the need to offer furlough payments to working parents etc and the mental health costs etc - perhaps it is better to keep schools open, even if the teaching is substandard for a few weeks?!

Combining classes is also an interesting idea...in which enormous classrooms should we do this?!

Our school have already been using TAs rather than send children home, and no extra pay. We had a week when two TAs had to take a class with no imput from teacher (teacher had been moved to take another year group and had what was left of two classes in the hall) so had more children than usual, who were obviously unknown to him and had to pick up teaching a different group. That's the worst, but we've had other times when TAs have covered.

@Blubells lol- there speaks the voice of someone who has clearly never experienced the unique creeping feelings of panic that are often felt by someone left in sole charge of a large rowdy group when their attempts at behaviour management are failing.

Are we all making sacrifices, though ?

Really?

Because it seems to me that these 'sacrifices' are very unevenly distributed.

Indeed, I feel that these 'sacrifices' seem to fall disproportionately on the low-waged, the insecurely employed, and in the 'caring' sectors.

perhaps it is better to keep schools open, even if the teaching is substandard for a few weeks?

Perhaps it's just my school, but it's not just been a few weeks of less than ideal teaching. We've had months of disrupted learning with staff absences, burnout, isolations, ad hoc cover from whoever we've been able to get into the classroom.

Exactly @thecatfromjapan
I’d like to see how long @Blubells would last in the scenario i just described.

It's very easy to call for 'sacrifices' from an armchair padded by a good income, secure employment rights and - in the case of our Prime Minister - rest and recreation breaks funded by wealthy donors.

Very easy to exhort others to make those 'sacrifices'.

What on earth teaching do people think will be going ahead in jumbo classes supervised by non-teaching staff?

Busywork at best. Chaos at worst.

It's quite clear that as long as schools are open, some will not give a shit about what actually happens in them. Quality of education does not seem to be a consideration.

@thecatfromjapan completely agree with you.

Imagine 60 kids in the hall with a poor underpaid TA and then Ofsted arrive!

@noblegiraffe

What on earth teaching do people think will be going ahead in jumbo classes supervised by non-teaching staff?

Busywork at best. Chaos at worst.

It's quite clear that as long as schools are open, some will not give a shit about what actually happens in them. Quality of education does not seem to be a consideration.

Yes - presumably this means inspectors will be taking this into account

I’d like to see how long @Blubells would last in the scenario i just described.

I probably wouldn't last long

But what's the alternative?

Long-term, does state education recover from such trivialisation and lack of respect for its core purpose - education?

Does the implicit de-professionalisation of teaching recover?

It's a change of mindset, a moving of the Overton window as regards how we view state education and what we have the right to demand of the state.

It's an assault on pay and conditions of support staff (&, I would suggest, on teachers, too).

Whose interests does all that serve?

A small primary near me limped through the last two weeks of term with the HT as the only teacher on site, and TAs. Only possible because of the massive goodwill of everyone involved and the fact that there were large pupil absences too.
They did not try to pretend it was normal education.

All under the very virtuous-sounding guise of 'sacrifice'.

And yes, I really resent the idea that I haven’t yet done ‘my bit’.

I’ve already stood in and overseen keyworker children during last January’s school closures. I’ve done mass testing. I’ve organised yet more mass vaccinations and distributions of LFTs.

Yet, my own job, the one I’m pretty poorly paid for, is neglected but I’ll still be held to account if it’s sub-standard. It’s untenable.

What annoys me above all else is that when we are short staffed in SEN school with all the class kids in the teacher still takes a days PPA, yes it’s a legal requirement but ffs there’s no cover for them, change to a different day of the week FFS. So we’re down a member of staff then they have the audacity to complain when behaviours are sky high.
There’s been a lot of situations where teacher takes PPA, and a TA is off and we’re lucky if we get agency to cover, agency who are quite frankly shit but we have to remember ITS ABOUT THE KIDS

We’ve been doing that all the way through, with a small uplift in pay for hours covering a ‘full’ class. Tbf, the SLT have also stepped in wherever possible, but the first resort is to ask the TA based in that class (and they are usually a 1:1) to cover. Some have refused and there has been no comeback on that (as there shouldn’t be!).
For continuity and behaviour control reasons it is thought to be the best way. We do get supply teachers in where possible, but that wasn’t possible for most of last term.

@Blubells

I’d like to see how long @Blubells would last in the scenario i just described.

I probably wouldn't last long

But what's the alternative?

The school would have to admit it can teach all its pupils and send some year groups home.

It’s shit for the kids and their parents but it’s not fair to expect poorly paid TAs to teach classes.

All of our TAs are assigned to vulnerable students with an EHCP, we also have exams next week and and will be redeploying TA staff to read and scribe for these, TA staff also get sick and are mostly parents who have to take time off for sick children when needed too. In normal times I’d say we struggle with TA staffing levels more than any other roles in school. We struggle to recruit and seem to be constantly under staffed.

TAs have an incredibly important job, they can’t supervise whole classes as well.

The government has missed its recruitment target for teachers for 8 years now, the issue isn’t just Covid.

School funding cuts meant that TAs were the first to go.