Being taught by TA

[Chocolateyshakes]

DD's class teacher is currently acting up into the role of DH for one term. We received an email to say that the other job share class teacher would be teaching DD's class for 3 days a week and her actual designated teacher 2 days. So far this term DD has said she has not been taught by the other job share teacher, but by the TA each day.

Is this allowed? I know TAs work incredibly hard etc, but they're not a qualified class teacher. I am just concerned that one class has a full time teacher and DD' sclass is being taught by the TA.

Please don't flame me. I would just like to know legally how much a TA is allowed to teach a class.

@JustKeepBuilding - not an issue legally, agreed, but a much larger issue at stake in terms of quality, training and so on . The TAs where we are are shocking, but it’s them or no one!

good luck, I hope it works out well for you x

OP asked legally, which is what @Nimbostratus100 was responding to when she said ”Yes it is allowed - there is no issue at all with this.” so your rude response to her was incorrect and unnecessary.

@Nimbostratus100

Schools where I work can't recruit TA's at all. I work with a range of LA's in the east/ south of England and it's a huge issue.

@Nimbostratus100

www.gov.uk/government/people/gillian-keegan

Legally, even if the TA is 'qualified' do they not need to be registered with the GTC?

The GTC has not existed since circa 2011.

@JustKeepBuilding - it’s part of a wider issue. No one should believe it’s ok for the bar to slip so low that an unqualified anyone off the street is considered able enough to be in charge of a class. As @Cornelious says, TAs are hard to recruit as minimum wage is hardly going to attract the best candidates. So where we are, it’s basically no one or an idiot with a pulse. I appreciate there are some lovely TAs out there in general, but my experience at my DC’s school is people who cause more harm than good, those on a power trip and little Hitlers. Two have left following repeated parental complaints.

If Gillian Keegan gets wind of how happy people are to accept a TA on 14k p/a pro rata compared to a teacher on 35k teaching their children, there will be no more teachers.

I didn’t say having unqualified teachers is OK from a teaching PoV, in fact I didn’t comment on that part at all. What I said, and what @Nimbostratus100 said, was it is allowed and OK from a legal perspective, because well it is whatever you think of it and that is what the OP asked. So @Springtoautumn’s post to @Nimbostratus100 was incorrect, rude and unnecessary.

@Nimbostratus100

Thank you 😊

This happened to one of my children, a couple of years ago, when pregnant teachers were not allowed face to face contact with kids in the pandemic. In this scenario, the teacher planned all of the work, did the marking, taught some of the content from home, and took on additional responsibility for admin in school.

pros (for the kids):

• their education was still being overseen by a teacher who knew them well
• The TA was very competent and had good overall teaching and class control skills
• it was a relatively short period (a term)
• the TA was a dedicated part of the school team and not a long term supply
• the kids responded well

pros (for the school):

• removed recruitment difficulties late in the year and for a short term post
• cost savings (against supply fees)

cons:

• their designated teacher was remote
• possible advantage taking of the TA - I hope they had a pay uplift
• overall teaching quality was slightly disjointed compared with the other class
• communication from school re: the reasons was dreadful which didn’t help parent morale
• loss of a TA resource within school

as a parent I still question whether it was the right call but ultimately I think the pros did outweigh the cons.

Ask the head. She knows what’s going on
and has the power to change it. You’ve ben told a qualified teacher is job sharing but your child hasn’t seen her in clas. It’s reasonable to ask what is going on and if the TA is a fully qualified teacher or has no experience.

@Tonsiltrouble did the TA get a TA?? One of my observations in these scenarios is that the TA who covers the teacher is expected to teach the class on their own, whereas the teacher has a second adult all or some of the time.

Ps my child got taught by a TA for more than two months. They did a lot of colouring in and very little else. Yes some TAs are fab, but some are shit. We left the school.

You are entitled to know who is teaching your child and what they’re being taught. Schools are so used to bossing kids around that they can also boss parents around. Your questions are reasonable, ask them - of the head.

@2reefsin30knots yes, or at least for a good chunk of the time, by sharing the TA resource around a bit and by maximising some part retired/perm cover teaching resource who upped their hours.

basically, if the CT was teaching remotely then the TA was being a TA, if the TA was teaching then another TA would be present, and some of the time the spare cover resource would do the teaching.

I have to say, the kids (this was y2) handled it all very well. The parents were not convinced.

The majority of TAs in this position are not paid any extra, just normal TA rate, not much above minimum wage. They are being taken advantage of.

some TAs are quite good at covering the odd lesson here and there, i had one previously who was significantly better than most of the supply teachers we had as she knew the (tricky) class and they responded well to her when they didn’t to supply. My current TA is ok at best. She covers me for a day here and there for a course or if I’m ill (both cases I’ve done the planning) but having popped in while she’s teaching I know the delivery is not fantastic. I would not be happy with her teaching the class medium/long term, and nor would she be!!

That said, it’s not illegal and is probably the only solution at the moment. Schools can’t recruit teachers because pay and conditions are crap. Support the teachers strike if you don’t like it!

I'm interested in knowing what's legal and what's not considering there are no national standards, levels, pay or conditions for TAs.
It can't be 'legal' for a primary TA to stand in front of a class day in, day out delivering lessons on their own with no support. This is what's happening though and HTs are just making up their own rules regarding level 3 and HLTA TA roles.
Extra pay or overtime? You are joking of course! If you want to keep your job you do it otherwise there are queues of mums who have taken a 'course' chomping at the bit for your job. Got a pulse? Have a TA job. Disclaimer - this is my school and some knowledge of others in my area, hopefully not the case nationwide but as I said at the beginning there are no national standards.

I have a good friend who is a fully qualified teacher, but didn't want the aggro of teaching.

She is now a TA and has been for the past 12 years. She often covers for the class teacher.

If you have concerns, by all means raise them with the headteacher, but if the school is generally a good school, I would trust that they know what they're doing. And that they have the right people in the right places.

@TugboatAnnie

It is legal in academies. I mean no disrespect to my cousin but she should not have full
class responsibility of year 3 when she only just about scraped her GCSEs. She did no TA qualifications. She started off as a lunchtime supervisor, then worked as a TA for a good few years, now a teacher albeit an unqualified one. She would be buggared though if that particular head moved on, as I am not sure another head teacher would accept that.

If this were fine and no problem as other posters are bizarrely rushing to assure you, the school would have told you that the class was being taught by a TA instead of the qualified teacher they told you they'd be having.

There's a shortage of teachers, and often in this situation, a shortage of money. TAs get paid far less than teachers so this is likely taking advantage of lower paid staff and plugging a gap on the cheap.

If it's a HLTA or a TA3 then they can take the class, they just can't plan the lesson, the qualified teacher will need to have done that.

@TugboatAnnie If is legal if the school is an academy, free school or independent. That has been the case for years.

The TA might be a qualified teacher and therefore deliver great lessons and have a lot of knowledge, but they are not being paid as a teacher or have the responsibility that a teacher has so therefore probably won't put in the hours in that a teacher would. You also couldn't expect a TA to plan to the level that a teacher would because they'd be working for free!
I'm a(n ex) teacher and have worked with some outstanding TAs but to expect them to take over the role of a class teacher is crazy. I'd speak to the headteacher.

Thank you for the responses saying it's legal for a TA to cover classes. Is there a piece of legislation somewhere or is this just academies making up their own rules? I.e. an HT deciding that a specific TA is good enough to cover a term? Googling has unions giving advice on 'short term' cover but not specifying what short term actually means.