I'm an MSA.

[Themanofmydreams]

How easy is it to move into a TA role from an MSA role? Other than volunteer work with children I don't have experience as a TA. I do have experience in admin.
Thanks

Well, I have some non classroom support roles at a school and paid for my own level 3 TA course and I've seen others just offered the roles or, when I've applied, been passed over for people with lower qualifications and less experience.

So, no guarantees. If they like you and there's a vacancy it wont hurt to be under their nose. Sadly, the buggers don't see me as a TA and I've given up and was looking for work elsewhere before Covid made me value permenant contracts, in fairly secure jobs, more than my bruised ego.

That's a shame Morvaan. Keep trying. I'm confident I could do the role with the younger children. I've not actually applied for anything else at this stage but thinking it's something I might like to progress to when my kids get a little older.

What's an MSA?

Midday Supervisor Assistant

Oh I see. The initials threw me a bit as they have a different name at our school. That's the route I took to becoming a TA.

I started off as a volunteer, listening to readers and being there as an extra adult for events and school trips. An MSA role came along so I applied for and got it.

I carried on with the volunteer work as I really enjoyed it. When a TA role came along, I got the job.

The MSA role was useful experience of working with children, and it meant that I already had a full DBS check in place at the school. The voluntary work meant that I had some classroom experience and the class teachers I worked with gave me good references.

Many of the TA roles now involve working as a 1:1 as well as general classroom support, so knowledge of SN/SEN can be useful.

That's useful info thanks. I'm in a awkward position as the classroom experience I would prefer is in the younger class (small school mixed age group) but it's the class my dc is in so I can't be a volunteer in that class. I suppose I could try to volunteer in the older classes but I'm more confident with the younger ones and the maths is easier 😉🤦‍♀️

I used to be really wary of working with the older ones as I thought they'd be a bit scary compared to the little ones.

Then I did my first stint with them and absolutely loved it. So many characters and they had different insights into so many subjects. I think some days they taught me as much as I taught them.

The grammar terms were what used to throw me at first. I'd never heard of things like "fronted adverbials" before and had to do a bit of reading up on it all.