The role of Teaching Assistant (TA) has been transformed over the last decade or so. The role has been extended and professionalised from the old days of washing up the paints and tacky backing work cards.
Now TAs are involved in teaching 1:1 and in small groups, often through 'Intervention Programmes' for phonics, literacy and maths. Others may carry out speech therapy and physiotherapy with pupils after being trained by the professionals who no longer deliver the programmes themselves. Some act as mentors or counsellors to pupils experiencing problems.
TAs take part in education and training and qualifications such as NVQ :Level 3 or equivalent are required. A recent phenomenon has been graduates taking on the role in order to gain some experience in teaching before undertaking a post-graduate training course.
What they have in common is low pay and usually a 'term-time only' contract. The cliché 'overworked and underpaid' really does apply: along with 'undervalued'. As spending cuts bite and schools look for 'savings' TAs are more easily dispensed with than teachers and Government questioning of their effectiveness doesn't help.
A further strength, often overlooked but one that I valued as a primary headteacher, is that they are usually part of the local community, know the families out of school as well as in school, and are the public face of the school on the street when often, particularly in cities, teachers live some distance away and commute to work.
Now Unison and the website TeacherRoar have launched a campaign to celebrate the contribution of TAs and, based on my experience in schools and the many wonderful TAs that I have seen in action, one that I am pleased to back. @TeacherROAR has been tweeting TA celebratory stories which will culminate in a Day of Celebration of TAs on Friday November 29th. Further information can be found on the Unison website
HERE and on the TeacherROAR blog
HERE
I am grateful to TeacherROAR and Sarah who normally blogs HERE for permission to reproduce an account of her mornig's work as a Teaching Assistant. Here it is:
I received an email yesterday from my union. I am a member of Unison and
the email was to tell me about a day - 29th November 2013 - a day to
celebrate Teaching Assistants. Now why would they be wanting to do that?
Why celebrate Teaching Assistants? Well, the reason is because if the
UK Government has its way there might not be any Teaching Assistants in
schools in the future.
Unison is fighting to save Teaching Assistants. The Government has
decided that Teachers can do the job of Teaching Assistants. We are an
expensive luxury.
So, let me tell you a little bit about my day and you can decide whether
I am an expensive luxury and whether my Teachers can do my duties
instead.
I am paid, as are my colleagues, from 8.50 am. I actually arrive each
day at 8.25 am and start to prepare for my day. I help my Teacher
welcome the Year 1 children and look after any of them who are upset or
wobbly that day. I am there for any parent who wants to chat. If a
parent needs to chat to my Teacher, I take the children in so they don't
have to stand in the cold.
I have organised a rota for myself, (in my own time,) so that I can fit
in all the children who need extra help. Working from information
collated by my Teacher I have organised the children so that all of of
them can reach their potential. By 8.50 I have started 1 to 1 work on
phonics, handwriting, reading, number work.At 9.05 I bring out my 2nd
group for 15 minutes, catching up on phonics, High Frequency Words.
During this time the Teacher has taken Register and is into the Phonics
session.
All the time I am listening to the lesson in the classroom, ready to go
in if needed, because there are children who have Special Needs and I
might be needed to sit with them. In Year 1 children very rarely have
been statemented yet so there is no funding for 1 to 1 support.
Therefore the General T.A (me) has to be there for them.
By 9.15 the Literacy Lesson starts and I either sit on the carpet with
particular children to support them or spend time writing up my
interventions so far that morning ( because I have to provide evidence
of the work done with the children). Then I start checking reading
books. I either change them or initial that the record has been checked.
When the children go to their tables to work I go with them. I know
which table because I have spent time (my own time) reading the
Teacher's detailed plans, emailed to me each week.
Most of the time I work with the children who find school tricky. The
Teacher and I alternate daily with the groups so that she spends time
with all the children. There are children who find it so hard to sit
still, concentrate, form letters. I am there to encourage, push,
support, explain.
It's amazing the number of ways you can find to explain a single thing!
And it's amazing how many children find the simplest thing (to you and
me) impossible to grasp. If I or the Teacher wasn't sitting with them
they would not know what to do, how to start. One of my greatest skills
is patience. To find yet another way to explain something, but to do it
with kindness and humour is what I love to do. And at the same time as I
am helping this child there are another 5 on the table who need me too.
Of course the Teacher could sit with them ... but what about the other 25 five year olds?
By 10 am its time for Assembly and I keep a group back to read with. I
read with every child in the class at least once a week, assessing their
skills and giving them tips and encouragement as we go along. Whether
that child gets lots of support at home and loves to read or receives
minimum support and finds reading hard, hard, hard - I find the way to
help them achieve their best, help them enjoy reading. The joy of seeing
a child move up a level or get excited about a book is just wonderful.
After break (10 minutes) I read the story while the Teacher reads with
another group (they try to read with every child once a week too).
Then it's Maths and the same sort of support as I have given in Literacy.
My last group goes out with me at 11.50 for a quick recap on numbers -
formation, number lines, counting. Then at 12 it's time for home ...
But we don't go home do we? Most T.As in my school stay and get the jobs
done that they couldn't do in the morning...like changing reading
books, putting up displays, changing the role play area, filing ... It's a
rare day that I go home before 12.35 and some days I stay until 1pm, an
hour over my paid time. Obviously this is up to me. It's my choice that I
stay, but then that's the sort of people T.As tend to be. We don't do
our job for the money, we do it because we love it, love the children.
An ordinary morning is what I have described above. I haven't told you
about my playground duties, my chats with children whose parents are
breaking up, whose granny has died, who have seen their dad beating up
their mum... I haven't told you about the chats with parents who are
worried or don't "get" phonics. I haven't mentioned helping children who
have wet themselves or been sick everywhere or had a massive nose
bleed.
Of course the Teacher could do all these things too. She gets into work
at 7.30 and stops for lunch at 12.55 ( 15 minutes break ... soooo
lazy!!) then works through until 5.30 when she goes home sorts life out
for her own children and then carries on with school work. The thing is
though that if she did my job, the things I do, then when would she
actually be teaching? Or maybe we should just forget about all the small
groups I take out, forget about reading with the children?
There are Teaching Assistants in my school who work 1 to 1 with children
who are autistic or have long term illness, children with behavioural
problems who, if left to their own devices could be dangerous both to
themselves and other children. Without their T.As these children would
be lost. As it is, their parents have to fight for help. How could they
access education without the care and 1 to 1 support of a Teaching
Assistant? T.As deliver physiotherapy programmes, Speech and Language
interventions, administer medication...
Teaching Assistants are the unsung backbone of the education system. We
work for just over minimum wage and we work because we choose to give
our best for the children in our care. In my school the T.As are hard
working, intelligent (many are Graduates) and very caring. Often it is
the T.A who has the time to sit and listen to a child, who picks up on
the underlying problems a child faces. We are part of a team, with our
Teachers, trying to create an environment where children can learn and
enjoy learning.
Teachers work incredibly hard already. If we were not there to do the
things we do then I really hate to think what would happen to the
children who need us. Teachers cannot physically do their own jobs and
ours. It's impossible. I despair at the short sightedness of the UK
Government and their plans.
If you have a child in school then please celebrate how fortunate they
are, not only to have Teachers who work their socks off, but also
Teaching Assistants who do their best to support, care and guide. It has
been a long time since all we did was wash up paint pots.
You can support the campaign by putting a 'Twibbon' on your Facebook or Twitter profile picture. Follow this LINK
