how does it work?

[sleeplessinderbyshire]

sorry, another question from a dinosaur mother (perhaps I should namechange, dinomum has a good ring to it....) DD is almost 3 so I shall be applying for primary school in the autumn. Lurking on here a lot to try and get my head round all this new stuff that is totally out of my comfort zone. Do all schools have TAs as well as teachers? When I was at school you just had a teacher and 25 kids. With all this working at different levels within one class thing does that mean they all do different work all the time? What about when they get to secondary school entrance - how do schools ensure they've all reached a basic minimum at that point? What;s the point of a TA ? Suspect they must have a value as they seem to be mentioned a lot, I just don't see how they'd work when I compare what I read here with what I did at school (i'm only in my 30s so not as if it was a whole millenium ago....)

MOst schoools have TAs (some use different names) in Reception (though there is no leagal requirement) just as schools have had for time inmemorial. There were TAs when you were at school (probably called Nursery Nurses) you just don't remember them.
Equally, classes have always had children working at different levels - I'm not sure why you think this is a new phenomenum ?
In the 90s and 00s a lot more money came into schools, and a lot of authorities and schools spent it on staffing. A lot (but by no means all) of schools now have a TA for either every Infant class, or sometimes shared between 2 infant classes. It depends so much on the individual budget of the school though.
In the early 90s a lot more power over their budget was given to the head teachers and governing bodies than they used to have - another reason why more staffin was introduced - it's the most valuable resource.
How can it be difficult to understand how it's better to have a 1:15 ratio than a 1:30 - I'd have thought that was pretty self explanatory.
Re 'basic minimum at secondary entry' - er, once again, there have always been children who have struggled. My Mum was teaching "remedial" (as it was known then) in the 60s and 70s. Schools are a lot better at monitoring now than they used to be, and hopefully therefore better at intervening, but there will always be dcs that struggle even with Gvmnt after Gvmnet moving the goalposts.

Oh the shame of all those typos

Depends on the school. Some schools have at least 1 TA in every class. Some share a TA between a year group. Some have no TAs in the upper KS2.

There would have been TAs at your school, but not as many. Did anyone ever come in to help with arts and crafts, but who didn't have a class? Who was in charge of first aid?

Most schools differentiate work three ways. Normally, the entire class is doing the same overall theme, but accessing it at a different level. For example, in a maths lesson I might have

• 2 groups adding a 2-digit number to a tens number (ie 10 + 24)
• two groups adding two 2-digit numbers with no roll over of digits (ie 23 + 44)
• one group adding two 2-digit numbers where the units roll over but the tens don't (ie 36 + 28).

They're all adding two digit numbers, but I've changed the activity to make it harder for some. If the children understand, then I'd give them some different numbers to work with.

A TA supports a group. The current mode of teaching is for the teacher to have a focus group- they sit with a table and work with them exclusively, rather than the old style of wandering around.

I use my TA to lead focus groups, or to do the wandering around bit if I'm really trying to push one group to achieve a particular goal, and don't want distractions from other children.

The other new thing you'll be surprised by is interactive whiteboards. No chalk and blackboards any more!

Schools didn't always have TAs. None existed when I started schools, but then parents didn't help either, there was no reception, and there were often 35 or more in a class. (We did get a remedial teacher in KS2 equivalent).

Schools now have far more children with Special needs and special educational needs, some of these have statements which may provide for the support of a TA. EG. in my kids schools there have been: lots of Autistic kids, Downs Syndrome, Partially sighted, Deaf, Physically disabled, and children with life limiting illnesses; and that ignores ADHD, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia (and psychological issues) which were always there but not always labelled.

TAs are quite often trained, and can even become HLTAs who can run a class without a teacher for a while.

You will discover that for all age ranges there are far more adults in school than in the olden days. But also far fewer children are hidden away in "special schools" (in fact it can be hard to get a child in one even if they really need it).

I went to a state primary for first 2 infant years (like y1/2) and then moved to 2 different private schools for upper juniors after we moved house. definitely no TAs anywhere in my schooling experience

Believe me, if you are just into your 30s, you wouild have been starting school a couple of years before I started teaching, and there were definitely TAs in schools then (I'd have been doing Teaching Pracs when you started, and there were TAs in every Infant school in my authority). They weren't called TAs, they were generally NNEB trained, and they were usually based in Reception only, or maybe other Infant classes got to share them, but they were around. I started school in the 60s, and there were support staff in schools then. At 5 though, people just tended to be "Mrs x", you didn't know if they were teachers, or assistants (as many children don't now).
I can't talk about Private schools, I've only attended or taught in state, but, in England and Wales, having some assistants in school (whatever they were called) is not a new thing.

I am 43 (so possibly older than dinomum - amoebamum?) and never encountered a TA or indeed anyone fulfilling that function with a different name. I had a class teacher every year and that was, by and large, the only adult I interacted with on a daily basis at school, bar the dinner ladies. There was a school nurse but her function was entirely based around dealing with children who'd wet themselves and taking temperatures and phoning your mum if you were ill. Oh, and the nit nurse once a term.

My five year old DD's class at a bog standard state primary has a teacher and TA for every class in the school - and no classes have more than 30 kids in them so it's a vastly superior adult to child ratio compared with when I was small and there were 38 in my class with just one teacher to cope with all of us.

I help out at my daughter's school once a week and the TAs are invaluable. They support children who are finding something hard, they suggest ways to do something differently to extend children who are finding something easy, they are there to help a child who has trouble putting their socks on after PE, they take kids to the loo or to get a drink or to take their jumper off and hang it on their peg so that the teacher needn't have her attention taken away from the rest of the class, they encourage all the children to access activities that are available, they hold children's hands when they feel shy or overwhelmed, they do everything that you'd do if you were in a classroom with your child and he or she needed a bit of help. The TAs at the only school I have experience of are all without exception lovely lovely people who really like children. I think they are bloody great and wish they'd been invented when I was small!

Backfor good I can assure you in the 60s and 70s where I grew up there were no support staff in schools. But it was a very poor area.

Hi sleeplessinderbyshire:

First can I direct you to the Pearson learning pages here on Mumsnet:
www.mumsnet.com/learning - this will give you a lot of basic information about curriculum and how things are now taught.

I would also encourage you to look at the prospectus from the school(s) you are interested in sending your DC to next year. At some point in the autumn most schools will have an open day for prospective parents - this is usually also explained in the information your LEA will send you about applying for a school place (you can check your local county council/ city council website for this information - mostly now all on-line). I would strongly advise that you visit schools and have the tour around and listen to what the head, etc... have to say before deciding on which school to attend in your area, if there is a lot of choice.

Now about Teaching Assistants (TAs). During the labour government funding for support staff in schools greatly increased. Usually there are 2 TAs in Key Stage 1 (Reception - Year 1 - Year 2 - ages 4 - 7) and usually 1 TA in Key Stage 2 classes (ages 7 - 11). However, sometimes when a child has special needs, they may also have additional TA support in that class to help deal with that child's needs.

Differentiating work: This is from Teacher's Media and is a video about teaching mixed-ability children in Year 2 (ages 6 - 7): www.teachersmedia.co.uk/videos/mixed-ability-in-year-2
I think this will give you a better idea of what is meant to be going on in terms of teaching children at a number of levels.

What you'll find in practice is that part-way through Class R the children will be placed into groups for reading, writing and maths. They also may have general groups of very mixed ability - for work that can be done together at all abilities (for instance painting). These groups will accommodate those children in reading who can already read quite well, can sound out well and read one-syllable words, can sound out well but need support blending sounds, and struggling to sound out words or read at all. This kind of thing will also apply in math and writing.

What happens is that children who are struggling will probably get more time with the teacher/ TAs to really support learning and improve progress. The teacher will work with all pupils, but more able pupils can be set off with work and left to it, with light supervision and less able pupils may need more help/ guidance. As a parent it is sometimes hard to see the teacher not spending a lot of time with your child - but there are 30 pupils - all with individual needs/ abilities - and so it is important to understand that your child is sharing resources, including the teacher. Where you can help - is to do as much reading at home as you can, support homework policy and where you see your child struggling, try and find ideas, resources, games, etc... to support learning at home. It's a triangle really - child - teacher & parent. We all have a part to play.

HTH

2 TAs in KS1 classes? Not usually, in my (inner city) experience. One per class, maximum. I too was at primary in the early 1970s and there was no-one there who wasn't a class teacher except the RE teacher and a parent who came in to help. I have no idea how much differentiation there was then; through juniors we spent about half our time working through workbooks individually. Now they work in differentiated tables of 4-6 kids each.
Another change you'll notice - homework and reading books. Also, parents in the classroom and around school generally. Most schools seem to have way more parents involved, both as reading helpers and for attending assembly, cake sales etc, than was ever expected in our day.

I'm in Derbyshire and from my experience the allocation of TA's vary enormously. In my dd's first school there was a TA in foundation stage and another TA that floated around all KS1 and KS2 generally doing work with small groups of children that needed extra support. There were then LSA's who supported individual children with statements of SEN.
Dd now attends another primary only two miles from her first in Foundation there are three TA's and 4 LSA's and there is a full time TA in each class throughout KS1 and 2. In dd's KS2 class for instance there is her teacher, the class TA, dd's LSA for 20 hours, another statemented child's TA in class full time. Then TA 's come to the class to remove children to run programmes with them outside of the class, some children also attend nurture group daily and there is generally a student teacher in the class most days.

trifling - I'm writing about our inner city school - and it's 2 TA's KS1 and 1 TA KS2. There is a sizeable proportion ESL and a wide range of abilitly - so the 2 TA model works very well. We also have a Deputy Head and Assistant Deputy Head - helping with one on one, class cover (release of teacher for paperwork) & SEN.

I don't think our school is particularly well funded - but the Head is very determined staff get a lot of support and the high support of TAs in KS1 does seem to result in a great start for most children.

However - I think you can see sleeplessinderbyshire - that each school is different - so it may well be an idea to check the 'staff' section in the prospectus for potential schools & also see how things are first hand at an open day.