What does your hlta do?

[Imsosorryalan]

We have a lovely hlta at our school who sometimes covers groups/classes. She is great with the children and is helpful generally.
However, she is always moaning that she is doing too much! Over and above what is expected of her, according to her. As she's the only hlta at the school, I don't have much to go on so wondered if you have a hlta at your school, what their duties are?

Ours covers pre teaching and interventions daily, supports the NQT class and covers classes when needed ( generally once a week) she doesn't plan, attend meeting or do any clubs. Starts at 8.30 and leaves at 3.30. Also has break and lunch time as she doesn't cover during this time either? Reasonable or not?

We have 3 HLTAs at our school. They all have intervention groups and cover PPA and at other times as necessary. They mark work from the lessons that they have taught. They attend staff meetings although other TAs don't. One runs an after-school club, but this is voluntary. They start at 8 and I'm not sure when they finish, but they are always in school well after 3:30. The difference in pay between TA and HLTA is negligible when the difference in the level of responsibility is considered.

I could have written your post! Although our HLTA hasn't complained in my direction recently. When she was being particularly vocal we looked round for guidance about what an HLTA should do ie planning? marking? taking whole classes? The guidance out there is quite vague!

So ours teaches Maths to half a class using lessons planned by someone else. She prepares her own resources and marks the work the children have done. That's it! But she's not paid as an HLTA for all of her working hours - the rest she is a normal TA. And as temporarilyjerry said, she's not paid a lot more for her HLTA hours - £1 an hour extra she tells me. (I should say she's very very conscientious and prepares very thoroughly from the planning she's sent (often spending 2 or more hours getting herself ready to teach a 1 hour lesson).

On of the issues with HL/TAs teaching is that it does take them longer to plan/ resource which is not really accounted for.

I can spend half an hour planning and be ready for a weeks worth of maths lessons, and if I find a gap in learning I can go off on a tangent to plug it without having to think much at all about how.

I have TAs that teach and it might take them half an hour to plan one lesson from downloaded planning. They will do a great lesson, but it is so much more time consuming for them than it is for me and TBH, due to having less training and experience, I just don't think they are as good at rolling with the flow of the learning process. Generally the kids will get the planned lesson whether it is going well or not.

That is why I think children deserve trained teachers. Controversial.

Not controversial at all. I agree with you. Children need trained and experienced teachers.

However, I have a mixed age class with year 1 & 2 in together. By splitting the two year groups (and making sure both year groups get equal access to qualified teacher time), the HLTA and I can deliver lessons which are far more appropriate to the very different needs of the children. So it's a bit of a case of choosing the lesser evil. It takes me hours to plan a sequence of lessons for her to deliver and then when I've finished I have to start my Maths planning all over again to plan my own lessons, but the outcomes for the children are so so so much better it's worth it. We've been doing it for 18 months now and her teaching has improved beyond measure in that time too.

Our HLTA provides support in Y2, covers PPA in KS1, she does phonics groups and guided reading, and is the extended schools coordinator. She also organises all our 'special' weeks. She's incredibly busy and I do think she's overworked for what she's paid.

We have 2 HLTAs at our school, one in Maths and the other in English. They work with small groups from our low sets, never more than 6, always pupils who are finding a larger class a real struggle, never pupils with known behaviour issues. They also run intervention groups for the C/D borderline year 11 pupils. I think they are in the classroom for 16 hours compared to a teacher teaching 21 hours in our school, to reflect the increased time it takes them to plan lessons.

I'm in a special school. My HLTA covers my PPA time and any other times I'm out of school e.g. due to sickness or on training.

He plans ICT for during my PPA time. He also plans and runs a daily communication group. He assesses the children during anything he has planned, and then inputs those assessments onto our computer system.

He works 35 hours a week, and can choose when he uses those hours outside of school hours.

Other HLTAs in the school take on responsibility for certain areas, e.g. subject leadership, or displays, or health and safety. The more responsibilities they take on, the more they are paid.

I am a HLTA for half of my week at school.

I cover PPA for Y2 and an EYFS class. I teach computing to those classes. I plan, deliver and assess for those classes, and provide feedback to teachers (verbally and then a written statement when reports are due.) I also provide the other EYFS classes with my lesson planning and comments and do adhoc lunchtime sessions with them to show them how certain apps/programs work. In the EYFS I have the class TA in with me, so show her how to do things so she can help the other EYFS classes too.

This year I am also teaching Y1 computing, but with the teachers in the class too - so that they can learn some of the new computing elements, and see different approaches and how various programs and apps work. I plan and write up those lesson plans and by the end of the year we will have a Y1 scheme of work for the class teachers to teach next year onwards.

I am the Computing Co-ordinator and the E-Safety Co-ordinator- I was a secondary school teacher and this is my area of expertise so I feel confident doing this and enjoy it too. This means keeping the schemes of work up to date and monitoring training needs, ensuring related policies are in place, keeping the ICT suite looking decent with engaging displays, checking software is working to pass on issues to the IT technician, etc.

As part of the E-safety co. work I plan and run parents sessions on E-safety, as well as whole school sessions for children.

As part of the computing co. work I run INSET during staff meetings for teachers, specifically on using different iPads apps within the classroom, outside of computing lessons.

I also do a lot of photography for the school so will attend big school events such as plays, sports days, etc. and also general website photos. Again, this is an area of interest for me.

I also maintain our school iPads - we have 30 children's iPads and about 15/16 iPad minis used by various staff. I maintain the apps on the children's ones and ensure they are up to date, etc. This is a bigger job than it sounds though!

The other half of my job is a level 3 TA where I work in the classroom supporting the teacher. My two halves of my job are very different.

Meant to add. My official work hours are 8:30-3:30 but, as with all our TAs we attend a staff meeting after school, til 4:45pm, once a week and a lunch time meeting once a week. We do other Twilight type events if they are ou year groups/whole school, just not parents evening itself. We all do, same as the teachers, 2-3 play time duties each week, though all get the 15 mins either before or after. None of us do lunch time duty - though officially have just 30 mins for lunch and we are often doing other stuff for the rest of the lunch break - though this is fairly flexible. Some TAs do a lunch time club each week - I don't.