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Primary education

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Original poster

HLTA teaching classes

7 replies

carol2010 · 08/09/2010 20:41

i have just recieved a letter from my sons school (he has just started year 4) informing me that as his teacher needs to assist the head, a HLTA will be covering the whole classes lessons (unsupervised) for 2 full days for the whole of the year. Is this suitable/legal? ii thought due to the amount of time they would of found a teacher to work part time to teach the class. Can anyone enlighten me?

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Needaname · 08/09/2010 21:20

Think it's legal up to a limit (two days I'm guessing!) and unsuitable.

Original poster

carol2010 · 08/09/2010 21:33

i would really like to argue that its not in the best intrests of my child but i like to use facts and so far cant find antthin on the web, i cant believe that a teacher can be out of the classroom for 40% of the week! My sister thought it should only be used as a tempory measure

OP posts:

pointydog · 08/09/2010 21:42

2 full days!n My goodness, I'd make a fuss.

Teacher401 · 08/09/2010 23:04

HLTA can be used at head's discretion and it is up to them how they are deployed at the moment. There is discussions taking place at the dofe regarding this.

admission · 08/09/2010 23:37

In some respects an HLTA can be a better bet than a supply teacher who does not know the children but 2 days a week for the whole year seems a very excessive amount of time to be relying on an HLTA.

If you really want to make a fuss then you should send a letter to the Director of Childrens Services at the LA enclosing a copy of the letter from the school and politely ask whether this is legal. I suspect that there then might be another letter from the school saying they have changed their mind. This is taking headteacher's discretion too far and thinking about the financial incentive of using an HLTA too much.

Original poster

carol2010 · 09/09/2010 07:20

Thank you thats good advice, i am going to confirm that the person is question is a HLTA as its been suggested that that might not be the case.

OP posts:

admission · 09/09/2010 11:47

Checking up about the person is a very good idea and something i should have thought of for my previous post.
Quite a few HLTA are in fact qualified teachers in which case this would be a perfectly sensible and legitimate response by the headteacher. Though you would have thought that it would have been sensible to say so in the letter if that was the case.

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