school over funded.

[user1497480444]

Surely I can't be the only one that feels this.

I am a TA. I am paid 15k a year to support children who refuse to accept my support, don't need my support, or are too academically limited to make use of my support.

There are 25 of us in my school

nearly half a million pound s year spent on nothing.

If children were made to behave, if children were in lessons leading towards appropriate qualification for their abilities, if children were encourages to work independently etc etc they would learn far more anyway, and all that could be done WITHOUT us.

Ok you wait for my suggestions.

The first one is find out what they like and what they want to do in future. Sit and talk to them - help them work out what route they need to take to achieve that. Show them they can achieve that.

Most children in schools misbehave because they feel worthless and feel like it won't matter what they do they won't achieve what they want.

You say you have children in class who won't ever achieve - well if they're kicking up on your attitude you are part of the problem.

My ds school have been amazing at turning him around by using his special interests (he's autistic) to get him to engage in Elsa and social skills support.

A year ago he was out of school and suicidal. Now he loves it and can't wait to go. Ok, so he may not get high level GCSEs because his ability to write is that of an 8yo not a year 8. But they focus on what he can do and he has support in class for the things he struggles with and amazing teachers who differentiate effectively.

I think there are many cases where children are given TA support because of poor behaviour rather than tackle the behaviour issue, also cases of TA support which makes the child more dependant and less liable to work themselves. I am not saying all cases are like this but I agree these scenarios are not uncommon

I never said she wasn't a TA. I merely punted out that the career history provided was improbable or over inflated. I also pointed out earlier that the OP does work in education but seems to change her tune about what her role is to suit the current thread.

I'd like to second what Somerville said x 1000. I'm glad to discuss educational issues. I'm sure all teachers see the same flaws. Just don't start today threads claiming that schools are overfunded.

Waiting for all the posters who jumped on the OP insisting she wasn't a real TA and it was all made up, to apologise...

Have you ever known a TA to be hired as a head of sixth form?

Sorry goady not today.

Sit and talk to them

have you not read what I said? they will tell me ( or any other adult)to fuck off and they will move away

You say you have children in class who won't ever achieve - well if they're kicking up on your attitude you are part of the problem.

Do you even know what p5 means!? a P5 child in an Englsih GCSE class, really! P5 is BELOW the old national curriculum level 1

Here we are, P5, we have a pupil with P5 sitting in on 9 different subject GCSE classes...... ( and I support him in English)

P5 Pupils combine two key ideas or concepts
• They combine single words, signs or symbols to communicate meaning to a range oflisteners [for example, ‘Mummy gone’ or ‘more drink’]
• They make attempts to repair misunderstandings without changing the words used[for example, by repeating a word with a different intonation or facial expression]
• Pupils use a vocabulary of over 50 words.

P5 Pupils produce meaningful marks or symbols associated with their own name or familiar spoken words, actions, images or events [for example, contributing to records of their own achievements or to books about themselves, their families and interests]
• They trace, overwrite or copy shapes and straight line patterns.

It all sounds like an upcoming episode of Ackley Bridge or other school drama.

Are you a script writer OP?

Seriously it must be awful to go into work knowing that you can't make a difference in your pupils education.

Surely the issue is under funding, if these kids had got support they needed when they needed it they may be more receptive to try when they see results. My DD struggled throughout school , issues were painted over/ignored I felt like I was that awful over reacting parent. By the time they agreed there were issues DD was predicted 7 Us at gcse and had developed a very defensive stance to support the gap was to big by then to seem achievable. She was excluded and sent to a specialist school with 20 children and 20 staff the difference in her attitude to learning and progress was amazing.

A class with 30-40 kids of mixed abilities needs more than 2 members of staff.

*Do you know what P5 means?
*
Yes I do - I work in special ed.

I also know they can achieve if they are engaged in something they can achieve in. Asdan is a great place to start.

I get when a child says fuck off and moves away then you can't teach them - but they probably do it because they know they are going to be asked to do something they can't access.

So use the TAs to provide them accessible activities. Don't say ta are a waste of money and a wasted resource because they are not.

I attended a training day on write dance as part of the cluster schools training. I bought it back into school and adapted the programme aimed at 3-5 yo for students working P1-NC1 with disabilities.

If your mindset is that these children can achieve eventually they'll believe it to - but it won't happen overnight

Is that you Teresa or Michael?
Who wouldn't thought that drunkpostung on MN was your thing? 😂

user Are you supporting English and Maths at GCSE?

user Are you supporting English and Maths at GCSE?

yes, not just those subjects, but core subjects mostly.

That is also concerning. You shouldn't really be supporting that many subjects. I can see it would be difficult to develop subject knowledge and specific strategies. This is bad organisation from your school. The only student in school with the same TA every lesson is paraplegic.

nobody has the same TA in every lesson, people who stay with the same student constantly are called LSAs ,in my school, not TAs

In my daughter's current and previous schools, they are called TAs.

Then why in heavens name aren't you attached to departments and allowed to specialise properly? This is another example of how your school is failing to make the best use of their resources, rather than being over resourced. No wonder you have such trouble if they are asking non-specialist TAs to support GCSE students. How are you supposed to help them build skills? Do you know a modal verb from a compound noun? Or the difference between simile and metaphor?

I don't think you necessarily need specialist TAs, because a level 1 TA does not need to plan. I prepare the resources for the lesson, and talk to the TA about how to support the students. Expecting detailed subject knowledge is a bit of an ask.

we are loosely attached to departments for most of the year, but move around a lot more after the year 11s leave.

nannyogg my ds has the same ta (whenever he has a ta). He has autism, severe social anxiety and selective mutism. You can't just put any person with him. It has taken his current TA 2 years to build up his trust in her so he can communicate relatively freely with her. If he had "specialist" tas for each subject it would be a complete disaster for him. It isn't the TAs job to plan or differentiate anyway, that's the teacher's role. Ds' ta helps him keep up, acts as an interface with staff, keeps a separate set of notes, and deconstructs anything that is too ambiguous or ill defined for him. It is imperative that it's one consistent person in his case (or two consistent people....but not subject specialists!)

Not if TAs are being properly used for intervention. This is the issue that was discussed earlier about the quality of TA interventions. There are different kinds of TAs, granted. But the ones who make the best impact on progress are specialist and have really solid subject knowledge- they are like an extension of the teacher for 1 to 1.

The TAs who are working with students with ASD/ ADHD are not there to support specific subject learning to but to facilitate the student feeling comfortable in the learning environment and support the class teacher in doing this. We don't really have this at the moment in my current school as we don't currently have any students with needs that high. But it is perfectly reasonable for TA provision to be used like this.

However, what I am referring to is students without ASD/ ADHD or social anxieties being tutored by TAs without specialist subject knowledge ( or even the chance to learn terms and texts through familiarity). Most of the students under intervention in my department fall under the latter category- mostly MLD/ dyselxia/ Emotional Social Disorders.

My ds has a key worker. She deal with general day to day with him and then has a TA for English which is the same one every lesson and attached to the department.
He sees Elsa once a week (same person) etc.

So he had lots of different people but mine and his main contact is the key worker - who is an angel in disguise!

I am a ta, albeit in primary rather than secondary school. I do know though, that most local secondary schools do use specialist TAs for each subject, unless, as a pp said, the child's needs are more social than academic.
Whilst your own school does appear to be poorly organised in terms of budgeting and staffing, I know that my own school works extremely hard to use the money in the best way for the children we teach. No TA expects to sit twiddling our thumbs - we all take intervention groups, both timetabled and as his, for example to reinforce a maths or science lesson from earlier in the day. We are all trained in specialist areas, phonics, eal, speech and language as well as different curriculum areas. Our ht doesn't waste a penny - the budgets over the last couple of years and going forward, do not allow for that at all. I find it hard to imagine any school has sufficient money in their budget that they can afford to waste the amount of money you claim.

Regarding the effectiveness of TAs in general, I am aware of the reports that claim we are not an efficient use of money, however, every OFSTED report, every LA value for money report has commended our school for its deployment of TAs. So clearly, not every school is wasting money in the same way as your school.

I take it you are certain no one on here knows you?!
You have clear views, aggressively put at times, but I can understand what you are saying. However I would still say that there is a funding crisis, overall.
You have worked in many schools and I wonder why you left being a teacher to be a TA in the first place, if that was the case, and why you have had so many jobs?
TA to head of sixth form seems a strange career path.