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.

Do you think,OP, that maybe they just don't like you? I have found very few children who don't respond to a firm but fair adult in a class situation. I have 20 years teaching experience in a couple of tough schools so do actually know what I am talking about.
There are two types of TA that stand out from the excellent ones. Those that lack the basic education themselves and therefore struggle with assisting children. These are sometimes mums that were taken in when their kids were there and have stayed - education has changed and this sort of Motherly TA is being phased out. There is also the TA that is a cynic and finds everything so very wrong, they seem to lack empathy with any of the pupils and don't seem to 'get' what children need.
I have taught the kid that constantly told me to fuck off. We built a rapport, I was firm and fair. I didn't shout. I praised him. By the end he told me to fuck off a lot less and got a D in my subject (he was predicted an E).

I currently teach a nomadic/homeless child who has no clue where she will be each night. I have a bag for her in my class with basic things - deodorant, sanitary towels, perfume, mascara, toothbrush and paste. I make sure she is fed. I fiddled the secret Santa so I got her ...

My DD2 has autism and has experienced many different sorts of ‘support’ from TAs in her years in school.

She was supported in reception by the class TA who thought her role was to silence DDs assertions that she didn’t want to be there, wasn’t comfortable and wasn’t coping. She learned to keep quiet, keep her head down and express no distress in school to devastating long term effect.

Later in that school, once diagnosed and with a statement, she was denied one to one TA support because of the new theory that it didn’t improve outcomes. She had no visual timetable, no support with the morning transition into school, no adult to help her if she needed to leave the classroom, nobody to help her with the stress of the playground and nobody to prepare her for changes to routine, trips, etc.

She moved to a school with an ASD specific unit. Some of the TAs thought they were helping her by making her stand on her own two feet. Some supported her enough that she could cope with entering a classroom and one was so good that, for the two terms she was allocated to DD2 full time, she really thrived.

The next school was a small independent paid for by the LA. The school employed a new one to one TA for her who had never worked with children before and thought the best way to help DD2 was to colour in her geography pictures for her, ‘improve’ her pieces of art and to make up stories about her being rude (she loved watching the ensuing drama as DD2 became distressed about the lies).

DD2 is now at a brilliant ASD specific school with full time one to one TA support. Some TAs are brilliant, know DD2 well, understand that their role is to help her feel safe, help her organise herself and help her communicate because she needs no academic support at all. However, some of the TAs will just write what they think should be in DD2’s book if she is too stressed to do it herself and sit colouring next to her rather than help her ask for more work if she has finished.

The good TAs have made a huge difference to my DD2. Without one to one support, DD2 wouldn’t be able to attend school now but, had she had a small amount of consistent skilled TA support early one, she wouldn’t need the ridiculously expensive placement and full time support she has now.

If you remove TAs from schools, what happens to children like my DD2?

How many different apps have you tried?
really - how many do you think we have access to? we have tried all those we are allowed to try.

Have you looked at their learning styles?

this says it all, really, a totally ridiculous paradigm, that was shown to exist by "educational research" conducted by people who don't have the faintest idea what "research" means, since totally and utterly debunked, NOT, I'm sorry to say in favour of anything any better, but only wave after wave of other nonsensical "research" - each wave subjecting teachers to more stupidity, which we HAVE TO conform to, even whilst knowing full well it is nothing but stupidity - look at the damage "growth mindset" did, before being thrown out in favour of the next nonsense!

And then people on the internet, I don't know, a decade or so out of date maybe?? try and suggest using something we knew was crap at the time, and has been proved out and out crap constantly ever since!

Learning styles quite catagorically don't exist and have never existed, they were a figment of the imagination of ofsted, basically.

If you try to understand

I understand completely, - it is more fun to be abusive and play on your phone than to cooperate and learn.

For many pupils it really is that simple, and without any consequences what so ever, it will remain more fun to do nothing than to do something.

Ok, if you are a specialist and your job is a 'waste of money' then what do you want to change? Should the school scrap all inclusion and TA roles?

1. children to be offered qualifications relevant to their abilities
2. school behaviour policy which works, proper consequences for poor behaviour. Including Saturday detentions, open ended, so you can't leave until the work set has been completed.
3. Parents to back up the school.
4. Abolish league tables, which distort everything a school does

teachers paid and treated better so remain in post long term and build up relationships with the school.

1. Inclusion does NOT mean a child with p5 being in the same academic lesson as child aiming for a C at GCSE! Being in the same school, yes, combining some activities, yes, but not being in the same lesson.
2. Ofsted to assess realistically
3. Abolish performance management of teachers, its meaningless.
4. More didactic teaching, and less flapping around with "ownership" etc.
5. teachers to concentrate on subject knowledge, rather than "edutainment"

10. Mobile phones totally banned in ALL schools at ALL times. 11.schools allowed to use temporary exclusions at will

that is to start with!

Almost all those things can't be bought with money saved. I actually agree with you on the first one. But then individual schools have almost no control over this due to the progress 8 measure. It's all about falling in line or getting punished by Ofsted.

Again, getting rid of 32 roles in school won't bring about the changes you are looking for. Your anger is mis-directed.

Finally, No.2 is unworkable. Who would staff these detentions?

Can you really blame Ofsted for learning styles?

Would you not abolished standardised testing?

Can you really blame Ofsted for learning styles? not entirely, but they certainly encouraged it

Finally, No.2 is unworkable. Who would staff these detentions? its not totally unworkable , in one school I know a head teacher does this once a month, and a deputy head once a month. They do not have many customers, I am not aware of a single pupil who has had to come twice......

I'm more angry about the way that you have essentially labelled these kids that you are supposed to be helping as a waste of your energy than anything I've ever read on here (and there has been some shit over the years), so I am going to step away after this. FWIW, as well as working with offenders for years (from teens upwards), I have a son with special needs, I now work in HE teaching other people how to work effectively with vulnerable people and my PhD is around the complexities which impact on social and educational outcomes for kids with complex lives and histories. I still volunteer with young people with complex needs and am a trustee for a charity which supports them. So not ten years out of date, but definitely someone who is invested in this subject and cares about this stuff.

Most of these apps are free and widely available, if you can't get them from your school - challenge this, if that doesn't work, go to the governors.

Some people learn (process information) differently from others, it's not rocket science (but there are neuroscience theories around variations in processing - look at sensory integration for example). The challenge with the systematic reviews was that, given the absence of an agreed framework it was difficult to provide a comprehensive review of the notion of different styles - which is why people said that 'learning styles' theory was nonsense. A figment of Ofsted's imagination? Given that the initial ideas and theories were developed in the 60s and Ofsted wasn't set up till the 90s, that's a bit of a stretch.

Why don't you ask yourself why it is more fun to be abusive and play on your phone than to co-operate and learn? By doing that you will be able to engage with them and make a difference. Isn't that your job?

Someone upthread suggested that you were burnt out, they are probably right. I get that trying to support kids who don't conform is challenging in this climate but they need people who will advocate for and believe in them, not people who will write them off without trying to understand them.

That said, I agree with a lot of your list above.

hven't read your whole post, dailyshite, but if what you say in the first sentence is true, why were you not aware that "learning styles" were totally and conclusively proved not to exist over a decade ago?

mot that anyone with an ounce of common sense ever believed they existed in the first place....

working with offenders for years I've done this, there is no comparison really, it is a piece of cake, compared to some of the schools I've been in.

Op is not saying these kids are a waste of time, she's saying that it's a waste of time and money to teach them in the current way, with ridiculous tick boxes and lack of discipline, and with the overplaying of the national curriculum. From what I've heard from others in education I agree with a lot of what you say OP

so many posters on here are having a go at me personally, and trying to blame me and say it is my fault. there are 80 class teachers and 25 TAs in my school, and all on the receiving end of the same abuse, day in day out.

I am telling you the truth of what is going on in schools, and you don't want to know, and are trying to deny it, and blaming me personally.

I don't care, i don't know you, and I know I am telling you the truth, and I know some of you are listening to me.

But can you imagine how any individual member of staff is going to feel when faced with such a barrage of hostility, disbelief and personal abuse face to face or on the telephone?

If you don't think things like this are happening in your school, maybe people are scared to be open with you.

It is the CULTURE that makes playing on your phone more fun than learning, no deferred gratification, no effort, not striving, no concentration, and no consequences for not working.

Op is not saying these kids are a waste of time, she's saying that it's a waste of time and money to teach them in the current way, with ridiculous tick boxes and lack of discipline, and with the overplaying of the national curriculum. From what I've heard from others in education I agree with a lot of what you say OP

Thank you

You missed the bit where I pointed out that you don't need to cut 32 jobs to implement these changes.

Your heart might be in the right place and you do have some fair points about he changes that need to be made to the education system as a whole, but your way of approaching the problem is bizarre to say the least.

Saturday morning detentions are not unworkable at all. One of my previous schools did them on occasion. Always run by SLT. Who also ran a 2hr detention on Friday evenings.

OP your suggestions are good ones. I doubt anyone would dispute that. So why didn't you start a thread to debate it.

Start a thread saying all schools are essentially over funded is just lazy DM type authoring. There is NOTHING in your more sensible and coherent posts that suggests over funding is the problem. So why on earth is that yourbthread title.

Couple with some of your other somewhat bizarre illegal assertions you just lose all credibility and have made a fool of yourself.

Shame, could have been an enlightening and constructive thread.

The thing is - and probably the reason why I don't recognise what you describe - is that my DC's school does all of the things that you describe that are under its control.

Tbf, they are lucky because the school has an Ofsted grade that means they are extremely rarely inspected.

The detentions are not on Saturdays, but are after school. Internal exclusion is regularly and promptly used. Basic skills take up timetabled blocks instead of some GCSEs, etc etc.

Some of your points might be good ideas OP and some, indeed, fit with discussions going on elsewhere on MN regarding new exam specifications and the like, that are issues that need fixing. (I don't know why you think you're the first to notice them as problems.)

However, none of your suggestions relate to the premise of your thread - that the school you are talking about (I still have no idea if it exists or not) is over funded. Indeed, it sounds like this particular school is trying to use TA's as sticking plasters. That's not going to work, but is probably the best they can manage on current funding as much cheaper than diagnosing and healing the real societal and educational problems.

If you want to discuss these issues seriously, or alert parents to the problems you see, then you should start another thread where you avoid a goady premise, and try to read all of a poster's reply before you write a retort.

And hey, luckily you are moving on to your head of sixth form role in a private school.

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...

Some really nasty personal attacks here, and I admire you OP for not retaliating but calmly continuing with your points.

Thank you biscuitmillionaire x