Not having a teacher at all!

[eatdrinkandbemerry]

Who do you complain to if you child is only being taught by an HLTA.
Headteacher just says if you don't like it there's plenty more schools!
I'm not impressed at all it's been almost 4 months and surely it's not supposed to be that long.
I have read it's supposed Eve a short term cover not a whole maternity cover.

Teachers are voting with their feet - children are feral, parents won’t parent, teachers aren’t allowed to discipline properly, Ofsted cracking the whip and TAs can earn easier better money in Aldi. Education is a shit show.

5

In my LA, the HT would take the class for at least part of the time.

ETA That's always been the case in my LA - even when I was a child.

Sorry to say that your experience is out of date. The situation is much much worse and it’s got worse over the last two years.

Doesn't mean they should be taken advantage of and expected to do a teacher's job on what is doubtless considerably lower pay.

The same in Scotland. (I was in the secondary sector.)

As I've said in response to someone else, in primary if no other qualified teacher available, the HT would normally take the class for part of the time. That even happened when I was at primary school in the '60s.

@WearyAuldWumman this is virtually impossible nowadays. My HT is often sorting behaviour issues across the school. No way could he teach on top of that. Your experience isn't current. Things have changed. Schools have no budget and no teachers.

I'm still working - supply only these days.

The school that I am currently in is very short staffed, to the extent that deputes are covering multiple classes in the hall at times. Nevertheless, the middle managers are organising rotas so that all pupils see a subject specialist at least part of the time.

ETA I'm in the central belt.

At my primary school in the 80s, we would have got a supply teacher in. Schools can’t afford supply teachers now, that’s why they are forced to use support staff. Our head is up to her eyeballs in meetings for child protection, safeguarding, TAF, SEN and LAC-nobody else can run those if she went into class.

@Meredusoleil science

I’m primary. Our deputy is already teaching her own class full time and we have no middle managers. The head is busy in meetings, dealing with behaviour and running the school. Our budget is deficit and doesn’t allow supply. Absence cover has to be done by support staff.

Laughing at the idea that primary schools have ‘middle managers’.

It is almost universal for the only non-teaching member of staff to be the Head (the SENCo might have 1 day out of their own class for SENCo duties and paperwork). Deputies are full time class teachers. The Head is usually also DSL and the only person available to
meet anyone at all - social services, parents, local authority, prospective staff etc etc etc - during the school day.

A head might do an emergency afternoon of cover in extremis. It’s not viable for them to cover on a regular basis - and do their job of managing the school.

Many primary schools in the U.K. particularly small rural ones have a head who teaches a class for two days and us head for three, for example.

The school my children went to had 4 classes and it had 4.5 teachers - the 0.5 to cover the head's non teaching time.

Secondaries will have middle managers. They are extremely rare in primary,

If you feel the HLTA is not following your son's SEN plan correctly, then you can and should complain about this? Is it an EHCP? If not it's not statutory, and so it is hard to enforce this. It may be a good idea to try and pursue an EHCP if you don't already have one.

It's not acceptable for a HLTA to cover a class in this way for 4 months, but the school likely has little choice, it is very hard to recruit maternity cover these days and supply is expensive.

As others have said, you should raise your concerns with your local MP, not because they will be able to resolve the issue instantly, but to try and make education something that's actually talked about at the next election.

It's a smallish primary 350 on roll.
A headteacher
An assistant headteacher
A deputy headteacher and none of them cover absence 🤷‍♀️

He's got an EHCP but the senco is not

The HLTA's in my dd's school are bloody brilliant and l would have no issues any of them teaching her. Only reason they aren't teachers is cos they don't want the hassle of planning lessons.

Posted too soon
He's got an Ehcp but senco has left and nobody is doing the job at present!
So plan is not being followed at all

Sorry this is happening. I've worked with many HTLAs who are excellent but not as good as teachers.
Just keep complaining.

Working in a secondary school in exam season and I was told today that my dept was ‘banned from using any more paper’.
Perhaps Radioactivity should be taught via interpretative dance….il give it a go tomorrow….

Teachers are on their knees with all the reasons given above plus relentless budget cuts ever since education was dragged into a business model. MAT’s and Micheal Gove have their very grubby hands all over this and still they squeeze more. Sick to death of it.

In a school with more than one class in each year, do they not work in teams? That is to say, do the teachers of any given year have regular meetings where the objectives, approach, and milestones for the next week (or whatever period) are discussed and progress in the previous period assessed? It should be possible for teachers to spend a day or two in each other's rooms, doing quality control, fine tuning lessons, etc.

Have you written to your councillor (elections coming up in a week )

Have you written to your MP (elections coming up in a year)

We are about to spend millions on defence spending.

There is no magic money tree. Either we spend it on yachts and bombs or we spend it on teachers doctors nurses firefighters. Do you honestly thing the headteacher is ok with this???

Even if schools could afford supply cover, that is so poorly paid that people don’t want to do it.

OP, you could ask for an early review of the EHCP and ask about a different school. I think the year 5 review is a transition review anyway.

Yes.

OP it's a shit and totally unacceptable situation. But it's not uncommon and it's not unexpected.

I'm wondering whether the HLTA was previously supporting the class and is now having to teach the class, but without the support of an HLTA. That's not unusual either. That might also explain why the EHCP requirements aren't being met?

But they aren’t paid to be teachers - so shouldn’t be marking or planning or doing parents evenings. They probably are, out of guilt.

my complaint would be that they are not paying a member of staff adequately for the job they are doing!