How many teachers/TA's to a class?

[MrsTruper]

Last year (year 2) my dd had one teacher one TA and there was also an assistant for a child that needs special help.

This year (3) my dd says she has one teacher and then the same person from last year that helps the child, no TA.

It is a standard sized primary class ie not far short of 30. Seems short staffed to me.

Are all classes supposed to have one teacher and one TA, or can there be no TA? What is the standard set up?

Many thanks.

www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6022071

www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/RR605.pdf

www.ioe.ac.uk/newsEvents/31191.html

60 children 2 teachers(split Into 2 classes) 2 official TAs usually 2 more to help and a higher level TA acts as supply

That research is interesting as it seems to say that, in general, children on average don't make better progress if there is a TA in the class as well as a teacher.

Our data doesn't support that conclusion for us (accelerated progress after interventions from TAs, better progress on average - though attainment may still be way down - from children from groups who have TA support in the classroom) but it's interesting to see what the picture is in a more general sense.

Our interventions are delivered by teachers rather than TAs

Strategic choice made by the head years ago to invest a lot in training and raising the skills levels of the TAs (one is a teacher anyway, another training to be one) rather than adding on to the workload of teachers - as a small school, we all cover 2/3/4 subject leader responsibilities, do random things like data analysis, website development etc so a decision was made to give specific training to the TAs to deliver interventions and thus spread the wrkload out somewhat.

Works very well for us - we have a very good TA team - but it's maybe not a model that could be replicated everywhere.

We have excellent/experienced support staff too (I have responsibility for 5 or 6 areas -although at one point it was 9)

As I say, just a different model - yours works for you, ours works for us. As long as the children make great progress and barriers to learning are reduced or removed as much as possible for every child, then the job title of who does that is irrelevant, though their expertise is really important. Different things will work in different schools - but it is interesting that the research shows that 'just throwing bodies at the problem' in terms of TAs doesn't work on average.

It occurs to me, though, that you mention 'support staff' - perhaps it's a nomenclature issue. The only staff we have other than teachers + TAs are the secretary and the cleaner - what kind of jobs do the people you call 'support staff' do? It may be that those are tasks done by people we give the job title 'TA' to?

dds headmaster said educational budget has been slashed.

Also we on border of nearby la.

They get more per pupil than our la.

so maybe its just down to how much they have in budget.

Think rula areas get less than city las.

The city la was given extra money to cope with shortages of places. some of schools failing deprived areas so guess in terms of need they may need more tas especially if have high proportion of kids with english as 2nd language.

It does feel unfair as our la has small pockets of deprived areas too but every school gets same not sure about how it is with acdemies though as 3local primaries now converted to academies.

r1 had 2part time teachers 1ta.
r 1 1 teacher and think shared ta with recption class.

year 1 1fulltime teacher, 1 ta and few parent readers.

year 2-early days yet thres 1 fulltime teacher 1 ta but unsure how many hours she does,

not sure about keystage 2 but know there are some tas that work with the juniors not sure if thats for class or supporting individual pupils.

Our support staff are two nursery nurses who working the foundation stage, one TA and one LSA who provides 1-1 support.

work in not working

As I thought - we call the TA who works in the foundation stage a TA even though she's a nursery nurse, ditto the person who works 1 to 1 is called a TA not a LSA.

If we didn't have any TAs, then we as teachers would do the interventions as you do, I'm sure. But as we do have TAs, and they have relevant and specific expertise and training, they do a great job.

If your TAs are working in the foundation stage and 1-1 when do they have time to deliver interventions?

Apologies, I didn't explain that well!

We do have more TAs than you - though not as many more as your initial post suggested because of the nomenclature issue.

The FS TA does deliver interventions - her speciality is physical development - and does those during assembly time at the end of the day, at lunchtime (staggered lunchtimes for different parts of the school so she is free when other classes are still working) and one afternoon a week (complex staffing story).

The 1:1 TA is 'extra', and does not do interventions. Unless we get another child with similar levels of difficulty, she will leave with the child she supports.

The 'class' TAs (1 per class, we go up to Year 4 so 4 in addition to the above) do all do interventions, after being 'standard' TAs during Lit, Num and Phonics for the first 2.5 hours of each day.

Our Nursery Nurses only work with the nursery children and our 1-1 only works with one child who requires full time support so that leaves us with one TA to cover 6 classes

Every class in our school has a TA. This is something our head has deliberately budgeted for as she believes it is important. I'm glad of it in terms of my dc but I'm sure other ways work elsewhere. I dont think there is a norm though, each school seems to do it differently.