Headteachers also said cuts to school budgets and promises of staff pay rises – which will not be funded by the government – will leave schools in a desperate situation and many will have to cut TA roles, removing support for some of the most vulnerable children. Researchers at the University of Portsmouth’s Education Research, Innovation and Consultancy Unit said the “chronic” low pay of TAs – despite their increased role in many schools – was an “urgent threat to TAs’ livelihoods and to schools”. . Dr Rob Webster, University of Portsmouth researcher who co-authored the report with Dr Sophie Hall, said: “Schools face many challenges, but the consequence of losing teaching assistants is the most devastating. Without these staff, schools will struggle to provide adequate support for children with additional needs. Teachers’ workloads will also skyrocket, further alienating the profession and deterring others from joining.” Almost all – 96% – of TAs surveyed for the report said their pay was not enough to meet their needs and many who spoke to the report’s authors said their commitment to improving the lives of the most vulnerable children held them in place. “It was never, ever about the money. I certainly wouldn’t do it for the money,” said one. One manager said a rolling ad for eight TAs had only attracted one since January. Another told the report’s authors: “Basically, I think we’re going to start bleeding TA. Not only here, but also in other places, because you can get paid more money in the supermarket.” Principals are resorting to offering “wellness days” and special treats alongside access to more training and a greater voice in the school to encourage TAs to stay in schools, even as many struggle to pay for gas to get to work , the report states. The most effective actions taken by schools to retain TAs were “including them in the school community and school processes, such as lesson planning, and investing in and supporting their development as professionals in the classroom,” the report said. . The Unison-commissioned report, From Covid to the Cost of Living: The Crises Remaking the Role of Teaching Assistants, found that the pandemic has transformed the role of TAs “potentially forever”. “Teaching assistants have stepped up during the pandemic and have proven their worth time and again, as they did long before the crisis hit,” said Unison’s head of education, Mike Short. “But chronically low pay threatens to rob the ranks of dedicated, experienced staff just when schools need them most.” A previous Unison-commissioned report by researchers at UCL’s Institute of Education found that nearly nine in 10 (88%) TAs were supporting vulnerable and key children at school during the lockdown, with 51% managing an entire class on their own or a bubble. teachers prepared and taught lessons remotely, often from home. The report – which looks at the ‘recovery’ year (2021-22) and includes data from 22 interviews with TAs, teachers and head teachers from five primary schools in England – finds that TAs are now helping pupils who have been left behind by supporting emotional needs, complementing special educational needs and disability staff (Mission), such as speech therapists and language therapists and support for parents and carers. This “has led to marked increases in TAs’ workload and emotional burden before the pandemic,” even as pay has remained stagnant, according to the report’s authors. In one school, TAs ran toilet training workshops, while another TA talked about how parents often approached them with family and financial problems. The authors of the report called on the government to take urgent action and “provide sufficient financial support so that TAs can meet rising costs and schools can retain their TAs”, adding that failure to do so is “likely to have a serious impact on the maintenance of the Mission of providing and workload and retention of teachers”. The report recommends a government inquiry into schools to uncover changes in the role of TAs, the impact of the pandemic and the rising cost of living on the recruitment and retention of TAs and teachers. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
“I don’t know how my school would function without TA”
Sian Carr, headteacher at Townhill Primary School in Southampton, is already seeing the impact of the cost of living crisis on teaching assistants. Several TAs at Townhill have started working at the school as supervisors and cleaners during the day to make ends meet. Sian Carr: “TAs are fundamental to children’s wellbeing.” “TAs are so incredibly underpaid, people can’t survive on it in this climate,” he says. Carr is clear about the importance of TAs. “If you don’t have teaching assistants, you can’t follow best practice for teaching,” he says. “We have a lot of children – and this is also due to Covid – who are not ready in terms of reading level and need to do phonics and daily reading. And there’s no way a classroom teacher can hear every child read every day while teaching effectively.” At Carr’s school, 49% of children are from disadvantaged backgrounds and 29% need additional support – so TAs also provide vital pastoral care, he says. “I don’t really know how my school would function without them,” she says. “They are so fundamental to the well-being of children.” Nevertheless, he had to reduce the number of TAs. Three years ago each class had a teaching assistant. now there’s one for each three-grade year, he says. “There’s no wiggle room in school budgets anymore,” he says. “Kids have to have a pencil, they have to have something to write on, obviously we have the gas and electric bills – it’s the only thing we have left that we can cut.” And there’s a new storm on the horizon. Schools are struggling to pay rising energy and wage bills, while the proposed 5% pay rise will not be covered by the government but will have to come from already squeezed budgets. The school, Carr says, is much worse than at any time in the last five years. “Where are these pay rises coming from when it comes to the public sector?” she asks. “That’s really what’s morally repugnant about it: people can’t survive without these pay rises, but if we give them the pay rises, I’m not sure how the schools are going to survive.”
