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Original poster

how many teachers assistants per class?

52 replies

firstgreatholswiththree · 17/09/2011 21:39

Hi there,

I just wondered what is the normal set up with TA's. I know that it depends on if there are SEN children but if there weren't how many TA's does a school normally have? If there is a different number in different schools (excluding the SEN allocation) how come???

I'm just curious. My kids school has 1 teacher and one TA per class all the way through. How would they fund this if it's not standard???

TIA

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Plonker · 17/09/2011 21:42

My dd's school have one teacher and one TA to each class all the way through too Smile

Helo · 17/09/2011 21:44

It absolutely depends, some schools have one per key stage, some have one per class.

I have two, a 1:1 and a general TA. A work colleague only has one in the morning, someone else I know shares one between three classes and they have to 'book' her for a session if they need her.

sugarandspiceandallthingsnice · 17/09/2011 21:45

Depends on how the school chooses to spend its funding. In one school I had 3 hours per week, in another one full time.

Generally ks1 you have more TA support, but that is just in my experience.

pooka · 17/09/2011 21:47

Different schools have different set-ups. Depends on budgets and so on.

DD's school has 1 TA per class until end of KS1 and then the KS2 classes share a pool of TAs. Iknow that because of budget cuts, dd's year 4 class have 1 morning and 2 afternoons a week with a TA in the class, which is pants because mornings are literacy and numeracy and the teacher is therefore on her own with 32 kids for most of the week. DS1 is in yr 1 and he has teacher and HLTA in class almost all of the time, although the HLTA provides cover for teachers to free them up for training/PPA/meetings and so on, so not ALL the time.

Other schools near here have TAs until end of yr1 and then no frequent TA help for the rest of the school. So it does vary from place to place.

AbigailS · 17/09/2011 21:50

It all depends on school budgets and there is no legal requirement. One per class is pretty good. I know of some schools that have to share one between several classes and others with one just part time. Obviously if there are children with special needs there may be more.

IndigoBell · 18/09/2011 07:08

Schools decide how to spend their budget.

If you employ lots of inexperienced teachers you'll have more money left for TAs.

If you don't have a non teaching deputy head you'll have more money for TAs.

Some schools spend more on the buildings than others.

Etc.

Some schools receive more money than others. Either because of their LEA or their demographic or for other reasons.

Original poster
firstgreatholswiththree · 18/09/2011 07:24

Oh ok thanks or replies. I think it makes such a different to the kids. I was curious how they did so thanks for responses.

OP posts:
activate · 18/09/2011 07:27

youngest's school has 4 TAs and 2 Learning Mentors for the entire school - 2 class intake so including nursery that's 6 TAs across 16 classes

IndigoBell · 18/09/2011 07:44

You can find out how your school spends it's money here

The 2 schools I know well, one spends more on teachers and one spends more on TAs. The one that has a higher proportion of teachers to pupils happens to be the better school.

activate · 18/09/2011 07:50

that website is tremendously out of date - I looked at DS3's school and the headteacher named left 10 years ago after pulling the school into special measures

IndigoBell · 18/09/2011 07:53

It is the latest govt website. It is current.

activate · 18/09/2011 08:12

yes current when you drill down to the stats I have noticed which is from the 2010 info (thanks for that it's useful to pass on to people who are currently doing secondary transfer for the first time)

  • the front page I landed on was horribly out of date though
mrz · 18/09/2011 19:17

We only have LSAs for children with statements

Panzee · 18/09/2011 19:21

Same here mrz, and not enough for one each of the severe needs either. If we had no children with significant problems, we'd have no assistants.

ButWhyIsTheGinGone · 18/09/2011 19:25

We are lucky and have 1 or 2 per class. If two, it's because one is 1:1 with a statemented child. Although they are "1:1" it is quite often one of the child's targets to begin working on occasion in small groups or independently, so having a second TA is fantastic.

mrz · 18/09/2011 19:28

A good TA is worth their weight in gold. While a bad TA is like having 10 extra pupils in the room (my level 3 student grr!)

Hulababy · 18/09/2011 19:29

Where I work we are lucky with our TA provision.

We have a TA in every classroom for most of the time. these are usually senior/level 3 TAs and in our school they are pretty well qualififed and/or experienced TAs with 4 of us being qualified teachers as well. Most work FT but where they are pt is means thnat a class may be without a TA for half to one full day a week, although there is some leeway with a couple of our leve; 1 TAs who can be used in other clases as and when required.

Where children have a statement requiring set TA hours these are on top of the normal TA, so some classes may have two TAs in. The one to one TAs tend to be level 1 and work the hours according to the statement.

HarrietJones · 18/09/2011 19:34

Dd2s school has one in every year though only .6-.8 higher up now due to cuts. Lots of other things have been cut this year but the head seems to prioritise staff.

coccyx · 18/09/2011 19:39

we have 1 teacher and 2 ta, thats for reception. lucky i think

gaphy · 19/09/2011 11:07

Our school funding is so low that we have no TAs other than for SEN kids in KS2, even though my kids, in y3 and y4 have 33 and 34 kids in class. It's appalling......
We're in cambridgeshire and school funcing is just low here.

IndigoBell · 19/09/2011 13:37

gaphy - I'm interested. According to this link, how much money per head does your school get?

I just looked up a school in Cambridgeshire and they don't get any less money than anywhere else.

(So you can compare, primary schools in my area get approx 4,200 per head - and they can all afford a TA in the mornings in every class)

MirandaWest · 19/09/2011 13:38

That's an interesting link IndigoBell. I see the information is from 2009-2010 so things could have changed a bit. Just had a good look at the schools round here :)

MirandaWest · 19/09/2011 13:44

DC's school gets £3,200 per head in total which is quite a bit less than £4,200. Although funding for our LEA is £4,500 per head so looks like our school is slightly missing out there. I only know about Year 1 and Year 3 in detail (DC in those years) but they have a teacher and a TA in Year 1 and a teacher and some combination of HLTA and TA in year 3 (34 children I think). Both of those seem to be full time.

gaphy · 29/11/2011 10:10

@IndigoBell
Sorry have been off mumsnet for a while. Our school on the link had also about 4200 per head, and for that year it did have TA's. But in this school year they had a large cut to their budget (about 40k for a school of 200 kids) and so the TAs went.....

I'll be interested to see if the current government update the spending figures on the link, and what it will show for 2011-12.

redskyatnight · 29/11/2011 11:15

DD's school (YR-Y2) has a TA in every class, plus extra TAs for children who have funded 1:1.
They also have a "floating" teacher who works with small groups of children across the school.

DS's school (Y3-Y6) has a pool of TAs who seem to mainly support literacy lessons.