“The only way that we can live is if we grow. The only way we can grow is if we change. The only way we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we are exposed is if we throw ourselves into the open.”
Having been a teaching assistant for 4 years this is completely ridiculous. It is now required in most schools when hiring a TA that they have a qualification, whereas it used to be the case that it would be 'parent helpers.' It was Goves administration that wanted TAs to be qualified, therefore being entitled to better pay and so on and now that is being completely thrown out.
I have been in schools where there are no teaching assistant and they run so much worse than schools with TAs. Learning support assistants do a lot more work than they are given credit for. A lot of TAs have qualifications which allow them to work one on one with SEN children, theyre the first to be trained in first aid, they file, make displays, run breakfast/after school club, they have been known to take classes for plenaries/ story time/golden time when the class teacher needs to pop out of the classroom. They do playground duty,work in the lunchrooms, set out activities and supplies, they ring parents and take groups of children for work, especially those with lower abilitiy. They get paid barely anything (It says 17,000 in that report, I can say that that is mostly for HLTAs which are a different type of TA)their lunchbreak is usually half that of a teacher, they are expected to pick up the slack in any area, including working for other classes, answering phones and so on.
Having been a TA and now training to be a teacher I can honestly say that classrooms would be lost without them. Schools are expected to run more things than they did in Goves era and there is a need for teaching assistants. Give them some more training, get rid of the ones who came in before you needed to be qualified, make it a 'real job' and stop painting it as 'mums work' and then maybe TAs wont be disillusioned by the whole thing.
There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you.
But there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.
I aint no abacus but you can count on me.
At no point in my schooling did I have a teaching assistant in the room. In primary my class was large and so was split (with another teacher taking one group) for maths and English, but that's all. My secondary had specialist teachers who were there for those pupils who needed extra/special support.
Maybe the schools need to look at how their teachers are managing their time and what their duties actually consist of.
I never had a TA. When I was in primary school, our school caretaker would do DIY/wood-work/crafts with us. In secondary, we had SET's/SEA's for the kids that needed one-to-one but no TA's. I wasn't even aware t was such a bg thing in this country!
TAs are fairly new, I think its probably in the last ten or so years that there has been a big increase. Plus they werent known as TAs, they were usually peoples mums who came in to help out. When I was at school my mum was a 'parent helper' at my school. I didnt even remember that until she told me a couple of years ago!
There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you.
But there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.
I aint no abacus but you can count on me.
We had a welfare assistant when I was in Reception, back in the day. She walked me round the field over and over because I was crying too much and upsetting the class. :\ [My Mum told me this...]
All through my teaching career [92-2003] there were TAs in pretty much every class I taught. And where most of the class had EBD SEN they were essential! [Not every EBD SEN child had a statement entitling them to their own TA/LSA]
I am annoyed with Gove because I have SEN and a statement of special educatinal needs. I would not have been able to survive in a mainstream school without the TA support which I receive. I would not have been able to do well or go in a class without a TA since the start of Year 9 till now (Year 11) because of my EBSD (Emotional Behaviour Social Difficulties) , ASD (Autistic) and Speech and langauge diffiiculties. I still require a lot of TA support for my EBSD.
“The only way that we can live is if we grow. The only way we can grow is if we change. The only way we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we are exposed is if we throw ourselves into the open.”
They are looking at reducing the number of TAs full stop, regardless of whether they work with SEN children. As TAs are usually allocated to work with those children with SEN/EAL at whatever level it would be likely that those children with SEN would see a vast reduction in TA support.
There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you.
But there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.
I aint no abacus but you can count on me.
They are looking at reducing the number of TAs full stop, regardless of whether they work with SEN children. As TAs are usually allocated to work with those children with SEN/EAL at whatever level it would be likely that those children with SEN would see a vast reduction in TA support.
That means the support which I recieve would be affected.
I would like to see Gove teaching a class full of 30 children with no teaching assistants to help the SEN/ EBSD/ASD/EAL children, lets see how he would be able to cope. Probably after he has had the experience of teaching a class full of 30 children with some children who are SEN/EBSD/ASD/EAL and also trying to teach the more able students - Gove would want to keep the TAs after he has had an experience of teaching.
“The only way that we can live is if we grow. The only way we can grow is if we change. The only way we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we are exposed is if we throw ourselves into the open.”
That's just bloody stupid. How are teachers meant to support all their students without the help of TA's.
And how are children with SEN meant to remain successfully engaged in their education. Sometimes these things are not thought through on a very basic level.
I think that there are 3 big issues that arent being taken into account with this:
a.more children are being recognised as having SEN and more are statemented/have a learning plan etc in place.
b. that there has been a big decrease in the amount of 'special schools/specialist units' available and that there is a massive stigma surrounding these.
c.The amount of children who are EAL (English as an Additional Language) has massively increased.
I worked in a school once where there was a set of twins who were both severely autistic and one also had ADHD. They were both in reception so they were not old enough to be tested (another stupid thing which I wont get into!) but it was very obvious that this was the case.
They were both offered a place in a specialist unit for children with autism, but the parents refused saying that they wanted their children in 'normal school.' So both boys were in the same class, neither of whom were entitled to an outside specialist because they werent statemented. This meant that the class teacher had to control a class of 28 children who had never been in school before as well as 2 children with austism/ADHD.
The only saving grace for that teacher was having an experienced TA who had spent years working in classrooms and had worked with children with SEN before. Even then it was a struggle and on more than one occasion the teacher would be praising the TA and saying how she literally would not be able to cope on her own.
Thats an extreme example, but it happens more often than is spoken about.
I remember once when a boy who had severe learning difficulties managed to someone unlock the electric door to the school and ran away over a field all of us who were TAs were sent out to find him,calm him down, bring him back and make sure he wasnt injured etc. Another thing that happens waaaay more than schools ever let on.
There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you.
But there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.
I aint no abacus but you can count on me.
Having been a teaching assistant for 4 years this is completely ridiculous. It is now required in most schools when hiring a TA that they have a qualification, whereas it used to be the case that it would be 'parent helpers.' It was Goves administration that wanted TAs to be qualified, therefore being entitled to better pay and so on and now that is being completely thrown out.
I have been in schools where there are no teaching assistant and they run so much worse than schools with TAs. Learning support assistants do a lot more work than they are given credit for. A lot of TAs have qualifications which allow them to work one on one with SEN children, theyre the first to be trained in first aid, they file, make displays, run breakfast/after school club, they have been known to take classes for plenaries/ story time/golden time when the class teacher needs to pop out of the classroom. They do playground duty,work in the lunchrooms, set out activities and supplies, they ring parents and take groups of children for work, especially those with lower abilitiy. They get paid barely anything (It says 17,000 in that report, I can say that that is mostly for HLTAs which are a different type of TA)their lunchbreak is usually half that of a teacher, they are expected to pick up the slack in any area, including working for other classes, answering phones and so on.
Having been a TA and now training to be a teacher I can honestly say that classrooms would be lost without them. Schools are expected to run more things than they did in Goves era and there is a need for teaching assistants. Give them some more training, get rid of the ones who came in before you needed to be qualified, make it a 'real job' and stop painting it as 'mums work' and then maybe TAs wont be disillusioned by the whole thing.
Literally this. The amount of work you do as a TA goes completely overlooked. Infuriates me that its even being considered.
"I'll lean on you and you lean on me and we'll be okay"
It wouldnt be that different because TAs dont just work with SEN children, there are 'lower ability groups' that TAs usually work with in all lessons none of whom have any SEN, they just need extra support.
There were less disruptive children in mainstream education, those with extra needs etc were mostly in units, also if were going back years and years then teachers would use fear tactics (cane etc) for discipline.
There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you.
But there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.
I aint no abacus but you can count on me.
Have been a TA for 12 years now. The last 6 or so as a HLTA. I have had such rants over the last few days on facebook over Gove. Not just over the TA reduction issue, but also the loss of GCSEs from 2015, the IBAC he was changing them too, then decided to change them back again, now hes decided they will be I Levels instead of GCSEs with numbers instead of letters for grading. Hes just the worst person ever to reform education. He is trying to return schools back to mainstream and recreate special schools.
when I was at school (many years ago) we had two TAs, one who sorted work for a blind girl into braille, and one who worked with the remedial class. Others TAs werent needed as such students as we have now, would have been in special schools, or those on the edge of the two would have been failing.
Qualified Peer Support Worker (2017)
current mental health diagnoses: depression, PTSD, GAD, self harm, bpd
current meds (as at Feb 2017): , thyroxine, metformin, iron, b12, vit d, atenolol, Butec, Naproxen, Nefopam, Lanzoprazole, Bupropion, quetiapine (prn)
Never know... he might be out in May 2015 and then Labour would change it all back. :)
It all sounds like a horrible idea; let's try and dismantle the infrastructure of hospitals, schools and other public services as fast as we can and see which one breaks first.
It doesn't matter where you come from; it matters where you go.
No-one gets remembered for the things they didn't do.
We won't all be here this time next year,
so while you can take a picture of us.
We're definitely going to hell,
but we'll have all the best stories to tell.
When I was in junior school, we always had at least one or two teaching assistants in the classroom, and outside the classroom there were at least two more SEN trained teaching assistants who could work with the children who needed closer attention. We also had extra teachers who came in to hold special, smaller classes in Maths and English for those who were over achievers. Furthermore, our English and Maths classes were split, so for the less abled children, more teaching assistants were available in that specific subject. Our teaching assistants were absolutely essential to the classroom and I don't doubt for a second that any of the above work which has been described already goes on, because I saw half of it myself. Not only do they help in specific areas but they also dealt with all sorts of extras, such as upset children, upset parents, sorting out display boards, sorting through work, aiding children in potentially messy arts and crafts classes. The list really is endless. I'm just pleased they all made it into our class photos!
Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world awaits in darkness for the light that is you.
I remember when I was a TA I had to mark childrens work in my lunch break!
There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you.
But there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.
I aint no abacus but you can count on me.
