Teaching assistant - advice required!

[bristollady]

Hi everyone! I’m considering a change of career and am looking for advice from others who have perhaps done this or are in the process of doing it.

My background is marketing (I’ve worked for agencies in the past) but now my daughter is 16 months old and I’m starting to think of the future, when she’s at school etc. I’d like to have a job that fits with school hours and holidays. I’ve also been reflecting on my work since having her and realised that what I was doing, while enjoyable, wasn’t fulfilling. I’d like to be helping people and feeling like my work makes a difference.

I thought becoming a teaching assistant might be good as, while I could do a PCGE and be a teacher, I’m not sure I want that level of pressure. I’d be keener to work directly with the children and be a bit more hands on.

Before I fork out for training though, I’d like to do some work experience and find out if I’m any good at it! How do you go about this? Has anyone else got experience of training as a TA? I’d love to hear what you al think of it!

Before paying for training i’d try and get some volunteer experience at a local school to get an idea of what’s involved. I got a job as a TA by volunteering a morning a week in my children’s school and proving I could do the job that it. It was also really useful to be in a school environment and see what kind of TA I wanted to be (eg 1 to 1 or general) and also which age group I wanted to work with.

People on munsnet always talk about how sought after and competitive TA jobs are and while I’m sure that’s true in many places it wasn’t my experience. I live in a city in the SE and we are crying out for people mostly because the money is awful and doesn’t make financial sense if you need to pay for childcare.

It can be a really rewarding job where you feel you’re making a difference. My colleagues were all amazing and I loved being part of the team. It can also be hugely frustrating and soul-destroying especially when you’re spreading yourself too thinly amongst the many children who have additional needs.

I’ve just left my TA job, it was great for a while but it felt a bit dead end unless I wanted to do a PGCE and the money is truly terrible. The nail in the coffin for me was when a friend got a job working on the shop floor of a major department store earning significantly more an hour than I did!

I agree with Bella and am thinking of moving away from ta work for the same reasons.

If you're keen though your local authority may run a support work in schools course , this should be free and you have a local work placement as part of the training. This is how I got my job.

Good luck

Also op , be aware that while the job may fit with school hours you'll probably never be approved time off for your dc's school plays. You will only be able to go away in peak season and any personal appointments will be expected to be attended during the holidays. Also you will probably have to work on inset days and therefore organise childcare for these days.

Sorry for the triple post , my phone has gone mad. I've reported for removal.

Thank you so much for all your feedback, it’s so useful to hear it from people who have been there. You’ve certainly made me think again about it. I wonder if I should consider going straight for class teacher training instead. I’ve written to a few local schools to try and get some work experience and I’ll see how that goes. Thank you.

My experience was slightly different to magic because I worked in the same school as my children and were always able to see important plays, assemblies and sports days. The TAs also were only contracted to work 1 inset day and if they chose to work for any additional days they could have a day in lieu. I think I was lucky with my school though, I know some schools were teaching assistants are expected to do much more. And working in your child school has other challenges!

I honestly wouldn’t make a decision until you’ve volunteered in a school. You really couldn’t pay me enough to be a class teacher. I am full of admiration for all the teachers I know but it’s definitely a vocation.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

I’m a TA. And while it is a lovely job in many ways, it can also be very difficult. The pay is shocking and the job doesn’t always fit around your children as well as you’d think. I work in a different school to my DCs and because of the different times each school starts and finishes as well as the commuting time, my DCs still have to attend breakfast club and after school club every day. My Head is great and will try to accommodate nativity plays/sports days etc but it’s not always possible.

I work in a naice Outstanding school in a small market town. Even so, we have out fair share of issues. Children can be disruptive, everyone has too much work and not enough time and we are all responsible for the progress the children make. Support staff in my school are subject to the same performance management as the teaching staff. Behaviour management is an ongoing issue in many schools. Yesterday I was sworn at and had a (different) child try to kick me.

If you are serious about the PGCE then I would at least make sure you get some real experience in a school before you go for it. If you were a TA for a while, at least you’d go into it with your eyes wide open!

Good luck OP. Before I started as a TA, I really had no idea of the workload of a typical teacher. It’s relentless.

Thank you. It does sound like a hard path to tread, whichever side of the classroom you go for. Definitely sounds like I need that practical experience before I make my decision then!

The future is beyond the next decade. Within a few years your DC(S) will be fine with whatever childcare arrangements you can organise.

TAs are treated like shit where I live. Their contracts are often fixed term but almost certainly term time only. Here they have largely been downgraded to L2 from L3. They are expected to step in and cover at the drop of a hat. Teachers would never accept this and by and large they don't have to, bring well protected by unions. That said, where I live there are no academies - but then I certainly wouldn't want to be an academy TA.

TA roles are remarkably badly paid, especially once they then pro rata it. And if they then salary it so you don't have holiday weeks with no pay, the effective take home pay is lower again. All of the TAs in my school also work at the before and after school club and as midday supervisors too, to supplement their pay.

On top of that, more and more TAs are being used for classroom cover for absence and PPA cover. It's not the job it used to be.

I've been working as a ta in my children's school since 2015 1;1 I started volunteering when my youngest started reception I was planning on doing a pgce but changed my mind when I realised how un family friendly it would be. I started going in 4 mornings a week and did l2 supporting teaching and Learning 1night a week it was a 12minth course I started paid work as 1:1 during the course. I did l3 the next year. A lot of the tas at our school have l3 but are employed at l2 myself included. There are not many l3 vacancies locally. I never wanted to be a 1:1 I wanted to be a class ta however in our school class tas work about 15 hours a week and most do 5hrs welfare. I work 25hrs as a ta and 5 welfare. We do inset depending on our hours I have to do 30hrs inset each year. I do love my job but am only on a temp contract if/When the child I support leaves school my contract ends. I do love my job but it can be stressful in my class there are the class teacher myself and 1 more ta who supports another child in class. The teacher has been off today some myself and the other ta covered the class it's not the first time it's happened and it won't be the last.

There lots of fun to be had in a classroom - but also a lot of responsibility

There aren't many full time TA jobs around and you get paid min hours for 39 weeks of the year

You start beofre the kids arrive and expected to domplentlynof late nights - anything from discos to parents nights to schools plays choir sports events - with no extra pay it's expected

A decent head will let you go to school concerts for your own kids

Thanks for sharing your experiences. There seems to be a common theme here - a lot of work for not much pay! I’ve had a reply from a local school, so I’m hopefully going to do some work experience soon and at least I will find out one way or another if it’s something I could be good at/want to do. You have made me think twice about it! I realised it would be hard work but I hadn’t realised the employment conditions were so tough for TAs.

Great that you’ve heard back from a school - you’ll definitely get a good idea when you see it first hand.

I know you’ve had a mixed bag of responses but don’t let it put you off completely. It worked really well for me to work in the school my kids were at especially as it was a lovely school with a brilliant head teacher. I had no additional childcare costs, all the holidays with my kids and I could walk out of the door at 3 and not worry about work. I also loved being part of the school community and having colleagues to chat to.

From reading this thread it does seem like so much of the TA’s experience is dependant on the culture of the school/head.

The pay is terrible but, for me at least, was offset by all the other advantages and it suited me really well for a few years.

I think I might have been a bit negative in my last post OP - it came off the back of an usually bad day! I should add that I love my job most of the time. The children can be challenging but they are also a delight. I work with Yr 6 and most of the children are genuinely lovely company. They are funny and optimistic and it is a privilege to watch them learn and grow. Yesterday I was explaining long division to a child who hadn’t understood it in the main lesson. By the end of my 20 minutes with her she’d got it and was doing it independently. That kind of job satisfaction is great. My days are very busy, true, but I am also never bored! It’s not the kind of job where you ever clock watch.

Having school holidays free is also a massive plus - as a TA you are never more than 7 weeks away from a week off! And, depending on the Head, there can also be opportunities to progress. I will be undertaking a HLTA course later this year, sponsored by my school. Other TAs in my school have completed degrees in in education while on day release from work and gone on to do PGCEs.

It does very much depend on where you work though. I’m on a FB page for TAs and some appear to be treated really appallingly.

I would look at other roles in education support too. Finance, reception, admin roles supporting departments, librarians etc. Obviously most of these only available in secondary.

Go on to your local council jobs website, do the search, then keep your eye out for jobs in that category, look at what they pay etc. See if your local secondary has a business forum / link with local businesses and start going to the meetings etc. Get your skill set known.

Pay is terrible. One moment is uplifting and joyous, and the next you want to kill someone. But fits well with family life if you can get the right hours.