No qualified teacher in class for two terms

[Belinda61]

My dd is just finishing her first term at primary school this week. She's settled in really well but we have just been told her teacher is leaving as of the end of term and they have no plans to replace her. The class will be looked after permanently by TAs. I understand that they are well qualified TAs, but that seems an awfully long time to be without a qualified teacher.
I've phoned the department of education and they told me that this was perfectly legal.
Has anyone else found themselves in this position? I'm so worried about her education suffering if she doesn't see another teacher until September, she's just starting to learn to read and write and generally lay the foundations for future learning. But equally changing schools just after she has settled in seems unfair (and that's if I can get a place for her elsewhere).
Does anyone know of any legislation or best practice guidance out there that I can use to back me up when I raise my concerns with the school?
Apologies if this is a repeated thread, happy to be pointed back to another one, but the only ones l could find were a bit out of date.
Thanks!

[LockedOutOfMN]

I haven't read the full thread but would advise the OP to write to her MP.

Complaining to the school will confirm to them what they already know and can do nothing about as presumably they have no money for a new teacher or there are no teachers available to recruit: both situations that school leaders, teaching unions, teachers and governors have been worried about for some time.

[Underparmummy]

Yes, agree, schools don't know what to do, they have no money to manoeuvre.

Schools nowadays are so different to the experience our generation had.

[Bellamuerte]

TAs are cheaper than teachers. As a teacher I've experienced situations where the school needed a class taught for five hours but they didn't want to pay a teacher's salary for five hours. So they paid me to teach for two hours and expected me to plan enough work to be completed in the remaining three hours under the supervision of a TA who was paid half of my salary.

I thought that was bad enough - I'd be even more unhappy if my child didn't have a qualified teacher at all, and would be complaining to the head, my MP and anyone else who would listen.

[pontynan]

Agree with LockedOut - no school would do this through choice. It may be about money or recruitment. Schools will be getting their new budget in April - it could be that they know their enrolment figures for next September will not be enough to support another teacher. However, TAs are also qualified - for example, it takes 3 years to qualify as a HLTA (Higher level teaching assistant) - and most of them are very good. I am sure you will also find there will be a qualified teacher responsible for all the planning and assessment for your DD class etc with the TA being there to deliver the plans in the classroom under the supervision of a teacher, who might well be physically in another class. Please check the facts first - headteachers are generally more open to genuine questions than to possibly uninformed complaints.

[Norestformrz]

But schools do choose to do it. It's a difficult choice between employing a teacher or TAs.

[MaisyPops]

But schools do choose to do it
When the biggest cost in schools is staffing, what do you propose goes when the school haven't got the money?

I've seen good schools in my area cutting DT, music, drama etc. There have been redundancies because of that or they've redeployed staff out of specialism when staff from other teams have left. (E.g. PE teacher also teaching maths, drama teachers teaching history).
School trips have largely been culled. Training off site has been pulled right back unless it is for the exam boards.
The curriculum has narrowed for some students.
Many schools are leasing their buildings out of the main working week. Our building stops being ours after 7pm as it's ran by a letting company out of hours.
Some schools won't employ new staff who are at the top of MPS or on the upper pay scale unless they are applying for leadership jobs. NQTs are much cheaper.

It may be a choice, but in order to have a teacher over a TA can mean losing something else the students need.

[Norestformrz]

Well the OPs school is employing TAs (plural) to teach reception so the obviously have money to pay staff

[MaisyPops]

2 TAs can still cost less than an NQT though. And if one (or both) TAs are already in school then it's more affordable than a qualified teacher.

I should add, I don't agree with it and think all children should be taught by qualified specialists who are good. But the reality is that there's a shortage and fundung is leaving schools with limited options.

As a teacher, I'd rather my child had a highly experienced TA who may well be doing HLTA training than a qualified teacher who has a poor track record.

[Greenshoots1]

2 TAs can still cost less than an NQT though

this makes no sense to me though, as TAs are paid by the hour - and as a full time teacher I am paid less per hour than I was as a TA, given that teaching hours are well over double, often more than triple TA hours.

So a TA would only cost less if not claiming over time.

A TA who is not claiming their over time is letting us all down, staff, children, parents, everybody.

[Norestformrz]

There isn't a national pay formula for TAs some may be paid by the hour but in my area they are salaried and a NQT would cost significantly less then two TAs.

[Greenshoots1]

even if they are salaried they will have contracted hours, which are short, and need over time for anything beyond that.

[MaisyPops]

green
No TA i know claims overtime.
There's more people wanting to be TAs than jobs available.
I'm seeing almost no level 3 jobs advertised and increasing numbers of level 2 TAs having to plan and sort out vast numbers of interventions, do extra english for eal students/send students etc. One TA friend of mine is expected to coordinate maths and english intervention for pupil premium students, another has been given a target to increase reading in boys. It's utterly shocking what is being asked of them (but that's how it's heading with teachers too with many staff having to do the workload of a TLR for 'experience' with no time or increased pay. My TLR at my last school was scrapped when I left and parts of it were given out to non TLR staff so nobody had my full role but it all got done).
The level 2 jobs around here by the time you factor in all the reductions works out at around £9,000-10,000. Less than half an NQT salary.

I'm in no way defending the current situation. More saying I can understand why some decisions might have to have been made.

[Greenshoots1]

If all TAs insisted on claiming their over time the situation would have to mprove

[Norestformrz]

Salary is only a small part of the cost of employing staff add on employers national insurance, pension contributions etc multiplied by 2 soon makes a NQT cheap in comparison.

[Norestformrz]

Level 2 jobs around here are paying double that Maisy £16123 - £17419
Level 3 £20661

[jmh740]

Greenshoots I'm a salaried ta as are all tas in my local areas covered by a few different local authorities.
Never hear of hlta status taking 3 years.

[Greenshoots1]

Greenshoots I'm a salaried ta as are all tas in my local areas covered by a few different local authorities.

but you still have contracted hours, and an over time rate for going beyond them

[admission]

There are two different potential issues here, either they cannot find a good enough teacher (which may well be the case) or they are trying to save money.
In all of this there is one thing that is not being talked about and that is that schools generally need to accept that there is no more funding coming their way in the foreseeable future other than what might come from the new National Funding Formula.
Schools need to accept this and be planning accordingly. That is for the senior management of the school and the governing board to be taking some hard decisions so that they ride out an effective funding freeze to 2020. It is a fact that more than 50% of academies are currently running a deficit budget, in my LA as of April, there were 16% of schools in deficit and this current year there will be more. All those schools have to face up to a financial double whammy, firstly getting to a budget that matches funding and secondly repaying the deficit they have.
I agree there is not enough funding overall but it is time that school governing boards did their job and insisted that the school budget matches the funding available. That means paying salaries they can afford to the right numbers of staff. When 85% of budget is staffing costs you do not start with cutting the 15% of non-staffing costs, you start with cutting salaries. When I see newspaper articles with an executive head of a school saying they have not got enough money, when there is an executive head, a head of infant school, a head of junior school who are both non teaching in a small primary school, I do not have to look at their budget accounts to know they are spending too much money on posts they do not actually need. If they need help there is help available through National Leaders of Governance (NLGs) who can give an independent view of a school's finances but at the end of the day it is the school governing board who have to have the guts to make some very hard decisions.
Parents need to accept and realise that schools are starting to suffer financially and that actually you may well have to see some activities in schools being curtailed and see staff leaving, that is the time we live in.

[Norestformrz]

Yes it's also the school's governing body and management's duty to ensure they employ enough qualified teachers for all pupils.

[gillybeanz]

A friend of mine is a qualified teacher for post compulsory education.
She has a PgCE but no GCSE's as it assumed at this level students already have Maths and English.
She started a level 3 TA course but settled for a level 2 and did the online level 2 Maths, this is considered as equivalent to GCSE for most jobs, bar teaching, medicine, nursing?
She teaches a class of infants and has no GCSE's at all.
She feels completely out of depth but believes she is improving, at the cost to the children's education.
She has kids herself and needs the job, but she is expected to teach most of the time.
She does her own planning, which was deemed acceptable as she has experience planning for PC courses.

[gillybeanz]

Oh, to add. No experience of teaching children, unrelated degree subject,
and no QTS as also not a requirement at PC level.

[GreenTulips]

Year 3 teacher is a supply teacher and has been great. She's supply because she needs to be flexible if her parents become ill in another country, and she wants to attend her children's special days.

Most of the class parents have complained she's not a 'proper teacher'

So she's leaving for another school! Kids now had another long term supply hopefully in the new year but parents haven't been informed

[Norestformrz]

at PGCE level regardless of higher qualifications you have to prove that you have GCSE (or equivalent).

[runningoutofjuice]

Mrz - do TAs actually earn those salaries you posted? They look like gross salaries that are used to tempt applicants but end up as £10k pa pro-rata. If not, I need to move! A TA earning a living wage? Unheard of!

[Norestformrz]

Yes those are the salaries they are paid (obviously less deductions - income tax NI etc).