Snapshot of _Low pay ‘forcing teaching assistants out of UK classrooms’_ :
An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/may/14/low-pay-teaching-assistants-uk-classrooms)
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[I used to be a Journalist, Dave. For The Times. I have strong opinions about education.](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LUEoYdXw6hE/UQali2mJPzI/AAAAAAAAC2A/MLjQjmncPmU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-01-28+at+16.22.19.png)
I still think that the academisation of schools will go down as one of the biggest mistakes / scandals in modern politics.
The problem is that academies were originally a labour policy so they can't really go against them.
Though I'd argue that academies have drifted massively from how they were originally sold.
How old are you fucking hell. Yes Essential in these 30 kid underfunded schools where teachers are killing themselves because the torys havent invested properly and are paying 18 grand for teaching assistant's
Very much so. You see, when you (and I) were at school, those who struggled to learn, continued to struggle and rarely achieved anything academically. There was no differentiation in teaching, no recognition of learning styles et cetera.
Today a teaching assistant is very needed.
> There was no differentiation in teaching, no recognition of learning styles et cetera.
We had sets 1-8. Surely that is enough? And I'm sure that the idea of learning styles was debunked.
You think there are enough teachers in schools to separate classes into sets?
There aren't enough specialist teachers for STEM subjects to teach the existing numbers of classes!
They are essential where there are students with additional needs who may need extra help accessing the learning. Many students get on fine without them, but in a class with a few of these students they are indespensible
There's two kids in my class that need a one to one and whenever my teaching assistant isn't in to support them both it becomes incredibly hard to teach them properly AND the other 29
You are trolling, surely.
If you are being serious, what do you propose instead? Triaging education? What do you suggest the education system offer those children instead?
This is why the country is fucked. People like you with outdated views selfishly claiming that because you didn’t have something future generations should go without. Nice one
Repeat instructions more clearly, create resources for students tailored towards their needs, in some cases translating work for students with EASL. If students have behavioural issues they may have strategies to support them or a rapport that enables them to be calmed and attentive.
It can be little things such as a student with autism needing to go on a walk round outside the classroom once a lesson to calm them.
At the school I work in safeguarding is a big issue, students generally have one or two TAs they work with consistently. Getting a heads up that a student is having a bad anxiety day, or some bad news from home from a source they can trust is invaluable.
I just volunteered as one. Heck, it wasn’t that long ago I was even at school. Turns out that kids can in fact struggle to follow the lesson being taught, and that one person can’t be everywhere at once.
The absolutely most essential resource in my classroom.
We didn't have electricity before either and we survived just fine. We didn't have cars before and survived just fine.
We didn't use to have it is the single most fucking useless argument I've ever heard in my life.
My other half was a qualified primary school teacher in Spain, moved to the UK and got her QTS here but wanted to work for a year as a TA to experience UK schools first hand before actually teaching in one.
Pro-rated, her pre-tax salary was c.£13,000/year, so her take-home was about £1,000/month. Ridiculous. Luckily a teaching position opened up 6 months in and they really wanted her in the job.
MIL is an experienced TA, was made redundant a couple of years ago and has filled the gap working retail. She's started making inroads to return to TA. She gets 20p / HR more as TA than in retail.
The kicker is retail she gets continuous employment (think not being paid for school holidays) and a decent discount on the weekly shop.
Financially, she's way better off staying in retail.
You used to. But now with academies being nominally independent, they’ve been hiring everyone as agency staff even teaching assistants that only work in that one school.
And through the agency the agency only hired you for the on the job hours. Ending the old style where you made and agreement to get 12months of pay.
It’s also changes it from a 40-50hr a week salary, to basically hourly pay based on when you’re in classrooms. (Or maybe daily pay for being on site)
Something about she gets paid for the term time hours, but it's pro-rated over the 12 months. So she gets 20p/hr more but only for 38 weeks v 52 weeks for the retail job. Factor in the discount and it's a sizeable difference in favour of retail.
I think it depends on your roll. I get paid a salary but I don’t get all of the holidays off. Although I do get 6 weeks plus the bank holidays. But there are others who get all of the holidays off and their salary is pro-rated.
Sadly not, most advertise the annual salary then put in the small print that it's pro-rota. So every school holiday is removed from the total salary and that is then paid over 12 months. Makes it around £1k a month.
I think you do, but as a TA/classroom assistant you're unlikely to be working much over the summer, unlike non-classroom based support/admin roles that carry on like any other job. AFAIK the pay is generally salaried and pro-rated over the year, so you'll still get the same payslip in the summer but the average is lower
I dipped my toe in with being an ICT technician, managed to land on one 'golden' opportunity that paid £19.5k and that was in London, most are around £16/17k outside London.
I was 'lucky' to be in a position where I was able to take that and do the job for a while, but most people simply wont be able to afford to even dip their toe into education with those rates.
Especially considering a generic minimum wage 40 hour salary pays £21.5k in a 'normal job'
It's because you only get paid for the time the kids are there, turning up early to help prep or going home late because of school activities are unpaid, as are 12 weeks of your year. It's minimum wage and all the adverts you see are pro-rata meaning the advertised salary is miles above what you'll actually get. So your wage is minimum\*6 hours per weekday\*40 weeks = £12, 504 per year. It's all above board and legal because you're getting paid minimum wage for the hours you work (but you're not, because you do a minimum of an hour a day unpaid extra and you don't get breaks). Edit to add: and ain't NOBODY in this country can live on 12k. No way no how.
https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/estimate-paye-take-home-pay/ reckons £1,072.01/month, although note that's assuming zero pension contribution and no student loan payments.
So you're right but probably overlooking further deductions.
I have 5 TAs in my class and the school I work out heavily relies on them for it to function. without TAs special needs education will die. They need to reinstate the SEN allowance and make it so they're at least classed as full time.
Their duties go above and beyond and they should be paid accordingly. £65 a day for what they put up with is frankly disgraceful
It's awful how they're paid, when I did my teacher training I had a class of 20 or so kids, 9 of which had full EHCPs needing TAs. I had one, if I was lucky. Most of the time I had 0. And I've seen some teachers treat the TAs horribly :(
I made the transition from the healthcare sector into education and I've recieved more verbal and physical abuse from some classrooms I've been in than I did in mid secure MH units.
A previous classroom I worked in for a few months was to support a kid with ASD who would scram and bite people and kids. In that class we also had a girl that regularly assaulted and brutalised other kids (she broke a chromebook hy repeatedly smashing it over another child's head, she's done the same with plastic hockey sticks, she's pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall and sprayed it in another kids face, and she's lunged at me and the teacher many times punching and kicking us because we've tried to get between her and her victim), and we had a young boy with anger management issues who would threaten to rape girls in the class, their mothers, and female staff.
All these kids were in year 3, 8-9 year old.
£65 a day was the rate for 6 hours work despite the work day being 7-8 hours long, no pay for school holidays, no sick days or holidays, no benefits of any kind, and you had to reapply for thr job every summer holiday because your contract would only run to July.
Retail employs people permanently at £11-£12 an hour for 52 weeks of the year and offers sick pay, holidays, and benefits like store discount.
It's not the fault of the kids, a lot of these kids are being severely let down by the systems they are in.
We have many kids who are under social workers, and have been for years, yet have no recieved any diagnosis for what are clearly behavioural disorders. Without the diagnosis the school doesn't get any funding for 1-1 support. Many children from neglectful or abusive homes are also either still with the parents/guardians or have regular contact with their abuser if they happen to be a parent.
There's also a chronic lack of support in the classroom both in terms of TA's, but also in a teachers ability to protect themselves and kids from these kinds of abusive behaviours. When becomes physically abusive we aren't allowed to intervene in any way that would be meaningful, essentially we stand on the sidelines hoping us shouting over the screams and cries of the victim will make her stop.
When I was in school these children would be expelled, or at the very least moved to a different school that accommodated their needs. This doesn't happen anymore, the children in that class are stuck with that girl until they're in comprehensive school.
Parents also deserve a special mention in this, it unfortunately isn't a surprise that the kids that display these sorts of behaviours have parents cut from the same cloth. I've seen teachers get threatened in and out of school, a mother try and assault a teacher because her son tore apart a classroom and was denied break (god forbid), and I've seen their attitude towards teachers and the classroom.
The aforementioned girls parents were brought in once to see a classroom flooded with CO2 foam from the extinguisher, papers thrown about, resources and materials broken and thrown, a smashed laptop, ripped apart furniture, and what can only be described as an "artistic masterpiece" in the girls bathroom painted by the girl with her own faeces and urine(the inciting incident to their rampage as we dared try and tell her off for this display of artistic talent). The parents response was to ask her to apologise (not to clean up or to offer financial conpensation to replace lost equipment and cleanup), and to tell the school that they no longer wished to be contacted during the schoolday for behavioural issues, or brought into the classroom after school, instead we were to seesaw across pictures of her rampage.
Good TAs either end up training into teaching roles, or leaving to do something less stressful.
Leaves schools in a state full of TAs that aren’t really bothered.
My wife is currently working as a teaching assistant, the problem she has is the head mistress is dead against teaching assistants, in her words "a drain on the system" and "not really teachers" due to this any help she requires falls on deaf ears.
My wife is powering through as best she can as the school is woefully understaffed and has student class sizes into the mid 30s now. It's not just the pay but how teaching assistants are seen as less than a teacher.
Your wife shouldn't shoulder the mismanagement of the school herself. If her boss openly dislikes her, she should not remain employed there, for her own mental health if nothing else. That the school is understaffed is not her responsibility to fix.
Absolutely brain dead from that head teacher. In my teacher training it was made very clear that TAs and LSAs are invaluable resources for ensuring *all* students are able to get something from your lesson. It's a shame that someone in that position can't realise that very basic fact of the classroom, especially in a school with such large classes! Then the pay on top of that (and lack of respect and recognition) is enough of a joke as is. Your partner is doing incredible work and I hope it gets better for them.
Head mistress is retiring at the end of the summer term, which seemed great until everyone found out she's sitting on the governing board once she retires, so her reach seems set to continue. And from what I can tell the city council and the governing body disregard alot of what happens in the school (not enough space or time to list everything but the stories are quite shocking from bullying to money for special needs kids being used elsewhere)
My kid’s school basically said the same (although somewhat more diplomatically phrased). They’ve run out of budget. They’ve got to choose between two classes without a TA or one class without a teacher.
They can’t have classes only taught by TAs, so that only leaves one option.
cant believe a head teacher can sit there, getting paid £80k for 39 weeks of answering emails and doing the morning announcements and call anyone a 'drain on the system' with a straight face.
So should all schools drop TAs and have how many students to teacher? 35, 40 or bigger classes? What happens to the students who need additional help? Can one teacher help every individual student? The other option is hire more teachers and make schools even bigger but we have less people wanting to be teachers so how do we get more teachers...the answer would be bigger wages which a school budget cannot do....if there was only a way that teachers could have an assistant to help them...
>So should all schools drop TAs and have how many students to teacher? 35, 40 or bigger classes?
There are legal requirements for ratios
> What happens to the students who need additional help? Can one teacher help every individual student?
They get left behind, the budget the government gives schools doesn't stretch that far
> The other option is hire more teachers and make schools even bigger but we have less people wanting to be teachers so how do we get more teachers...the answer would be bigger wages which a school budget cannot do....if there was only a way that teachers could have an assistant to help them...
That's not something a head teacher controls, they can only spend the budget they've been allocated
Which is amusing, as when a teacher calls in sick the TA is asked to run the class for the day, week etc!!! Yet not a teacher. Also not a teacher when they must take six to ten pupils out for focused learning again less than a teacher but doing the work of a teacher.
It amuses me how less than a teacher they are but she but required to teach.
Low pay is just one element, there's also the fact that pay is increased in other roles and these increases aren't funded which means losing non essential support staff. Generally speaking if you're a TA you have a partner in a higher paying job paying the bills.
No, schools only have so much budget. If you're on a higher scale point you may find it difficult finding a job as schools don't have the money to afford you.
The reason these jobs can be woefully underpaid is because it's one of the jobs which has a high proportion of staff who aren't the main breadwinner in their household. In fact, they're often part time and coming from either unemployed/economically inactive or less well paid jobs so accept the poor pay as they're far more interested in working with kids.
My partner is in the process of becoming a TA and... yeah, pretty much. We survive off my salary being disproportionate to the amount of work I don't do.
It's good because she has the ability to say no. It's bad because holy crap the number of things you suddenly say no to when you have a little freedom to do so.
She's tried to start the role before and the main common feature has been that every time the company fucked around and lied barefacedly about what would actually be involved (e.g. advertising "primary school", actual job secondary-age SEN students, "well if we said that nobody would apply").
One of my friend was TA and he said that this is his part time job so he is not complaining too much about the money he is making, as he was doing double job in his life
Hmm. Do you have any stats for this? Ime tas are a real mixed bag in this regard and it is heavily dependent on school catchment.
In posher areas I think you might be right. In shittier schools, I think the majority I've known tend to be single and or single parents.
I think teacher and TA is just like doctor and nurse as they said if nurses wants to get paid more then they need to increase their skill so they can get paid according to that one
My wife is not a UK national, but we've got her a spouse visa. In her home country she was effectively running a preschool as the managing director. Now we're moving to the UK, and not only does she have to apply for an apprenticeship based on a UK diploma, but she has to wait 3 years until she can even apply to do it.
This country is actively turning people away from the important jobs that are so desperately needed.
The problem with this is that these stupid our sources companies that do educational “research” have been on this trip of identifying PSA’s/TA’s as the least useful thing that can be done to help pupils in school without any actual information about how they came to that conclusion. Councils are always looking for reasons to cut costs so this is part of why PSA’s are so poorly paid and jobs are not secure. It sucks because they are so useful to have.
Basically no support role in any school pays enough for a person to live on, and you're basically used as a human shield to protect teachers from redundancy because they can't afford to lose them.
They rely on a stream of older people who are on the home stretch to retirement and looking for a more flexible job to take them up. But they've become unattractive even for those people.
A friend of mine was a TA, he loved it but has had to change career because the pay was/is so low. He runs training for the emergency services now and earns a significant amount more.
I'm a teacher and all the TAs in my school have rich hubbies and I'm pretty sure most do it for a hobby. A lot of them drive nicer cars than the headmaster! None of them are unionised either. As long as this is the case, the pay will never increase which really hurts those who need it.
Not everyone do that as a hobby and the good thing about TA is that you can do some extra job other than that because you will always get some extra free hours in your day
TA on 45k?
who the fuck are they assisting? sure as shit ain't in a school your kids gonna be going to, that's for damn sure.
edit: did half of you idiots not read the entire thread where i said this was meant to be a reply to another person?
Also remember that during these teachers' strikes the assistants' union did NOT give them a mandate to strike, meaning they couldn't support their colleagues at pickets or on strike days
It was completely on a case by case basis that schools decided whether or not assistants would be penalised for taking the day "off"
This isn't entirely true. Teaching assistants in Wales did meet the threshold required to strike, and did so - and were rightly frustrated when the pay offer Wales accepted had no offer for support staff included.
Additionally, any member of staff is able to join a picket and cannot be penalised for doing so beyond losing the day's pay as if they had been on strike. However that person has to be present at the picket (even if only for 30 seconds) - not just not show up to work.
Okay, very interesting to hear about Wales - I'm in England and have close family who are teachers so my perspective & comment was just about England, but I didn't specify that, so my bad.
However, the fact they will lose pay is not the only thing holding assistants back - they will be marked down as unauthorised absence as they have no legal mandate to strike and therefore it won't be marked down as a strike day.
Teachers have sick days, unauthorised (aka unpaid) absence and strike days whereas assistants only have sick or unauthorised absence. So they may 'legally' be able to join the picket, but the school won't register it as a legal strike making the practicalities highly unfair.
Also, keep in mind not all schools have been able to have an individual picket outside their gates as some have chosen to do city-centre or group pickets, so this wasn't an option for all assistants at all schools.
The only striking union at the moment is the NEU. Their policy is to have pickets in the morning, and city centre rallies take place afterwards. Picketing is treated as the most important part of the day and is strongly encouraged. Government legislation also states that you are only allowed to picket outside your place of work. If any schools have not had a picket line, it is because staff there have chosen not to have one.
Anyone joining a picket line is afforded the same protections as those striking. Nationwide, not one school has tried to apply sanctions to anyone joining a picket line since strikes started.
However, as the article states, simply losing a day's pay is enough to put many teaching assistants off - they earn little enough as it is.
That doesn't sound right to me. For a start the article you linked says that as TAs often don't get paid over the holidays, a TA salary can often be 12k a year.
I'm top of the teacher main pay scale outside of London, and I don't earn 45k. My wife earns about that as deputy head. I can't imagine any TA ever earning 45k, especially outside of London, because that's more than most teachers get paid.
I can say that my place of work has probably lost about 30% of TAs just in the last year, mostly due to pay.
2020 Q1 £1,876.8b ([https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/december2020#government-debt](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/december2020#government-debt))
2022 Q3 £2,445.2b ([https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/september2022](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/september2022))
So £569b, however it may be that not all of that is covid, the cost I've heard banded around for covid was about £300b. This is just national debt too, companies may have their own debt increases. To put this into context the figure I'm seeing for the financial crisis bailouts is £137b, however this had wider ranging effects due to needing to reconfigure the banking system.
>Money is short for everyone. The country is poorer relatively due to inflation and covid.
I don't disagree, but then we need to look at whether we actually want TAs in school rather than just paying them so little no one applies. You don't want to be in the situation were tasks are allocated to TAs which don't exist.
>However teaching assistants can be paid a decent wage for working less hours and not needed to be full time teachers.
True, but the current system means you either need a second job or a partner pulling in the big bucks to make rent. If it was a case of a barmaid doing some tutoring and child minding on the side that would be fine but TAs are more integral to the running of a school.
>The pay they receive can be decent and they can transition to a full time teacher with extra training.
That's true but a bit misleading as the extra education is a PGCE which is like a vocational masters. It's not like you can just take a couple quick training courses and now you're a teacher.
Not only UK every country is in the same boat, every single country is suffering or suffered from the inflation since the covid time and there is no denying of the fact here
I agree, but there is the other option of accepting TA roles won't be filled and then managing that resource shortfall. ATM schools use TAs to cover legally mandated requirements such as PPA time, a reduction in TAs means this can't be provided so the law will have to be changed or something like school hours will have to be reduced. There needs to be a controlled reduction in resource so you don't end up in the position where you've allocated tasks to employees that don't exist and now the school is forced to close as it can't meet its pupil-teacher ratio (this is what happened during covid as so many staff were off ill they couldn't legally open the schools).
There is no denying that things aren't that easy for the country every since the covid time and because of that complete lockdown you have to suffer from the inflation sooner or later
>Outside of London, I believe teaching assistants earn £17k if you are new and have no qualifications.
From the website you linked:
>In most teaching assistant positions you’ll find yourself on a **term time only contract**, which means that you probably won’t be earning the full, yearly amount as seen on the government pay scale. The average actual yearly pay for a teaching assistant comes out to around **£12,000**.
Which is why the *vast* majority of Teaching Assistants I've worked with in schools have been either middle-aged women who's husbands have decently paid jobs or fresh-faced early 20's 'fresh from Uni' types who are dipping their feet in.
>The top level teaching assistants can earn £45k outside of London.
>So perhaps the answer is to train while you're on the job to get a better wage.
You will simply NOT see Teaching Assistants on £45k in your average secondary school. The school could have two or three TA's for that amount of money. Maybe in private schools, I don't know.
This is like saying all nurses should become doctors if they aren't paid enough.
Schools need teachers and TAs, just like hospitals need both nurses and doctors.
TAs that don't progress to teaching roles still need to eat, poverty wages are unacceptable and clearly having a detrimental impact on recruitment and retention.
That was true back in the day but now teachers have a hell of a lot of compliance and paper work to do which TAs don't have to. Teachers also get paid holidays to cover some of this planning and paper work, TAs are only paid when they're in the classroom.
You are talking nonsense. My mum has been working as a TA for decades, they're an integral part of the school system. They handle everything that the already overworked teaching staff don't have time to do.
You have to have teaching assistants in schools. They are 100% necessary for the continued operation of the classroom. My mum, who is only paid for term time and a reduced number of hours mind you, STILL has to do additional work at home to prepare displays and learning material for the class, and attend regular training.
Why is it acceptable for someone who is such an integral part of our education system to be paid such a poor wage? Is it okay that the only people who can take on the role are middle-aged women with partners who have better-paid jobs? (Guess what my family situation is like, by the way.)
Those who are in that from the long time they gets the part of the system people are talking about the one that is joining new and pretty much new to the whole school system
It's a different job role being a TA and being a teacher. TAs specialise in working with kids with special educational needs. Whereas teachers have to be good at presenting and teaching knowledge, and classroom and behaviour management. For a lot of TAs that career jump is not something they want/ have the skills for.
The 17k will be prorated to take out school holidays, and possibly argue you only work the hours of lessons (you won't) so becomes around £12k.
I've never heard of a TA on £45k, that's very close to UPS 3 (top of classroom teacher pay). At that money I don't think you would see someone as a TA, and i'd like to hear from anyone earning that as a TA. Maybe a SENCO but that is usually either a leadership pay scale job or main pay scale + TLR.
Perhaps the could, I thought at first that was what the graph was showing.
I also question the purpose of that upper scale if no one achieves it. The issue seems to be that the information shared is flawed. I know on paper TAs at my school may appear to be on 20k+, especially those with extra responsibility. But... It is all tied to LA pay scales. Not a specific TA pay scale. The levels are against all employees on that grade across the LA, without consideration of department. As a result the LA insists that TA salaries are prorated, so no pay for the holiday periods and in a lot of cases an argument is made that they should only get 25 hours (5 hour lessons per day), if they're lucky 30 hours, with no consideration of additional time needed to liaise or plan with teachers or that many TAs have to supervise high needs pupils during breaks. As result I would say the data presented is false. You can't argue that a starting salary is £17k if the mechanisms around the job, if you do it, automatically deduct 30% or so.
From experience I can say it's about £13k. The stories of schools struggling to recruit because TAs are leaving to work in supermarkets for more money and same hours are true.
Over the last few years I would certainly say we have seen more young people becoming TAs for 1 or 2 years to get experience and then move on to teacher training.
This article shows similar to the data you found but... Note it is fte, which TAs are not paid as, and is labelled as local government support staff.
https://neu.org.uk/support-staff-pay
The idea that the TA is a part time helper died long ago. TAs are often running complex intervention sessions, responsible for supporting and welfare of some of the most vulnerable/ high needs, the first port of call for those children's families. It's become an increasingly complex, skilled and undervalued role in schools.
With respect, you don't seem very knowledgeable in this field. You can say that they can "train up to earn more" - how would a TA go about doing that?
Nearly all TAs would be financially be better off working in a supermarket, which isn't ideal if you wish to encourage skilled people into the job - and it is a skilled profession, especially as the role is becoming more akin to teacher by the day.
People thinks that like the other profession that is also same but lemme clear that teaching and teacher assistant is totally different to compare with the some other field
Again I ask, how are TAs supposed to "train up" to get paid more? Who is going to pay them more?
TAs do not earn more than shop work, which is why a few of ours recently have left to do just that. Most TAs now aren't getting paid a living wage, they just tend to have a better off partner. But it's getting harder and harder to recruit TAs because of the terrible pay. Anyone who has worked in education recently will tell you that, no matter what you read on a website that sells you TA courses.
It's a matter of priorities, and the government have decided not to prioritise education.
Back in the day you would increment one scale point per year so it was possible to reach the higher NJC levels albeit unlikely, now they have to meet targets which makes it effectively impossible to reach the higher scale points.
That graph shows the local government pay scales. Nobody is going to employ a teaching assistant at the higher points on the pay scales, for a start. You can employ teachers for less.
Even this website, which is trying to flog you a training course, doesn't claim £45k as an experienced TA salary. It claims around half that.
And as others have pointed out, it's all pro-rata. You're paid something like 45 weeks a year (term-time plus minimum holiday pay), and teaching assistants are often employed from 9 to 3.30 with an unpaid hour for lunch - 27.5 hours rather than 35 hours which would.be 9-5. So it's a lot less than your advertised pay band.
One of the TAs in the article is experienced, works 'full time' (in TA terms) and doesn't earn enough to pay tax. That's about £12k.
Not generally, in my experience TA pay is more akin to bar staff than teachers, you're paid for the hours worked + accrued holiday hours. I used to have to submit a timesheet.
The payment scale should be fair enough because TA job is not that easy one may be it sounds this way. Plus teacher is also getting enough relax time just because of those people
That graph stagnates around ~£37k then has a lurching jump to around ~£42k. It looks like the top 10% are promoted to a different grade while the rest earn nowhere near that. Those top 10% presumably have extra responsibilities and there's not enough of those responsibilities to go around, not to mention promotions will be constrained by school budgets.
If lots of people are struggling to eat & pay their bills in full time employment "just get promoted bro" isn't a realistic out route.
And as other people are saying. That graph seems to be annualising a term time only salary so even that top end is pretty shit given many TAs are increasingly being given teaching responsibilities for special needs groups or even whole classes.
Perhaps society needs to accept we need people to do these jobs and those people need to be paid a good livable salary.
It would be a great look for our education system if they all took your advice to retrain and leave wouldn't it?
And that is why i hate AI, because they are using that tech to cover up more job now days and if that thing keep on going like this there will be not many jobs will left then
Plus there is basic difference between if someone is on the salary and someone is getting paid for the hourly, so they can't expect the same amount of money for the both
Is your source for that ludicrous claim TAs can be paid £45k outside of London *just* the graph on the link given?
They made that up, mate. There's no source for it, it isn't an official payscale and is provided "as guidance only".
Even the most qualified example they give is £25k!
It's not made up, it's just the NJC scale (this scale covers anyone in a maintained school who is not a teacher as teachers have their own unions with different agreements): [https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/about-the-council/policies-and-reports/corporate-policy-and-reports/pay-policy/national-joint-council-njc-pay-rates/](https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/about-the-council/policies-and-reports/corporate-policy-and-reports/pay-policy/national-joint-council-njc-pay-rates/)
It's just misleading as to increase by a scale point you have to meet targets which will increase in difficulty as you move up the scale essentially making the upper scale points unreachable unless you were grandfathered in from the old system where you increased by 1 SP per year regardless.
Having worked in schools for over 10 years now, in a few different areas (including outside and inside the M25) and having a few contacts with recruiters for education, I have never seen TA wages approaching 26k, let alone 45k!. The spine point stuff is all advisory and not currently accepted by any local authority. I currently recruit TAs for my school (In London) and starting rates are around 14k pro rata and experienced TAs are around 18-20k pro rata. They are horrendously underpaid for the work they are expected to do.
This is totally incorrect btw- their data isn’t right. Higher level teaching assistants are on about 25-26.
M6 for teachers is £40k….£45k in London. The website is confused
TAs are paid on a 30 week contract, rather than a full year. They don't get the whole "45k", they get about 2/3 of that.
Also, 45k is for the very top end of HLTAs who are on full teaching timetables, and are usually used to cover classes for PPA (where they would be expected to plan outside of contracted time).
That's just based on the NJC pay levels and IIRC you don't automatically increase by a point every year any more. In theory you could earn £45k however you would have to prove you have shown improvement every year for about 25 years and that's without the factoring in that you may find it very difficult to get a job on the higher points as schools don't have the budget. The equivalent in the private sector would be along the lines of winning employee of the year 25 years running, it's theoretically possible but not practically.
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grab snails pot fragile deer faulty icky offend pathetic encouraging ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
We'd be lucky if we only lost one generation over this.
Totally true, because right now this seems like quite a long generational thing to me
When you cock up education it's ane extra generation gone.
When it comes to the education things always gets to the extra generation
no way in hell is it only going to take one generation to untangle the mess of academy schools.
[I used to be a Journalist, Dave. For The Times. I have strong opinions about education.](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LUEoYdXw6hE/UQali2mJPzI/AAAAAAAAC2A/MLjQjmncPmU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-01-28+at+16.22.19.png)
I still think that the academisation of schools will go down as one of the biggest mistakes / scandals in modern politics. The problem is that academies were originally a labour policy so they can't really go against them. Though I'd argue that academies have drifted massively from how they were originally sold.
Is a teaching assistant really an essential thing? We didn't have them and we learnt fine
How old are you fucking hell. Yes Essential in these 30 kid underfunded schools where teachers are killing themselves because the torys havent invested properly and are paying 18 grand for teaching assistant's
Very much so. You see, when you (and I) were at school, those who struggled to learn, continued to struggle and rarely achieved anything academically. There was no differentiation in teaching, no recognition of learning styles et cetera. Today a teaching assistant is very needed.
> There was no differentiation in teaching, no recognition of learning styles et cetera. We had sets 1-8. Surely that is enough? And I'm sure that the idea of learning styles was debunked.
You think there are enough teachers in schools to separate classes into sets? There aren't enough specialist teachers for STEM subjects to teach the existing numbers of classes!
We still embed VARK and others in teaching.
They are essential where there are students with additional needs who may need extra help accessing the learning. Many students get on fine without them, but in a class with a few of these students they are indespensible
There's two kids in my class that need a one to one and whenever my teaching assistant isn't in to support them both it becomes incredibly hard to teach them properly AND the other 29
I was never in set 8 so I never saw them. Shouldn't those pupils be in separate classes? The TAs will surely be a distraction to everyone else.
Perhaps the children could be left to rot?
What value are they going to get out of 14 years of education anyway?
Perhaps they could just not be born. What value are they going to get out of life anyway?
You are trolling, surely. If you are being serious, what do you propose instead? Triaging education? What do you suggest the education system offer those children instead?
This is why the country is fucked. People like you with outdated views selfishly claiming that because you didn’t have something future generations should go without. Nice one
What do they even do? I don't like the word 'outdated'. Just because something is newer doesn't make it better.
Repeat instructions more clearly, create resources for students tailored towards their needs, in some cases translating work for students with EASL. If students have behavioural issues they may have strategies to support them or a rapport that enables them to be calmed and attentive. It can be little things such as a student with autism needing to go on a walk round outside the classroom once a lesson to calm them. At the school I work in safeguarding is a big issue, students generally have one or two TAs they work with consistently. Getting a heads up that a student is having a bad anxiety day, or some bad news from home from a source they can trust is invaluable.
The fact that you’re asking that just proves you’re completely clueless.
I just volunteered as one. Heck, it wasn’t that long ago I was even at school. Turns out that kids can in fact struggle to follow the lesson being taught, and that one person can’t be everywhere at once.
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+does+a+teaching+assistant+do
The absolutely most essential resource in my classroom. We didn't have electricity before either and we survived just fine. We didn't have cars before and survived just fine. We didn't use to have it is the single most fucking useless argument I've ever heard in my life.
It depends on the person to person, some did fine but some gets struggle
My other half was a qualified primary school teacher in Spain, moved to the UK and got her QTS here but wanted to work for a year as a TA to experience UK schools first hand before actually teaching in one. Pro-rated, her pre-tax salary was c.£13,000/year, so her take-home was about £1,000/month. Ridiculous. Luckily a teaching position opened up 6 months in and they really wanted her in the job.
MIL is an experienced TA, was made redundant a couple of years ago and has filled the gap working retail. She's started making inroads to return to TA. She gets 20p / HR more as TA than in retail. The kicker is retail she gets continuous employment (think not being paid for school holidays) and a decent discount on the weekly shop. Financially, she's way better off staying in retail.
In most support positions in schools you get paid for the days you work in the school year so you still get paid in the summer holidays, don't you?
You used to. But now with academies being nominally independent, they’ve been hiring everyone as agency staff even teaching assistants that only work in that one school. And through the agency the agency only hired you for the on the job hours. Ending the old style where you made and agreement to get 12months of pay. It’s also changes it from a 40-50hr a week salary, to basically hourly pay based on when you’re in classrooms. (Or maybe daily pay for being on site)
And once again then the agency gets the taxpayer money rather than the worker.
Something about she gets paid for the term time hours, but it's pro-rated over the 12 months. So she gets 20p/hr more but only for 38 weeks v 52 weeks for the retail job. Factor in the discount and it's a sizeable difference in favour of retail.
I think it depends on your roll. I get paid a salary but I don’t get all of the holidays off. Although I do get 6 weeks plus the bank holidays. But there are others who get all of the holidays off and their salary is pro-rated.
Sadly not, most advertise the annual salary then put in the small print that it's pro-rota. So every school holiday is removed from the total salary and that is then paid over 12 months. Makes it around £1k a month.
I think you do, but as a TA/classroom assistant you're unlikely to be working much over the summer, unlike non-classroom based support/admin roles that carry on like any other job. AFAIK the pay is generally salaried and pro-rated over the year, so you'll still get the same payslip in the summer but the average is lower
you get paid in 12 monthly installments, but you're only on a 39 week contract. so you dont get paid FOR the holidays, you just get paid during them
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What did she go into, if you don't mind me asking?
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Going in from teaching is one of the few careers where BD is actually lower stress.
I dipped my toe in with being an ICT technician, managed to land on one 'golden' opportunity that paid £19.5k and that was in London, most are around £16/17k outside London. I was 'lucky' to be in a position where I was able to take that and do the job for a while, but most people simply wont be able to afford to even dip their toe into education with those rates. Especially considering a generic minimum wage 40 hour salary pays £21.5k in a 'normal job'
Schools also have a hard time recruiting IT teachers because they just cant compete with private sector salaries and benefits.
I’m no expert but that doesn’t seem right. I’d get her tax code checked out.
I was taking home about £1025 a month as a SEN TA. I loved it, and it was so rewarding, but I couldn't afford to stay there.
It's because you only get paid for the time the kids are there, turning up early to help prep or going home late because of school activities are unpaid, as are 12 weeks of your year. It's minimum wage and all the adverts you see are pro-rata meaning the advertised salary is miles above what you'll actually get. So your wage is minimum\*6 hours per weekday\*40 weeks = £12, 504 per year. It's all above board and legal because you're getting paid minimum wage for the hours you work (but you're not, because you do a minimum of an hour a day unpaid extra and you don't get breaks). Edit to add: and ain't NOBODY in this country can live on 12k. No way no how.
But that should be covered by personal allowance. Eg you shouldn’t pay any income tax. So should only be paying NI.
https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/estimate-paye-take-home-pay/ reckons £1,072.01/month, although note that's assuming zero pension contribution and no student loan payments. So you're right but probably overlooking further deductions.
They are not paid for any of the holidays.
No thats just how it is. Better some places but many like that. We need more strikes.
I genuinely don't know how you'd manage on £1000/mo without being in a HMO or being dependent on a partner or family for housing.
I have 5 TAs in my class and the school I work out heavily relies on them for it to function. without TAs special needs education will die. They need to reinstate the SEN allowance and make it so they're at least classed as full time. Their duties go above and beyond and they should be paid accordingly. £65 a day for what they put up with is frankly disgraceful
Too true. Massive misconceptions about the value of TAs in this country and even in schools. I wish it was a better paid job.
It's awful how they're paid, when I did my teacher training I had a class of 20 or so kids, 9 of which had full EHCPs needing TAs. I had one, if I was lucky. Most of the time I had 0. And I've seen some teachers treat the TAs horribly :(
I made the transition from the healthcare sector into education and I've recieved more verbal and physical abuse from some classrooms I've been in than I did in mid secure MH units. A previous classroom I worked in for a few months was to support a kid with ASD who would scram and bite people and kids. In that class we also had a girl that regularly assaulted and brutalised other kids (she broke a chromebook hy repeatedly smashing it over another child's head, she's done the same with plastic hockey sticks, she's pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall and sprayed it in another kids face, and she's lunged at me and the teacher many times punching and kicking us because we've tried to get between her and her victim), and we had a young boy with anger management issues who would threaten to rape girls in the class, their mothers, and female staff. All these kids were in year 3, 8-9 year old. £65 a day was the rate for 6 hours work despite the work day being 7-8 hours long, no pay for school holidays, no sick days or holidays, no benefits of any kind, and you had to reapply for thr job every summer holiday because your contract would only run to July. Retail employs people permanently at £11-£12 an hour for 52 weeks of the year and offers sick pay, holidays, and benefits like store discount.
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It's not the fault of the kids, a lot of these kids are being severely let down by the systems they are in. We have many kids who are under social workers, and have been for years, yet have no recieved any diagnosis for what are clearly behavioural disorders. Without the diagnosis the school doesn't get any funding for 1-1 support. Many children from neglectful or abusive homes are also either still with the parents/guardians or have regular contact with their abuser if they happen to be a parent. There's also a chronic lack of support in the classroom both in terms of TA's, but also in a teachers ability to protect themselves and kids from these kinds of abusive behaviours. When becomes physically abusive we aren't allowed to intervene in any way that would be meaningful, essentially we stand on the sidelines hoping us shouting over the screams and cries of the victim will make her stop. When I was in school these children would be expelled, or at the very least moved to a different school that accommodated their needs. This doesn't happen anymore, the children in that class are stuck with that girl until they're in comprehensive school. Parents also deserve a special mention in this, it unfortunately isn't a surprise that the kids that display these sorts of behaviours have parents cut from the same cloth. I've seen teachers get threatened in and out of school, a mother try and assault a teacher because her son tore apart a classroom and was denied break (god forbid), and I've seen their attitude towards teachers and the classroom. The aforementioned girls parents were brought in once to see a classroom flooded with CO2 foam from the extinguisher, papers thrown about, resources and materials broken and thrown, a smashed laptop, ripped apart furniture, and what can only be described as an "artistic masterpiece" in the girls bathroom painted by the girl with her own faeces and urine(the inciting incident to their rampage as we dared try and tell her off for this display of artistic talent). The parents response was to ask her to apologise (not to clean up or to offer financial conpensation to replace lost equipment and cleanup), and to tell the school that they no longer wished to be contacted during the schoolday for behavioural issues, or brought into the classroom after school, instead we were to seesaw across pictures of her rampage.
And they're underpaid for their skillset!
Good TAs either end up training into teaching roles, or leaving to do something less stressful. Leaves schools in a state full of TAs that aren’t really bothered.
Often one or two good ones feeling forced to hold it all together for the sake of the pupils
My wife is currently working as a teaching assistant, the problem she has is the head mistress is dead against teaching assistants, in her words "a drain on the system" and "not really teachers" due to this any help she requires falls on deaf ears. My wife is powering through as best she can as the school is woefully understaffed and has student class sizes into the mid 30s now. It's not just the pay but how teaching assistants are seen as less than a teacher.
Your wife shouldn't shoulder the mismanagement of the school herself. If her boss openly dislikes her, she should not remain employed there, for her own mental health if nothing else. That the school is understaffed is not her responsibility to fix.
Sometime mental health is much more important than any pay check
Absolutely brain dead from that head teacher. In my teacher training it was made very clear that TAs and LSAs are invaluable resources for ensuring *all* students are able to get something from your lesson. It's a shame that someone in that position can't realise that very basic fact of the classroom, especially in a school with such large classes! Then the pay on top of that (and lack of respect and recognition) is enough of a joke as is. Your partner is doing incredible work and I hope it gets better for them.
Those head teacher had no idea that how valuable those TA could be
As a teacher the two groups of people you should worship are teaching assistants and the cleaners. Especially the cleaners by God don't piss them off.
Because if you will piss them off only you are going to suffer after that
Head mistress is retiring at the end of the summer term, which seemed great until everyone found out she's sitting on the governing board once she retires, so her reach seems set to continue. And from what I can tell the city council and the governing body disregard alot of what happens in the school (not enough space or time to list everything but the stories are quite shocking from bullying to money for special needs kids being used elsewhere)
May be once that head mistress gets retired there will be some relief for her
My kid’s school basically said the same (although somewhat more diplomatically phrased). They’ve run out of budget. They’ve got to choose between two classes without a TA or one class without a teacher. They can’t have classes only taught by TAs, so that only leaves one option.
Sad specially when it comes to the education of the normal people
cant believe a head teacher can sit there, getting paid £80k for 39 weeks of answering emails and doing the morning announcements and call anyone a 'drain on the system' with a straight face.
Mate headteachers do a lot more than that. I actually can't think of a worse, more stressful job for that level of pay.
Just like my boss getting 3X from my work just by emailing that
From a budgeting point of view they are a drain on the system, they cost a school money without allowing them to increase pupil numbers.
So should all schools drop TAs and have how many students to teacher? 35, 40 or bigger classes? What happens to the students who need additional help? Can one teacher help every individual student? The other option is hire more teachers and make schools even bigger but we have less people wanting to be teachers so how do we get more teachers...the answer would be bigger wages which a school budget cannot do....if there was only a way that teachers could have an assistant to help them...
>So should all schools drop TAs and have how many students to teacher? 35, 40 or bigger classes? There are legal requirements for ratios > What happens to the students who need additional help? Can one teacher help every individual student? They get left behind, the budget the government gives schools doesn't stretch that far > The other option is hire more teachers and make schools even bigger but we have less people wanting to be teachers so how do we get more teachers...the answer would be bigger wages which a school budget cannot do....if there was only a way that teachers could have an assistant to help them... That's not something a head teacher controls, they can only spend the budget they've been allocated
They also needs to looked into their budget system which they can't cross
Que? I don't understand what you're saying
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Which is amusing, as when a teacher calls in sick the TA is asked to run the class for the day, week etc!!! Yet not a teacher. Also not a teacher when they must take six to ten pupils out for focused learning again less than a teacher but doing the work of a teacher. It amuses me how less than a teacher they are but she but required to teach.
Low pay is just one element, there's also the fact that pay is increased in other roles and these increases aren't funded which means losing non essential support staff. Generally speaking if you're a TA you have a partner in a higher paying job paying the bills.
I think increase in role will also increase the income for them
No, schools only have so much budget. If you're on a higher scale point you may find it difficult finding a job as schools don't have the money to afford you.
The reason these jobs can be woefully underpaid is because it's one of the jobs which has a high proportion of staff who aren't the main breadwinner in their household. In fact, they're often part time and coming from either unemployed/economically inactive or less well paid jobs so accept the poor pay as they're far more interested in working with kids.
\+ it's often people who are compassionate and chose to do work which gives back. Easy to take advantage of people like that and underpay them.
If you are underpay then you will get time to do more thing in life
It's a "vocation" therefore suck it up basically. Christ what a state.
My partner is in the process of becoming a TA and... yeah, pretty much. We survive off my salary being disproportionate to the amount of work I don't do. It's good because she has the ability to say no. It's bad because holy crap the number of things you suddenly say no to when you have a little freedom to do so. She's tried to start the role before and the main common feature has been that every time the company fucked around and lied barefacedly about what would actually be involved (e.g. advertising "primary school", actual job secondary-age SEN students, "well if we said that nobody would apply").
One of my friend was TA and he said that this is his part time job so he is not complaining too much about the money he is making, as he was doing double job in his life
Hmm. Do you have any stats for this? Ime tas are a real mixed bag in this regard and it is heavily dependent on school catchment. In posher areas I think you might be right. In shittier schools, I think the majority I've known tend to be single and or single parents.
I think teacher and TA is just like doctor and nurse as they said if nurses wants to get paid more then they need to increase their skill so they can get paid according to that one
My wife is not a UK national, but we've got her a spouse visa. In her home country she was effectively running a preschool as the managing director. Now we're moving to the UK, and not only does she have to apply for an apprenticeship based on a UK diploma, but she has to wait 3 years until she can even apply to do it. This country is actively turning people away from the important jobs that are so desperately needed.
They don't have too much money actually and jobs are also pretty much limited is well
The problem with this is that these stupid our sources companies that do educational “research” have been on this trip of identifying PSA’s/TA’s as the least useful thing that can be done to help pupils in school without any actual information about how they came to that conclusion. Councils are always looking for reasons to cut costs so this is part of why PSA’s are so poorly paid and jobs are not secure. It sucks because they are so useful to have.
They post the article without having the proper research about anything
Basically no support role in any school pays enough for a person to live on, and you're basically used as a human shield to protect teachers from redundancy because they can't afford to lose them. They rely on a stream of older people who are on the home stretch to retirement and looking for a more flexible job to take them up. But they've become unattractive even for those people.
A friend of mine was a TA, he loved it but has had to change career because the pay was/is so low. He runs training for the emergency services now and earns a significant amount more.
I'm a teacher and all the TAs in my school have rich hubbies and I'm pretty sure most do it for a hobby. A lot of them drive nicer cars than the headmaster! None of them are unionised either. As long as this is the case, the pay will never increase which really hurts those who need it.
Not everyone do that as a hobby and the good thing about TA is that you can do some extra job other than that because you will always get some extra free hours in your day
You are in a rich catchment? Ime this is not the norm in poor catchment schools.
Yes it is relatively wealthy
Yeah ime what you say hold true in richer areas, the opposite being the case in poor.
TA on 45k? who the fuck are they assisting? sure as shit ain't in a school your kids gonna be going to, that's for damn sure. edit: did half of you idiots not read the entire thread where i said this was meant to be a reply to another person?
Where in the article does it say 45k? I read through it and also the articles referenced and none of them mention that number
I think they meant to reply to /u/WhyNotCollegeBroad's comment
yes, i did - reddit was playing silly buggers with me this morning.
And you were too busy to double check anything while posting
Still trying to find that number where they said about the 45k money
Show me any data or news where they said they are getting paid this much really
Also remember that during these teachers' strikes the assistants' union did NOT give them a mandate to strike, meaning they couldn't support their colleagues at pickets or on strike days It was completely on a case by case basis that schools decided whether or not assistants would be penalised for taking the day "off"
This isn't entirely true. Teaching assistants in Wales did meet the threshold required to strike, and did so - and were rightly frustrated when the pay offer Wales accepted had no offer for support staff included. Additionally, any member of staff is able to join a picket and cannot be penalised for doing so beyond losing the day's pay as if they had been on strike. However that person has to be present at the picket (even if only for 30 seconds) - not just not show up to work.
Okay, very interesting to hear about Wales - I'm in England and have close family who are teachers so my perspective & comment was just about England, but I didn't specify that, so my bad. However, the fact they will lose pay is not the only thing holding assistants back - they will be marked down as unauthorised absence as they have no legal mandate to strike and therefore it won't be marked down as a strike day. Teachers have sick days, unauthorised (aka unpaid) absence and strike days whereas assistants only have sick or unauthorised absence. So they may 'legally' be able to join the picket, but the school won't register it as a legal strike making the practicalities highly unfair. Also, keep in mind not all schools have been able to have an individual picket outside their gates as some have chosen to do city-centre or group pickets, so this wasn't an option for all assistants at all schools.
The only striking union at the moment is the NEU. Their policy is to have pickets in the morning, and city centre rallies take place afterwards. Picketing is treated as the most important part of the day and is strongly encouraged. Government legislation also states that you are only allowed to picket outside your place of work. If any schools have not had a picket line, it is because staff there have chosen not to have one. Anyone joining a picket line is afforded the same protections as those striking. Nationwide, not one school has tried to apply sanctions to anyone joining a picket line since strikes started. However, as the article states, simply losing a day's pay is enough to put many teaching assistants off - they earn little enough as it is.
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That doesn't sound right to me. For a start the article you linked says that as TAs often don't get paid over the holidays, a TA salary can often be 12k a year. I'm top of the teacher main pay scale outside of London, and I don't earn 45k. My wife earns about that as deputy head. I can't imagine any TA ever earning 45k, especially outside of London, because that's more than most teachers get paid. I can say that my place of work has probably lost about 30% of TAs just in the last year, mostly due to pay.
And the 30% number is always going to high because of that low pay
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Don’t forget poorer due to Brexit and the Tory party in general too
No one is forgetting that because they are equally responsible into this
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How much has that cost us exactly then?
Something like in 4 figure for the billion, can't count the exact number
2020 Q1 £1,876.8b ([https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/december2020#government-debt](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/december2020#government-debt)) 2022 Q3 £2,445.2b ([https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/september2022](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/september2022)) So £569b, however it may be that not all of that is covid, the cost I've heard banded around for covid was about £300b. This is just national debt too, companies may have their own debt increases. To put this into context the figure I'm seeing for the financial crisis bailouts is £137b, however this had wider ranging effects due to needing to reconfigure the banking system.
>Money is short for everyone. The country is poorer relatively due to inflation and covid. I don't disagree, but then we need to look at whether we actually want TAs in school rather than just paying them so little no one applies. You don't want to be in the situation were tasks are allocated to TAs which don't exist. >However teaching assistants can be paid a decent wage for working less hours and not needed to be full time teachers. True, but the current system means you either need a second job or a partner pulling in the big bucks to make rent. If it was a case of a barmaid doing some tutoring and child minding on the side that would be fine but TAs are more integral to the running of a school. >The pay they receive can be decent and they can transition to a full time teacher with extra training. That's true but a bit misleading as the extra education is a PGCE which is like a vocational masters. It's not like you can just take a couple quick training courses and now you're a teacher.
Not only UK every country is in the same boat, every single country is suffering or suffered from the inflation since the covid time and there is no denying of the fact here
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I agree, but there is the other option of accepting TA roles won't be filled and then managing that resource shortfall. ATM schools use TAs to cover legally mandated requirements such as PPA time, a reduction in TAs means this can't be provided so the law will have to be changed or something like school hours will have to be reduced. There needs to be a controlled reduction in resource so you don't end up in the position where you've allocated tasks to employees that don't exist and now the school is forced to close as it can't meet its pupil-teacher ratio (this is what happened during covid as so many staff were off ill they couldn't legally open the schools).
There is no denying that things aren't that easy for the country every since the covid time and because of that complete lockdown you have to suffer from the inflation sooner or later
>Outside of London, I believe teaching assistants earn £17k if you are new and have no qualifications. From the website you linked: >In most teaching assistant positions you’ll find yourself on a **term time only contract**, which means that you probably won’t be earning the full, yearly amount as seen on the government pay scale. The average actual yearly pay for a teaching assistant comes out to around **£12,000**. Which is why the *vast* majority of Teaching Assistants I've worked with in schools have been either middle-aged women who's husbands have decently paid jobs or fresh-faced early 20's 'fresh from Uni' types who are dipping their feet in. >The top level teaching assistants can earn £45k outside of London. >So perhaps the answer is to train while you're on the job to get a better wage. You will simply NOT see Teaching Assistants on £45k in your average secondary school. The school could have two or three TA's for that amount of money. Maybe in private schools, I don't know.
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This is like saying all nurses should become doctors if they aren't paid enough. Schools need teachers and TAs, just like hospitals need both nurses and doctors.
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TAs that don't progress to teaching roles still need to eat, poverty wages are unacceptable and clearly having a detrimental impact on recruitment and retention.
Then who will help the SEN students? We still need TAs or LSAs
That was true back in the day but now teachers have a hell of a lot of compliance and paper work to do which TAs don't have to. Teachers also get paid holidays to cover some of this planning and paper work, TAs are only paid when they're in the classroom.
Teacher pay roll is completely different than the pay roll of the TA
You are talking nonsense. My mum has been working as a TA for decades, they're an integral part of the school system. They handle everything that the already overworked teaching staff don't have time to do. You have to have teaching assistants in schools. They are 100% necessary for the continued operation of the classroom. My mum, who is only paid for term time and a reduced number of hours mind you, STILL has to do additional work at home to prepare displays and learning material for the class, and attend regular training. Why is it acceptable for someone who is such an integral part of our education system to be paid such a poor wage? Is it okay that the only people who can take on the role are middle-aged women with partners who have better-paid jobs? (Guess what my family situation is like, by the way.)
Those who are in that from the long time they gets the part of the system people are talking about the one that is joining new and pretty much new to the whole school system
It's a different job role being a TA and being a teacher. TAs specialise in working with kids with special educational needs. Whereas teachers have to be good at presenting and teaching knowledge, and classroom and behaviour management. For a lot of TAs that career jump is not something they want/ have the skills for.
People are mixing both thing and then looking to get the answer
The money they are giving is not really enough that someone will fill that place
If we talks in private school things is little different than the public
The 17k will be prorated to take out school holidays, and possibly argue you only work the hours of lessons (you won't) so becomes around £12k. I've never heard of a TA on £45k, that's very close to UPS 3 (top of classroom teacher pay). At that money I don't think you would see someone as a TA, and i'd like to hear from anyone earning that as a TA. Maybe a SENCO but that is usually either a leadership pay scale job or main pay scale + TLR.
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Perhaps the could, I thought at first that was what the graph was showing. I also question the purpose of that upper scale if no one achieves it. The issue seems to be that the information shared is flawed. I know on paper TAs at my school may appear to be on 20k+, especially those with extra responsibility. But... It is all tied to LA pay scales. Not a specific TA pay scale. The levels are against all employees on that grade across the LA, without consideration of department. As a result the LA insists that TA salaries are prorated, so no pay for the holiday periods and in a lot of cases an argument is made that they should only get 25 hours (5 hour lessons per day), if they're lucky 30 hours, with no consideration of additional time needed to liaise or plan with teachers or that many TAs have to supervise high needs pupils during breaks. As result I would say the data presented is false. You can't argue that a starting salary is £17k if the mechanisms around the job, if you do it, automatically deduct 30% or so.
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From experience I can say it's about £13k. The stories of schools struggling to recruit because TAs are leaving to work in supermarkets for more money and same hours are true. Over the last few years I would certainly say we have seen more young people becoming TAs for 1 or 2 years to get experience and then move on to teacher training. This article shows similar to the data you found but... Note it is fte, which TAs are not paid as, and is labelled as local government support staff. https://neu.org.uk/support-staff-pay The idea that the TA is a part time helper died long ago. TAs are often running complex intervention sessions, responsible for supporting and welfare of some of the most vulnerable/ high needs, the first port of call for those children's families. It's become an increasingly complex, skilled and undervalued role in schools.
With respect, you don't seem very knowledgeable in this field. You can say that they can "train up to earn more" - how would a TA go about doing that? Nearly all TAs would be financially be better off working in a supermarket, which isn't ideal if you wish to encourage skilled people into the job - and it is a skilled profession, especially as the role is becoming more akin to teacher by the day.
People thinks that like the other profession that is also same but lemme clear that teaching and teacher assistant is totally different to compare with the some other field
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Again I ask, how are TAs supposed to "train up" to get paid more? Who is going to pay them more? TAs do not earn more than shop work, which is why a few of ours recently have left to do just that. Most TAs now aren't getting paid a living wage, they just tend to have a better off partner. But it's getting harder and harder to recruit TAs because of the terrible pay. Anyone who has worked in education recently will tell you that, no matter what you read on a website that sells you TA courses. It's a matter of priorities, and the government have decided not to prioritise education.
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And that's what they are doing, which is the whole point of this thread.
Back in the day you would increment one scale point per year so it was possible to reach the higher NJC levels albeit unlikely, now they have to meet targets which makes it effectively impossible to reach the higher scale points.
My age is 40 and too be honest i have never seen any TA in my school time
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If they will not gets into the teaching their pay will never going to increase
TA will never ever going to get the same money even if they work in class
That graph shows the local government pay scales. Nobody is going to employ a teaching assistant at the higher points on the pay scales, for a start. You can employ teachers for less. Even this website, which is trying to flog you a training course, doesn't claim £45k as an experienced TA salary. It claims around half that. And as others have pointed out, it's all pro-rata. You're paid something like 45 weeks a year (term-time plus minimum holiday pay), and teaching assistants are often employed from 9 to 3.30 with an unpaid hour for lunch - 27.5 hours rather than 35 hours which would.be 9-5. So it's a lot less than your advertised pay band. One of the TAs in the article is experienced, works 'full time' (in TA terms) and doesn't earn enough to pay tax. That's about £12k.
They'll be paid for 40 weeks, I think like teachers TA contracts don't stipulate holiday.
Not generally, in my experience TA pay is more akin to bar staff than teachers, you're paid for the hours worked + accrued holiday hours. I used to have to submit a timesheet.
Teachers are salaried, TAs are paid hourly
The more hours you will gave the more money you will able to get
TA never gets paid for the holiday unlike the teacher job
The payment scale should be fair enough because TA job is not that easy one may be it sounds this way. Plus teacher is also getting enough relax time just because of those people
That graph stagnates around ~£37k then has a lurching jump to around ~£42k. It looks like the top 10% are promoted to a different grade while the rest earn nowhere near that. Those top 10% presumably have extra responsibilities and there's not enough of those responsibilities to go around, not to mention promotions will be constrained by school budgets. If lots of people are struggling to eat & pay their bills in full time employment "just get promoted bro" isn't a realistic out route. And as other people are saying. That graph seems to be annualising a term time only salary so even that top end is pretty shit given many TAs are increasingly being given teaching responsibilities for special needs groups or even whole classes.
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Perhaps society needs to accept we need people to do these jobs and those people need to be paid a good livable salary. It would be a great look for our education system if they all took your advice to retrain and leave wouldn't it?
And that is why i hate AI, because they are using that tech to cover up more job now days and if that thing keep on going like this there will be not many jobs will left then
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Better to went into other profession if they have the other good skill
Plus there is basic difference between if someone is on the salary and someone is getting paid for the hourly, so they can't expect the same amount of money for the both
Is your source for that ludicrous claim TAs can be paid £45k outside of London *just* the graph on the link given? They made that up, mate. There's no source for it, it isn't an official payscale and is provided "as guidance only". Even the most qualified example they give is £25k!
It's not made up, it's just the NJC scale (this scale covers anyone in a maintained school who is not a teacher as teachers have their own unions with different agreements): [https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/about-the-council/policies-and-reports/corporate-policy-and-reports/pay-policy/national-joint-council-njc-pay-rates/](https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/about-the-council/policies-and-reports/corporate-policy-and-reports/pay-policy/national-joint-council-njc-pay-rates/) It's just misleading as to increase by a scale point you have to meet targets which will increase in difficulty as you move up the scale essentially making the upper scale points unreachable unless you were grandfathered in from the old system where you increased by 1 SP per year regardless.
Plus TA always get paid on hourly wage, so income is not fixed for everyone
If they are making this much means they are giving extra time to the job
Having worked in schools for over 10 years now, in a few different areas (including outside and inside the M25) and having a few contacts with recruiters for education, I have never seen TA wages approaching 26k, let alone 45k!. The spine point stuff is all advisory and not currently accepted by any local authority. I currently recruit TAs for my school (In London) and starting rates are around 14k pro rata and experienced TAs are around 18-20k pro rata. They are horrendously underpaid for the work they are expected to do.
Worked in school for some time and realize that is not the right profession for me
This is totally incorrect btw- their data isn’t right. Higher level teaching assistants are on about 25-26. M6 for teachers is £40k….£45k in London. The website is confused
There is always here and there difference in every data
TAs are paid on a 30 week contract, rather than a full year. They don't get the whole "45k", they get about 2/3 of that. Also, 45k is for the very top end of HLTAs who are on full teaching timetables, and are usually used to cover classes for PPA (where they would be expected to plan outside of contracted time).
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You misunderstand. They are paid 30k at an absolute peak. They start at ~11k And at 30k, they *are* teaching.
If you want to get more than 35k means you have to give them more weeks
And there contract always covers the holiday that you are not going to paid for that
Yeah, that's why it's a 30 week contract.
That's just based on the NJC pay levels and IIRC you don't automatically increase by a point every year any more. In theory you could earn £45k however you would have to prove you have shown improvement every year for about 25 years and that's without the factoring in that you may find it very difficult to get a job on the higher points as schools don't have the budget. The equivalent in the private sector would be along the lines of winning employee of the year 25 years running, it's theoretically possible but not practically.
There's just absolutely no possible way a TA earns 45k anywhere. Sorry.
The wages you have mentioned there is not that bad specially for the new assistants