Advice needed - bad apprenticeship experience

[Lauren850]

My daughter (23,) has been working as an apprentice teaching assistant in a primary school. She's loved it and has really flourished and grown.

After passing her certificate the school encouraged my daughter to apply for a permanent job which she did, a few weeks before Christmas. In January she asked when the interview would be and was told 'soon'. On 1 Feb with less than 3 weeks to go till the end of her apprenticeship contract, she asked again. This time she was told by the deputy head that a) there's now no job (funding cuts) and b) that she's been unprofessional and needs to improve if she wants a job elsewhere. The evidence was she's had too much time off sick (9 or 10days in 18 months), her timekeeping isnt brilliant and she praises the kids too much.

In 18 months my daughter hasn't received a single supervision session from the school or any formal feedback on how she's doing or areas for improvement.
This school (rated as outstanding) was clearly planning to get right up to the end date of her contract before telling her the bad news. The deputy head said even though she knows now, she has a duty not to leave early AND mustn't tell anyone - staff, kids or parents - that she's going until the very last day.

She is in bits and has spent the weekend in bed crying. She has been supporting a small group of kids with SEN and is distraught at the thought of how they will feel when she 'lets them down' by disappearing.

I would love to hear your views on this - is it as appalling as I think or quite normal,? And is there anything she /we can do to fight back? I know this won't lead to the school giving her a job but surely there should be some comeback for them - like not getting another apprentice?

Its quite normal and not a reflection on your daughter. She must not take this personally. TA/PSA staff are undervalued but hugely important. Majority of the jobs are short term temp contracts and staff never know if they'll be returning. Awful way to treat caring staff who give one of society's most vulnerable groups a invaluable support. Having an apprentice is a cheap way of getting staff. She should have applied for supply or a temp/ permanent job instead. Regarding her not allowed to say she's leaving is so selfish to the pupils, they'll need to get used to the fact that she'll be leaving, particularlyas they are SEN, very unfair of the HT. Also absolutely ridiculous that she has been critisised for praising the pupils too much! I bet they love having her.
Please don't waste your weekend crying, thick skin is needed for this job. You sound wonderful.

I don't mean to sound harsh but that's a lot of absence and the lateness would have been a big issue too.
The impact of staff not being punctual on other staff and children is huge in a school. I've worked with people that are always late and it's a nightmare, why should I cover someone else's role until they decide to roll in? 🙄

Please reassure your dd not to worry about the impact of her leaving, while she may be very attached to the children she has worked with, they will be very used to people leaving and will soon be forming new relationships with new staff.

10 days as 10 separate instances of absence in in 18 months? Or one two-week absence?

Presumably she knew she wasn't being punctual?

On the face of it the other comment seems harsh but the above seem valid concerns.

The important thing is that she brushes herself off and learns from it.

The unprofessional comment is fair....she has been

Honesty in a school setting punctuality is a very important kpi and ten days ( especially if it's signal days) is also on the high side. I'd ignore the comment about praising the kids too much.

I'd encourage her to dust herself off and work on the punctuality part ( she can't help being sick) and help her apply for other roles .

This is a shame for your daughter, but not untypical and she needs to learn from this and grow a bit of a thicker skin going forward. While this can happen regardless, it does sound like she has a lot of sickness, and lateness is a big no-no too which she really needs to rectify as it may have impacted on how she was viewed. Hopefully she can learn from this experience going forward.

As she’s passed her course she should start looking for a job at another school. I can see that the feedback has probably knocked her confidence but she needs to take it on board.

I wonder if the school have used her as cheap labour and had no intention of keeping her on. She’ll probably be replaced with another apprentice.

I do feel for her, but most of us will have had an experience a bit like this in early career.

I’d say there are two things that are important:

For her to be brave enough to take the feedback on board. Many people will try and rage against the unfairness of negative feedback, and well meaning friends and family can try and discredit the feedback in attempt to make you feel better (“but you’re wonderful, how awful!”) but it serves no one. Time keeping is important in any setting and it’s unprofessional to be late or let activities run over; and if she’s being ‘too positive’ is she not paying attention to the school’s methods of behaviour management/reward? This can be powerful learning for her for future jobs.

For her not to take it too hard. It’s one person’s opinion, they have provided no on-going feedback to help her improve at the time, and it doesn’t sound like a nice place to work. She’s 23 and will have many more bosses, many of whom will be better mentors. Take the lesson and brush it off.

Some of this is not very good - no formal supervision, feedback or targets for improvement.
Being told not to tell anyone she’ll be leaving.
I’ve never heard of an apprentice TA. Was she doing it through some kind of course or official apprenticeship thing???
The disappearing job is just bad luck I’m afraid.
On her side - has been late more often than she should?
2 whole weeks off in a school year is a quite a lot unless it’s for something specific. I’m a teacher and I can’t think of a single colleague who’s had that amount of time off in the last 2 years.