wfh as a 121 TA

[Schooldilemma1]

Hi everyone,
I'm hoping for some advice from you lovely lot now that the TES Community (where i would normally ask) is undergoing extended maintenance lol!
I am a 121 TA, only started doing it this September.

My 121s aren't in at the moment although of course their parents could change their minds at any time.
So i don't really have any 'essential' work to do in school and given the situation with Covid in the hospitals right now it really doesn't feel sensible for anyone to be in that really doesn't need to be.

My school has a rota - one week in school, the next week 'wfh'. There is nothing really that i can do at home either other than online learning and training. Next week I am due back into school supporting a bubble which i am fine with if i am really needed but I will be supporting a bubble of 10 children alongside a very experienced TA all day and with another 121 TA with us in the afternoon.

It just feels like overkill to have three of us in there and we are increasing the transmission risk. My husband is in his 50s, if he got symptoms tonight he could quite feasibly need a hospital bed by the weekend and there really might not be one!!

The school manager has told me i am needed in the classroom but that seems ridiculous with the other two TAs in there as well.

What do you all think? What is happening in your schools?

Thanks :)

It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to have 2.5 people covering a bubble for the day. It’s not an excessive number of people in my view, especially if there isn’t very much work for you to do from home. My advice, if you’d rather work from home in future and the school can conceivably staff the bubbles without you is to come up with some form of remote provision that you can do from home. Could you offer to run small group sessions on teams? Is there some sort of intervention or support that you can run remotely? Ultimately, if the school believe that you can do more for the pupils from home than by having you in school then they are much more likely to agree to you working from home. School SLTs will be looking to deploy staff wherever they are likely to have most impact. Having you in with a small bubble of pupils will be having more impact than you staying home with nothing much to do remotely. You may find that if you came up with an idea for some form of remote provision that they are open to you working from home more.

I think that sounds about right tbh. There’s always 2 of you in the room considering breaks and lunch etc.
I’m in secondary, we have 5 members of staff (1 cover supervisor and 4 ta’s) per yr group bubble in every day. Most bubbles only contain 10-15 students. I think it’s crazy having so much staff but there we go. I don’t make the decisions.

Do your one to ones need any extra activities sent to them?
Perhaps you could prepare some differentiated/ individual activities for them to support home learning?
TAs do this in our school.

I’m a 1:1 TA too and the child I work with isn’t in school. I’m in school at least twice a week, working with a bubble of children alongside 2 other TAs. Whilst at home, I’m marking work for two classes online, taking part in Teams meetings and doing some 1:1 sessions online too. I think it’s to be expected that you would go into work. The children in the bubble you’re assigned may well be from different classes and of different abilities.

I’m in my 50s and my DH is in his 60s. That’s not an excuse to not go in and do your bit. (That’s meant to be read in a kind and reassuring tone, not in a snarky, finger wagging one! 😉)

We have different staff numbers in different classes depending on need. I am in a year 5/6 bubble and there are 3 adults in class supporting 5 children. One of us is also responsible for monitoring the online learning and answering enquiries from home learners. This has proved to be a full time job in itself. We are all in full time. We are going to start zoom shortly for 1-1 and small group activities. Could you ask about the doing something for your 1-1.

Thanks everyone it’s really helpful to know what you are all doing!

I’m glad I asked before I went back complaining. I am surprised there are so many TAs in school at the moment considering how few children are there.
We prepared 3 weeks of home learning packs in school last week and I will need to do more at some point when we have feedback from the parents.
Cassgate you sound really busy watching the home learning at the same time as the in school learners. Our school has assigned a teacher to the online learning and the other year group teacher has the bubble. Works really well although it was tough last week for the online teacher, I hope no one has to isolate!
Dotinthecity thank you :) I am very happy to do my bit, actually I’d much rather be in school, I enjoyed it... it just felt like overkill for part of last week given the situation. You sound really busy too, but like you are minimising time in school where possible?
Madameminimes thanks I will have a think and make some suggestions.