Teachers that aren't doing live lessons - advice please

[Imsosorryalan75]

As an ex teacher, I know how hard it must be to be working online. I'm now a TA but my stress levels over lockdown are sky high. Before I approach my head, I wanted some perspective from those in the thick of it as it were.
We currently are on a rota system in school but Ta's days in school have just been increased. We are now working 5 days week compared to teachers, who are working 1 day a week in class. Teachers are at home planning lessons, marking and answering parental/child emails but not live teaching at all.
Is this justifiable? How is it working in your school? I guess I'm wondering why it's ok for us to be in every day at increased risk to us but not teachers?

I'm not "live teaching" for most of my classes as I have small kids at home and my SLT have agreed it's unrealistic to manage. So I'm only live teaching sixth form. I still have to be sat in front of laptop the entire day answering questions and giving feedback. I'm working much longer hours now. And my kids are pretty neglected.

It’s not ok for anyone to be at increased risk. Speak to your headteacher if you feel unsafe.

Also from an infection pov it is better to have consistent staff in than a daily rota.

I am sorry that you are in school and feel unsafe - I would hope that the school is implementing measures previously not applied in schools such as much smaller class sizes and more social distancing but I appreciate that the numbers in primary are crazy.

My school (secondary) is doing a mix of live and remote and our in-school provision is being supervised by the pastoral team. From my perspective I am at much less risk of covid but my workload has increased massively. Our pastoral team wouldn’t be able to take over what I’m doing as they’re not teachers so while it would be ‘fairer’ to have us all in on a rota, it just wouldn’t actually work.

I hope they aren’t bitter about being in the classroom while I’m not and I also hope they know I really appreciate what they are doing to support our vulnerable and keyworker children.

Our TAs weren't in at all from March until June, and most weren't in after that until September either. It's their turn.

We are doing a mix of live teaching and set work. Replanning lessons for home learning is a lot of work. We generally have to cut down lesson content, rewrite explanations, remodel tasks, and find supporting content e.g. videos. For Y11, I record explanations every other lesson, for Y10 I am trying to do this for 1 in 3 lessons.

Feedback is also a lot more time consuming, as is helping individual students with technical or other problems.

We also have to contact/chase up our tutees who aren't submitting work, and this takes up a huge amount of my time!

I do all of this alongside 5 hours of live lessons a week, one day in school a week and a live tutor time every day- so I would say it would be doable for teachers at your school to come in.

HOWEVER, having all teachers in on a rota is actually riskier, IMO, because you are having more adults in the building, more adults interacting with the same children and more chance of someone bringing an infection in. Those teachers may also then need to send their own children into school, increasing the risk to someone else. If it's possible to minimise staff coming in, and everyone can do their jobs, then I think this is the safest route on a school population level.

If you feel individually unsafe- e.g. because the group you are supervising is large and unable to distance, that is a separate issue, which I definitely would take up with your line manager and union.

And the solution might be to get teachers in to decrease group size- but that has to be balanced against the risk of having more adults in the building.

At my school, teachers have plenty of work to do at home- planning, marking, responding to messages from children and parents, recording video lessons and uploading work online. Our TAs have very little work they can do at home and most would admit that the days they aren't on rota they are not working and therefore being paid to do nothing. My husband is a TA and last lock down did next to no work but got paid for it. This time he is in every day but happy to be working. Our school did start with a rota with all staff who were willing to be in but after a positive case resulted in 5 staff having to isolate it was decided that it should be more consistent which staff were in.

In my school the TAs are in full time supporting the children in school. Teachers are not in class, though we are on rota so for each KW class, there is one teacher available in school each day should the TAs need us.
Teachers all so a 30 min zoom with their classes each day, and prepare and mark work, including videos to support learning, and keep in touch with families. As teachers we are allowed in school to work as long as we are in a room by ourselves, so I am in most days as are a few of my teacher colleagues.
None of our TAs have raised any issues, they understand our workload is full on.
If teachers were to be in the class we would have to cut back on the remote learning we are providing. We have had some TAs isolate at home, and during these periods we have found things for them to do, but would struggle to find work for them if they were off in numbers.
Can I ask what you feel you should be doing?

In don’t think comparing yourself to teachers is fair. They have plenty to do at home, there isn’t much a TA can do. Given you are in school they have a duty of care, but the roles aren’t interchangeable.

I think it’s about team effort and shouldn’t be “them and us”. Our school also have TAs in full time and each teacher once a week on a rota. No one doubts that the teachers are working hard at home but the TAs are working just as hard. They’re now responsible for not just KW children but also vulnerable children in school who often have “issues” and require a lot of 1 to 1 support. The teachers who have been in school so far have been shocked at how diffucult it is in school. Each child at home has the benefit of a parent to support them with their online lessons/learning, (I’m talking Primary here) whereas in school it’s one 2 TA’s for for 8 or more children. They log themselves out of things, mute & unmute themselves, mess around, etc, during live online lessons and cannot manage online learning without a lot of help. I’m not moaning, just saying that it’s hard work. With some groups, the TAs have found it easier to teach the lesson themselves in class, rather than try to cope with all the individual children accessing live lessons with the teacher. During the first lockdown, our TAs and teachers shared the KW supervision at school but when at home, TAs worked a full day, marking work online and posting videos/1:1 sessions to children in Class Dojo. We didn’t get paid to do nothing. The TAs were back in school full time as soon as the schools reopened for the summer term. Let’s not make this a game of Top Trumps. We’re ALL working hard.

I don’t understand how TAs don’t have much to do from home. Our TAs are really busy; they support pupils in lessons and out of lessons, differentiate resources and delivery and liaise with teachers and parents. We put procedures in place during the first lockdown which we have expanded if anything this time.

@Newrumpus that’s exactly my point. If TAs are doing nothing at home, then it’s because they’re either not being managed or not in the loop. We’ve been busy all the time,?either in school or out.

As a teacher I would love more rota days in school looking after KW children - the one day I do is the highlight of my week. Sadly though, the parents seem to be much more demanding and picky when a TA is responding to queries/Zooming with children to explain things/marking work submitted on Seesaw.

All but one of our TAs said after their first day of being ‘in charge’ of a class from home via Seesaw (when that class’ teacher was in with KW children) that they’d much prefer to be in than staring at a screen and dealing with demanding parents all day!

I don’t think anyone is having a great time 😫

As an ex teacher, I know how hard it must be to be working online
To be perfectly honest, I don't think you do. I would not have understood what it was like before the first lockdown. It's not like preparing work on a computer in school.

I'm in a 2 form entry school and job sharing in one of the Y1 classes. The other full time teacher is doing all tbe live online teaching. I'm teaching in school my 2 days, my colleague is teaching her 3 days - we share the bubble of 9 (we also have a TA 1 to 1 for an EHCP child). The other Y1 bubble is taught by our 2 Y1 TAs every day - obviously the 3 teachers have done the planning. The other year groups are similar.

Forgot to say, the person doing the online teaching is in school 2 days only - her choice so she can touch base with us part timers and school life in general. She's in a room by herself - we're lucky to have enough spaces.

All TAs and teachers are in at my school (but not today- snow day!).
We have an average of 12 KW children in per class, who do exactly the same work as their peers who are working at home. The TA is there to chivvy the KW children in class, and we have to plan, set, upload and mark the work. TAs also have to contact any children who are engaging with the online learning. This is fine if you have a full time TA, but I only have a TA for 3 days a week so on the other 2 days I'm having to juggle the KW children and the online learners.