Is it fair to job share with an HLTA in primary?

[TeacherMummy2023]

Hi all,
I’m a primary school teacher working 0.8. Every other part time teacher in my school has a teacher as their job share. Next year, I am having a HLTA as mine meaning I will have to do all the planning and resourcing. Does anyone else think this is entirely unfair? Where do I stand with this? I’ve reached out to my union and am awaiting a reply but I just think it’s not fair. Every other teacher has someone to share the workload with. I am not prepared to resource for the HLTA on the day they teach as I don’t feel like I should be.

You shouldn't be planning for your day off if you are 0.8.
I think it is common to over use HLTAs unfortunately (no shade on them as they are often great).

If they’re a HLTA do they not get their own PPA? I know that the HLTAs in our school do

The HLTA will do their own planning and resourcing surely - they should be allocated time to do this.

Thanks for the replies:

so for context, nothing against the HLTAs - I think they’re amazing and get ton so well with all of them.
all part time staff get more PPA time Than they should so they can argue for me to plan.
the HLTAs don’t get PPA they just essentially cover the class and have no planning responsibilities

They should be but won’t. I had this problem years ago before I retrained. I was 0.6 but did all of the planning, all of the assessments, report writing, ILPs, parents evenings etc.. because at the time the HLTA couldn’t do those as part of her role. Things may have changed, but I doubt it.

You shouldn't be planning for your day off. We all know that planning for someone else takes longer than planning for yourself.

Your union will say you don’t have to plan for the day you’re not there. It happened to my friend and SLT backed down on this when they checked her position.

So do you actually get more ppa than you should?? If so, is there a reason why that time shouldn’t be used to plan for the hlta??

I get 10 minutes more - all the part time teachers get full time ppa, which I don’t agree with. But my point is, all the part time teachers get the same PPA, so why should I plan for them when they don’t need to?

Your union will say that you should not be planning for your PPA cover no matter who is providing it.

What will happen if you don’t do it?

No, that's not the point. You don't need to bring the others down to your level.

The point is that someone else should be planning for your missing day.

As well as the planning, you will be responsible for the assessment, reports, displays, SEN paperwork etc. It really is not acceptable but you probably won't be able to do anything about it.

This isn't fair on the HLTA either, who will end up being expected to plan lessons, but won't be getting a teacher's salary!

I do exactly this and it's not planning that's an issue (as my head knows now not to ask) but the displays, ILPs, reports and general class responsibility. It also means all the 'easier to teach' subjects are on my non-working day so I have the same marking/planning workload really as full time teachers.

Yes this is an important consideration. You should only be doing 80% of everything. If you have 5 kids with IEPs, technically you should only be writing 4 of them; 4.8 of the 6 display boards; 24 of the 30 reports, 24 of the 30 parents evenings.

You really need to sit down with your Head and lay it out like this - it’s not really about the planning for the HLTA (which you shouldn’t be doing) it’s that the HLTA is COVER not jobshare.

Massively this. I am a TA not a teacher, but the same principle applies. I am 18 hours - 0.5. I have half the classes to do, so half the support plans, half the support reviews, etc as a full timer. You ABSOLUTELY need to do what MonteStory said, you need someone doing the share of everything. Also, no offence to HLTAs (I am similar to one), but they shouldn't be doing stuff like writing reports or parents evenings should they? Or taking responsibility of masterminding the tricky situations like a child with a disability or illness or something? You need someone who will totally share this.