Does a full time TA post exist anymore?

[pugsandseals]

Been looking around at various options locally & I have only found adverts for part-time assistant posts. I was shocked to find many of them are 30 or 32.5 hours per week with termtime pay only (all be it spread out over the year) resulting in about 60% of the pay of a full-time equivalent.

I would love a teaching assistant job but with many of the ones I've seen advertised paying between 6&8k per year, who can afford to take these jobs?

30 or 32 hours is full time at they only usually work 9-4 or 8.30 to 3.30. They have never been paid for school holidays.

This is what I mean - how do they get away with only paying part-time wages for what is effectively a full-time job? And what person can cope on a full-time wage of 6-8 thousand pounds per year? Unless they take evening bar work or something to make up the difference - it must be the least possible paid job in the land!

ha. totally normal. never been anything else.

and it is a part time job, which is how they get away with it.

pocket money for having a convenient job round school hours.

i lasted about two terms, and as i was in a secondary, i was only being paid for the lessons i was supporting specific children in, not even 'ft' for the school day as some didn;t need support in (eg) pe, so i wouldn't get paid for that.

it's very interesting. the assumption is that you are unqualified and unable to get any other job that fits in around school hours, so you are willing to accpet the pittance on offer. the idea of it being a vocation is anathema.

Most full time job holders don't get 12 or 13 weeks holiday or to finish at 3.30pm every day though do they? TA's are hardly going to be employed when the children they assist aren't at school.

I, (like all other school support staff I know) work these hours for this pitiful salary, simply to fit in with my DC's education. If you want full-time pay, you need to be looking for something 48 weeks per year, 9am to 5pm, sorry.

Also, the salary for working 32.5 hours per week as a TA where I am (East Anglia) is around £10K, I earn circa £7K+ for working 25hpw. There are several different pay grades for TA work.

should say that obv the wages are all pro rata - so they aren't below minumum wage or anything. it's a choice.

It's low pay, I work in a pre school so it is similar (and lower per hour), I can afford to do it as dh earns well and because I don't have to pay childcare.

I'm a TA doing 32.5 hours a week, I'm at the top end of level 3 pay now so earn more than you've quoted. I am in a special school though where most of us are paid at level 2 or 3.

They get away with it because lot of people don't want the headache of child care for 9 weeks of the year.

I am paid from 9-12, and 1-3.20. But I need to bee in school from 8.45am to let children in, and often don't leave until 4.15pm, and then do odds and ends from home.

After before and after school club child care for my own DC/ tax I am £50 better off at the end of the week. I can only afford to do this job because I have a hutband who earns much more than me.

I am wanting to make the transition from children's services work, eventually to senco teacher but I need to learn the primary curriculum/get recent classroom experience before I could seriously look at teaching positions.
It seems all the lower grade teaching jobs are taken by either NQT's or HLTA's which is where I would be hoping to get the experience. I can't afford either to drop my salary to below £12k or take a career break to retrain in the near future so it's looking more and more like I'm stuck where I am with fantastic pay but stupid amounts of travelling if I can't find a suitable TA job!

I live in London and I recently costed up a part time ta job (17 hrs am only) vs 2 days a week regular teaching but through a supply agency. I worked out that because I wouldn't have to pay much tax or for after school club there was only about £200 a year difference for a lot less hassle. If I had to pay a local childminder as the after school club gets full i would be paying more than double in childcare and would actually earn less . Bizarre.

Exactly re-up!

I would be equally as well off if I worked mornings only. I work during the afternoon just to pay after school care. When I could be sitting at home for 3 hours every afternoon.

you won't find a suitable TA job if those are your requirements, tbh.

you should look at GTP though. difficult to get accepted without the classroom experience, but you might find the children's services background would swing it if you could find a school willing to take you? (assuming you have the other qualifications etc)

no way you could apply for career development loan or similar and take a year for pgce?

could you apply for a bottom end TA job and take on another job as well to top up over 12k? couple of months ft temping in the summer might do it? weekend work in sainsbo's stacking shelves? evening stuff if you have a partner that's home?

career changes are interesting times.

I thought this was the norm in schools, as teachers are also paid termtime only (195 days) though the actual payments are annualised.

I've known TAs who want to increase their income to work during the school breaks for play schemes or to temp nanny for working families; also if working hours fit, to do after school nannying, or school to childminder drop offs.

That's the annoying thing Madwoman - I already have a PGCE, just not the recent classroom experience. I might have to look a supply, but am very nervous about the lack of certainty!

ha.
then i would almost certainly be looking at addressing that specifically, rather than trying to search out a TA job. i see what you mean though - tricky to organise. use your vacation time to volunteer? any chance of you going p/t in your current job and doing supply until you are confident you are up to speed?

Not wanting to be a prophet of doom but I know from speaking to my sisters in law who are teachers and many friends who are teachers that the schools where they work rarely use supply teachers any more but tend to use the TA's to cover staff absences etc but of course it may be different in the area where you live but it might be worth ringing around schools to check :)

as mummy says above, Cover Supervisors are used more and more often these days instead of supply teachers. Perhaps this is an area you could look at as the pay is much, much better than that of a TA.

I work as a TA and soon to start as a HLTA within the same school. I work Pt though, just under 20 hours a week and term time only.

FT ta jobs doesn't exist. They are all pro rata. So only term time and only school hours. We also don't get paid for break times. I find the later the worst bit really - not being paid for the hour in the middle of the day or the 15 min break that I have to have, as it's not like I can go home in that time or do anything else, I am still stuck at school, albeit having my lunch.

And the pay isn't great.

However, I chose the job as opposed to teaching - I am a fully qualified and experienced teacher - as it currently fits in better with the home/work life balance I want whilst DD is in primary school. I still do lots of work in my own time, unpaid, but the workload and stresses are still iminimal compared to when I taught.

Hulababy - that was exactly what shocked me, if teachers get paid for their lunchtimes & breaks then surely it wouldn't hurt to offer the ta's something seeing as they can't do anything else in that time! It's just the general assumption that part-time people have loads of spare time in which they are happy to volunteer.
I expected a part-time post to only take up 2 or 3 days so I could continue to work at higher pay on the other days. But it seems schools that is not what is mean't by part-time!
Might have to look at reducing my hours & doing some supply but it worries me that there is no guarantee of work at the moment. On the tes forum there are lots of people struggling to make a living out of supply.

Edith, teaching jobs are salaried, and iirc NQT rates are about 23k pa.

TA jobs are hourly paid at around £7 ph (varies according to experience and area).

To save the LEA money, they employ TAs for the minimum possible amount of hours.

I'm NVQ 3 qualified in a related field (not TA specific but very close) and have TA experience. If I'd been on 37.5 hours per week, 48 weeks per year, I'd have earned about £16.5k. Sounds like a great salary, right? Not when you knock it down to 30 hours pw and 39 weeks per year...

I was a TA back in 1997 and that was the case then.

I worked in a call centre for 12 hours a week at the same time :(

To be fair teachers don't technically get paid for their breaks and holidays either. They get paid for xxx number of teaching hours. But their salary is given as an annual salary and then worked out pro rata.

going for interview as a TA in SEN school (London)
TA pay scale 3
What salary is that?
I got NVQ Level 3 - SEN specialism
Can anyone clarify what the pay rate is in London? actual salary per month?
Thank you.