TAs in classroom

[Blackcathaireverywhere]

In your school, how often does your child's class have a TA in the classroom with the teacher (and what year are you referring to and how big is the school)? Are they in the classroom, or generally taking children out to do spellings, reading, times tables etc?

It really depends on the school and budget. Where I work every class pretty much has a full time ta. Ds1 has a full time at but he is in reception. Y1 and y2 have a ta for mornings only.

Depends I suppose. In our school reception and yr1 definitely have 1 full time TA. There are also other ta's who are there either full or part time to support children with statements but do also help others in the class.

Seems to me they work mostly in the classroom.

DD's in reception, very small school (120 in whole school, including nursery), 1 full time and 2 part time TAs, so there's always 1 in the classroom and 1 reading/doing group work etc.

DS in year 5, bigger school (315 children) 4 TA's split across the 3 year 5/6 classes, so usually have 1 in each class plus the HLTA working with small groups, split 3 mornings with struggling children and 2 mornings with G&T.

Hi blackcat:

Last year I would have said 2 TAs Year R and Year 1, then 1 TA per class Y2 - Y6 (single form school YR - Y6). We do have an extra TA in one class to support a student with SEN.

but this year

DD1 reports in Y6 that she is primarily being taught with about 1/2 her class by Y2 teacher (who is part-time - 4 days a week) and TA is with other half of class and main teacher part of the time (especially with Y2 teacher not there) - but I've posted elsewhere they're going all out cramming for KS2 SATs at our school.

I am hearing from other parents with younger siblings and DD2 (Y4) - that TAs are not there all the time- but this may be because the school are now using them for more remedial work (a long standing bug a bear with many of us parents). So hard to know if there hours are reduced (certainly in classroom less) or if they're being deployed in other ways (accelerated reading schemes/ maths support/ etc...).

In dds' school, f/t TA in Reception, Y1 and Y2. Slightly less that f/t in higher classes up to Y6.

They spend time in classroom (especially in young years) but also take children out in small groups.

And I have to say, the TAs are on the whole the most wonderful asset to the school and make a huge difference. Valued by everyone from children to Head.

Oh - and there are LSA (learning support assistants) to assist individual kids in classes, too.

DD Y5 has one in class full time. We are new to the school, so I don't know if this is normal at this school. I haven't asked the teacher about it, but DD insists that she helps the whole class, not just one child, or a small group. The school is making a huge effort to improve Y6 SATs though, and I did wonder if this was part of that.

Can I just second Elibean:

Definitely have the impression that many TAs at our school are better (and clearer) teachers than actual teachers.

(just to clarify - the 'bug a bear' thing is that parents have been asking why TAs aren't being used to support struggling learners more for years - school seems to finally be using TAs for small-group work/ tutoring - but not sure to what extent)

As DS3s school the Y5/6 class has one full time TA and one part time (just mornings) (big class of around 35 kids)

The Y3/4 class have one full time TA (25 kids)

The Y2 class has one full time TA (24 kids)

The YR/1 class has one full time TA and one additional TA 3 mornings a week. (24 kids)

All TAs are in the class almost exclusively. Very little time is spent outside the classroom.

At the school where I was a Governor, we had a high level of special needs children so the TA hours allocated to them was spent partly in and partly out of the classroom. Other TAs would be assisting children in the classroom, whatever their ability, listening to them read, giving further help if needed when children were working as a group, and being responsible if the teacher was absent. The TAs were included in INSET and were a very important part of the school. Some classes had a full time TA, others did not. It depended on the needs of the children.

Loads, but lots of SEN.