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.

Yes, but, NannyOgg, in the years since it was published, as someone who goes to many many schools to interact with SEN students, I can tell you that TAs working one on one with students to complete work that is insufficiently targeted to their needs continues to be the case in far too many schools. I think OP is quite perceptive to realise that this is not in the best interests of the students involved, and whilst she has expressed this in a clumsy way, I think that makes her a wise TA not an idiot. She just needs the power to make the changes she can see are necessary.

And I do find in many secondary schools that they simply say "we don't offer entry level / asdan" and so sen students leave with no qualifications at all. It is a scandal.

Your massive generalisations are ignorant and very unhelpful. How many years experience do you have in schools? How many schools have you taught in? What are your qualification?

25 years experience, around 30 schools including being a governor of several, as working long term part time in several at once, taught in about 10 schools long term, I know around 5 local secondary schools very well. highly qualified, as I've said. Like many TAs, an ex teacher. I am now returning to teaching as head of sixth form in an independent school.

I am not over generalising at all. Not all schools are wasting millions of pounds, but many many are.

Some schools do use support staff well, my previous school did very well, and I was useful, used as an educational resource, and made a difference. That school was a minority though.

And this new national curriculum exacerbates all of these issues. It makes me immensely frustrated. Schools do need (the ability to) offer a wider range of 16+ qualifications. It shouldn't be the way it is.

You've most recently been working as an unsuccessful and ineffective TA and yet a private school has offered you a post as head of sixth form?

Yeah, right. 30 schools in 25 years either means that you weren't good enough to to get a permanent contract or are over exaggerating.

More specifically, how do you go from TA to head of sixth form? Even as an ex-teacher this is quite a step.

Even if all that was true, you still don't have enough over sight over the budget usage of schools in the entire country to make such sweeping generalisations. Or are you the head of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as well?

Yeah, right. 30 schools in 25 years either means that you weren't good enough to to get a permanent contract or are over exaggerating.

I'm including all the schools I've been a governor at. i'm including working part time in 3 schools at once. I have had long and short term contracts, I've done one term contracts, and I've had permanent contracts

I think that makes her a wise TA not an idiot.

A wise TA would have not identified the problems in her school as being a result of the school having too much money

The 'reveal' of being a teacher/head of sixth form/whatever doesn't make the title/OP/subsequent comments any more coherent.

Just to point out OP thinks it's legal for mainstream schools to refuse to admit a child with Down Syndrome because they've reached their 'quota' of kids with DS, so I'd take anything they say with a large pinch of salt...

you still don't have enough over sight over the budget usage of schools

i know what I'm paid, i know what I do, I know how many of people like me there are in this school, and local schools

You really are saying you have 25 years experince with sen children??????? sorry I find that exceptionally unbeliveable because if you had worked with sen children you would know theres always a way toget through to children no matter how touch nuts they are to crack, sorry I do not belive you have worked in education for 25 years, what utter tosh!!! and this is comming from someone who has actually worked in schools! and with sen children.

Just to point out OP thinks it's legal for mainstream schools to refuse to admit a child with Down Syndrome because they've reached their 'quota' of kids with DS, so I'd take anything they say with a large pinch of salt...

and you will notice other posters backing me up on that, it is quite clear - just because you don't know anything about it doesn't mean it isn't real

Actually op I know what you mean. Our team went from 18 to 6 ta in a big secondary. Behaviour and achievement have not noticeably declined. Our remaining tas are the effective ones. They still aren't used as effectively as they could be because the teachers don't have time to do it properly.

The 'reveal' of being a teacher/head of sixth form/whatever doesn't make the title/OP/subsequent comments any more coherent.

there is no "reveal" - I told you, I am highly qualified and very experienced

And some rather bizarre interpretations of the JCQ exam regulations....

you would know theres always a way toget through to children no matter how touch nuts they are to crack,

yes there is, but not if the school works against it

and you will notice other posters backing me up on that,

You weren't backed up at all - everyone pointed out that was illegal and asked you to point to evidence you were right. Unsurprisingly you were unable to do so.

I am highly qualified and very experienced

Then it's an embarrassment to the profession that someone could accrue that level of experience and qualifications and still post this thread.

I'm hiding this thread now. This has become ridiculous to the point of pointlessness.

This doesn't sound like an over-funding issue to me. It sounds like a problem with the way the school uses its money and a more general problem with the curriculumi

I am a primary school teacher rather than secondary. If we have pupils who are working 1-1 with pupils who are working at a level significantly behind the curriculum then it is up to us as teachers to plan activities that a well-qualified TA should be able to deliver, then make sure that those pupils also spend some time per week with the teacher. Is there a reason why the teacher can't do this at your school in the situation you describe?

The wider issue is the expectation that all children will follow the GCSE pathway when it is not suitable for them. This is a problem caused by the government.

I wonder what's going on in OP's school generally. I've worked in a school that was completely out of control and it was nigh on impossible to get students to cooperate in that environment whatever an individual teacher or TA might try. I hope there are few schools that are as bad as the one I worked in but there are some and I think that parents of kids who go to them are largely unaware of how bad they are.

Sorry, that should say 1-1 with TAs.

OP- everything you have said so far has sounded either made up or entirely far fetched. I'm not sure what you motivation is, either political or personal, but you seem to have mistaken anecdotal evidence ( however broad you claim it is) for hard facts.
Anyone with that many short term roles cannot possibly get to understand every school they've worked in properly. And most of your experience happened so long ago as to make no difference. How many schools do you have experience of in the current educational climate and under the new funding formula?

I'm a TA and I would agree with you on one point, which is the futility of entering some of our SEN students for GCSE exams - it's just setting kids up to fail.
Your comment that schools are over funded is so wrong that I can't really take you seriously. Anyone that works in a state school knows how tight budgets are. If you work in a state school you would know that provision is being cut and people are being made redundant.
Other than that, you sound as if you are just not very good at your job. I wish you luck in your new one.

You've most recently been working as an unsuccessful and ineffective TA and yet a private school has offered you a post as head of sixth form? confused

Seems almost beyond belief!

Have posted on the other thread from which the Down's Syndrome comment was lifted.

User was deliberately - or accidentally - vague, unclearly written and slightly goady.

What she was talking about was a situation in which the school has a specific unit within the school, with a specific number of places, for a particular SEN. In that case, the unit - not the school itself - was over-subscribed and could not admit a further person, rather than the school itself being over-subscribed.

So not a 'quota' - which would obviously be illegal and discriminatory, but a specific unit with limited places.

i have no idea why User used the word he / she did, as the precise terminology would have made things much clearer.