Highland council cutting all classroom assistants

[presario]

Highland council are proposing to cut all classroom assistant positions in it's primary schools.
This in not just a disgrace it's a travesty. Up here many school run composite classes with children ranging from 4 to 5 up to 11 years in the one class. Teachers are stretched to the limits to cover all their needs. Many headmasters are all in class teachers again stretched to do what is already required of them. There are little facilities for kids with learning difficulties. Classroom assistants are invaluable to helping both teachers and children carrying out unlimited tasks freeing up teachers to allo them time to teach.

I have my own gratitude to my local classroom assistant, my own son has Dcd, and low muscle tone. The nearest occupational therapist is based over 2 hours drive away. She kindly came and taught the classroom assistant exercises to do with my son daily, which she did faithfully with great patience and dedication.

What can I do as a mum to help

Thats terrible news - bumping for you. Don't have any advice hope someone comes along soon

Maybe you could go to the local news or somthing ?

Thanks

Hi Presario

Things must work very differently in Scotland. I live in the South East and here this would be a decision for the governors, and head teacher, not the council. In my experience the government and LEA apportion the funding to schools, but the school and the governors have to determine how that money is spent within certain constraints (eg capital funding has to be spent on assets etc, not running costs).

All schools are having to make savings, but from the sound of it the Highlands are using the education budget to cross subsidise other LEA expenditure which sounds wrong. You must have some recourse via your local councillors or MP if this is the case as the education budget is intended for education, not museums, libraries, swimming pools etc as suggested by the BBC article I have just read following your post.

I am not an expert on this, but your councillors will know what the rules are for transferring budget from one budget area to another, and this might restrict what they are trying to do.

Or is the council adopting a tactic of putting out really bad news as a tactic so that if they scale back the cuts to what they really want to do, that will be considered as OK, whereas if they had started with plan B there would have been a lot of opposition?

If they are really intending to do this and there is nothing that can be done to change the council's decision, then another angle on this is to seriously consider academy status, as it would give the school and the governors a lot more freedom from the LEA, although this obviously brings with it more responsibility too. As an academy your funding comes from the department of education direct, whereas as a maintained school it comes from the LEA and they normally retain some of the budget for central services that they supply to schools. Good luck.

We were faced with this just before Christmas 2009. All the Parent Councils got together and took on the council, we pointed out to all parents that this effected them as much as children with SN, through disruption and children with sn taking up more of the teacher's time. We also pointed out that classroom assistants are an easy target.

We really emphasised the difference it makes to all children to have additional support needs staff where we need them, and also that attainment levels would drop.

The council will make a small saving at what cost to the education of all children in the area? Once you lose these people it will be almost impossible for them to get the money to reinstate them again, once the money is cut for classroom assistants you will not get it back. Savings should be made in administration, and other ways(how many teachers are on ht salaries but doing a classroom job (there will be a few) who are not headteachers any more.

I personally e-mailed every parent council in my area, many shared these concerns and we got a petition going from individual schools. We got the press involved and the MP and MSP and any councillors we could.

We did win the point, the council back tracked because of the fact it was a region wide out cry, the power of e-mail and parent council groups working together.

It is a sore point but we also commented on the fact that some tiny schools with a couple of children were costing the region a lot more money for much less benefit(these schools had alternative schools just a couple of miles away) so individual schools made the point that huge savings could be made that way, before such a vital frontline service in education should be cut.

We said that we understood the council had to make cuts but other areas, management positions (have you got Quality Improvement officers in your area? They get £55,000 pa and are there to check the HT's are doing their job - I am sure we don't need as many as we have) there are just so many hidden layers of management in all council departments and I am pretty sure councils could do a good job with half the amount of management - but the more managers working for a head of department the more money that head gets afaik.

Have you heard of the procurement department? Another example of complete mismanagement, you have to buy anything you need through procurement if you are in education, environmental health etc, if you need a torch or a pencil or are purchasing a whiteboard you buy through them.

Our school PTA raised money for an interactive whiteboard, if we had bought it through procurement it would have cost £500 more than purchasing it direct from the company. Imagine if everything the procurement dept buy costs that much more? Imagine the waste of money? It is shocking, procurement is a sick joke IMHO, it exemplifies how councils completely mismanage their money. I know too when people have been travelling i.e flights and train journeys they can cost three times as much when purchased through procurement, even when a member of staff points this out that there is a cheaper alternative they shrug their shoulders.

Omg it is all so shocking. You don't take notice untill it affect you personally and that is why they get away with so much People need to be made aware of whats really going on. thankyou everyone for all your import.

Good luck presario, I lost all my letters that I wrote when I moved recently, but I will have a look on my computer (lost loads of stuff when we changed e-mail address) but if I find anything I will private message you on here.

You need to get your Parent Council to get the ball rolling, there is a fair chance other Parent council's will be preparing to challenge Highland council on this but if you stand together, whilst making your point individually as parents and as a parent council it is a start.

We had a meeting to spell out to parents what this would mean to every child's education, throughout their years at school.

Thanks tapseltreerie0 did you manage to save your classroom assistants.

The council cut the additional support needs budget by £100,000 (they had wanted to cut it by £340,000) so it wasn't a complete success, but it was enough to stop them cutting staff - I have no idea how that worked out, maybe people get less hours, or fewer t.a's will be hired in the future, who knows, but it will be an ongoing battle. I do think we made the council think very seriously about the impact of what they were planning and that without the press/parent councils across the area fighting it we might not have much in the way of ASN staff now. So an initial success if not a complete victory, but well worth the fight!

Parents and teachers were very worried, so it made everyone up for a fight - you need to get everyone supporting the campaign.

That's at least is a result but still not good enough. Hopefully we will also get some sort of result.

That's not good is it, that means taking from Peter to feed Paul.

Yes but parent power counts, anyone who cares about education should fight to ensure that the basic needs of every child is met. That means everyone who cares about education in your area makes sure the councillors get that message.

Without T.A's all children suffer, it doesn't just impact on the child with additional support needs. The impact would be felt throughout the whole of the school years, with problems possibly getting worse as children get older, attainment levels will drop and that is something politicians and councils care about. Anyone working in a classroom to support a child with additional support needs is not paid much considering the overall value of what they do.

You could get children involved too, those that are able can say what their t.a helps them with. It is a very newsworthy subject, your local paper will be interested, as will local radio/T.V. (Some local journalists will possibly have children in school and be willing to help?).

Hi,

I'm a Mum and one of the 344 Classroom assistants who will be affected by these proposals. I have contacted all my local councillors and those in the neighbouring ward. I have been assured that we have the support of the SNP councillors and a couple of Independents. Unfortunately,this is not enough and I have started targetting the Independent councillors in the administration. There is a petition online

www.gopetition.com/petition/42587

Please sign and lend your support, we really need it!!

Thank you

Oops sorry, wrong link!
This one will take you there.
Thanks

www.gopetition.com/petition/42587.html

Thanks have signed the petition and truly hope your jobs are saved, you are invaluable within the classroom

Could everyone please sign the petition to save our classroom assistants (link in post above)

I signed, don't live in your area, but I think this service should be a part of every child's education.

Here's a radical idea. Why don't the Head ?Teachers and Teachers take one of their 12-13 weeks holidays as unpaid. The money saved could then be used to pay for the classroom assistants. After all the classroom assistants have been helping the Head Teachers and Teachers out for years. Equally they get far less pay, not even half as many paid holidays and no insufferable sorry no inservice days.

We are in Argyll and Bute council and have a good understanding of the vast geographical area that is Highland council (the adjacent council to the north of us).

Many of us have pledged our support to this issue, too, after our council recently tried to close 26 schools.

Meanwhile, the council to the south of us, Ayrshire, proposed to make school only 4 days/week. Oh, but they're getting the same number of teaching hours, never mind everyone's childcare arrangements will be screwed and it may mean the difference between more than a few's going to work at all.

thanks everyone, can i just say that previously to moving to the highlands i lived in north Ayrshire and my family live there. it is shocking that the council there think a 4 day week is going to work and the money they might save will be paid straight out on extra childcare. As for here in the highlands, the area is so vast that different areas have very different needs which need to be looked at, this is however the same as eveywhere. schools are all different with each class having very different needs from another. Our schools are composite but have small numbers, they do however have a huge range of needs and like i said before we have no special education here, all our children happily attend the one school. our school does its upmost to meet all these varying needs. the classroom assissa=tant is a huge part of that.The classroom assistant in our school does so much more than just assisst the teacher. it would be such a loss to our school and many others if they were lost. Thankyou everyone for signing the petition and good luck to all those assistants who are facing redundancy.

I've signed this although I'm nowhere near you.

thnaks to everyone who signed the petition, big talks in inverness today, so we will await the final dccision