TA MANAGEMENT HELP !

[Aprildaisyx]

Any advice on my current situation would be greeaaattt!
This year I got moved from year 2 to year 6/
The class are lovely but there are lots of additional needs. On a whole they really lack confidence in their own abilities and can be extremely “fussy”.
So due to this I have been given a full time TA, however I am reallyyyy struggling to work with her. For reference she’s been at the school for 5 years. And with this current class for 2 years. And she’s been TAing for nearly 15 years.

She is very on edge and can get quite snappy and flustered really easily and creates an atmosphere in the classroom which you could cut with a knife.
The kids then pick up on this and this is when the fuss starts (by fuss I mean things like asking 25 questions about writing the date).

She also cannot follow direction. I have a 20min handover with her every morning and keep a handover book which has the lesson, timing, who she’s work with, the outcome etc.
I also write her lessons up fully onto a planning format (for the core subjects) so she has the unit overview.

but this still isn’t enough. She will interrupt me in the middle of teaching to clarify things which again just rubs off on the kids and they the become on edge.

I had a meeting with SLT about it and the outcome was that I basically need to be even more explicit with her and give her more detail and make sure she doesn’t have a single minute where she’s not sure of what she needs to do.

I’ve added up the timing of this and it’s going to add an extra 4hours of work load a week to my already heavy workload .

Am I within my right to say that this is just unreasonable and that I physically don’t have an extra 4 hours a week? I feel it’s unfair that my workload is being added to.
I had a full time TA last year and she amazing and I literally couldn’t have coped without her - so I’m used to having a TA in 😩.

Any advice on what I can do would be great.

Sounds like a nightmare. I really don’t understand why schools seem to persevere with staff that aren’t up to scratch - in my previous career you’d be given your marching orders within your probation period, and that would be it! At my current school, the quality of TA’s really seems to vary. We have permanent staff TAs who literally need spoon feeding, and can spend an entire day doing simple jobs that should barely take an hour. One TA who has been in schools for 13 years, has a dreadful rapport with children, they literally descend into chaos when she’s around…yet the school are afraid to challenge her as she has tried to raise fictitious claims on a number of occasions and has feigned illness on the occasions she has had complaints raised against her. Just don’t understand it..it’s not good for anyone.

Can't you just say, at the beginning of each lesson, 'in Maths we are doing place value and I want you to support blue group with the dienes' or whatever?

If she is an experienced TA who knows the school and the kids well, why does she need more than this? Does everyone find her impossible or is she being awkward with you?

If she is interrupting at the wrong time, tell her. Speak to her and say please don't interrupt during the input unless it is really urgent. or if you want to feign friendly relations 'the class become fussy if we speak during input so can you possibly wait to ask questions until the kids get started on their own'. I have worked with some amazing TAs who have helped me and the kids and have only ever worked with one who drove me mad and luckily it was secondary so only twice a week.

I think you need to manage her rather than pander to her. Sorry if that sounds harsh. If she speaks over you again, read her the riot act at the end of the class. She should not be undermining you!

It seems very common to have TA's who have been at the school for ages and who are dragons. Dont tolerate it OP, you are the teacher- she should be assisting YOU.