Recognising the value of teaching assistants

The government wants to expand the role of teaching assistants to help cut teachers' workload. But it will have to pay them properly first.

School's out for summer, but for some workers this can be a particularly difficult period as it is the one time of year they get no pay.

Teaching assistants, and other school support staff such as dinner supervisors, are often on "term-time-only" contracts, which means they get no pay in the school holidays. This problem is on top of the fact that they are often employed on low hourly rates and with conditions which are inferior to workers on more standard contracts.

Teaching assistants' role is to support fully qualified teachers. While this includes non-teaching tasks, such as photocopying and collecting dinner money, it also includes functions such as listening to children read, required as part of the National Curriculum.

An expansion of their role and duties in the classroom is central to government plans for further improvements in education standards. Over 25,000 additional teaching assistants have been recruited to schools since 1997 and, over the five-year period to 2004, the government has made £750 million available to local education authorities in England alone to recruit and train new teaching assistants.

The education inspection body, Ofsted, has praised teaching assistants for the important contribution they make to raising the quality of teaching in classrooms. An Ofsted report published earlier this year found that:

* "teaching assistants play an important part in the implementation of the National Literacy and National Numeracy Strategies by supporting teachers and pupils in the classroom";

* "teachers value highly the support teaching assistants provide and appreciate the benefits of having another adult in the classroom to assist them";

* "inspections show that the presence of teaching assistants improves the quality of teaching"; and

* "teaching assistants make a valuable contribution to the wider life of the school by giving generously of their time and talents."

However, their contribution is not being rewarded. Many teaching assistants, who are mainly women, face continuing discrimination as a result of being employed as term-time workers. This means they have unpaid leave foisted on them as part of their contract of employment.

And their pay and professional opportunities are also not commensurate with the importance of their role.

Research commissioned by public services union UNISON in 1998 looked at the role of teaching assistants in primary schools along with their training, pay and conditions and job satisfaction. This was based on responses from 549 head teachers and 767 teaching assistants.

One of the main conclusions was that, "as the government wishes to increase the numbers of classroom assistants in schools and to use them to relieve teachers of some of their tasks or to support teachers in a wide variety of ways, more acknowledgement of the valuable role of classroom assistants needs to be made."

It added that, "although the survey found that classroom assistants are mostly satisfied with their jobs, nevertheless, low pay, lack of time and a lack of information were pointed out as less than satisfactory aspects."

A 1999 report commissioned by the then Department for Education and Employment found that: "The whole issue of contracts and pay remains a source of great concern. Levels of pay are seen as being far too low when set against the work that learning support assistants (LSAs) undertake and the responsibilities they are given. Many contracts are temporary and tied to a pupil with a statement (of special educational needs). LSAs in some schools are on different pay scales although they do very similar, if not identical jobs."

New research commissioned by UNISON and the Times Educational Supplement highlights the continuing huge disparities in pay, holidays and other conditions for teaching assistants both between local education authorities and often within them.

Teaching assistants - a report on the role, pay and employment conditions of teaching assistants, carried out by the Labour Research Department, found fewer than half of all teaching assistants were on permanent year-round contracts and four out of 10 schools said their teaching assistants were not paid during all holidays.

Salaries varied enormously - from £7,125 in South Tyneside to nearly £18,000 in Gloucestershire. One London borough paid £7.21 an hour which, with full-time teaching assistants working 27.5 hours a week in term time, translates into an annual salary of just over £8,000.

In some local authorities rates ranged within the authority from £4.98 to £7.50 an hour.

Unions are arguing for a proper pay and grading structure and career development programme for teaching assistants and an end to their discriminatory term-time contracts. UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said: "It is time to put an end to the scandal of low pay for a group of staff who are vital to the smooth running of schools and the delivery of the government's agenda for schools He added that "some authorities have introduced a career structure for teaching assistants while others still only pay a flat hourly rate. This chaos can only be sorted out by a national framework with clear guidance."

The call has been given added weight by the fact that the role of teaching assistants role has become prominent in the government's plans for education, particularly as a way of reducing teacher workloads.

Education secretary Estelle Morris would like to further increase their numbers and the tasks they can perform in the classroom. She has listed more than 20 duties previously carried out by teachers that will now be done by teaching assistants. These include supervising classes that are working on projects set by a teacher, supervising lunchtime activities, invigilating tests and offering pastoral support to pupils.

Morris's original proposals also included covering for absent teachers. But this is widely thought to have been abandoned following opposition from teaching unions and an Ofsted evaluation which said teaching assistants should not be used as substitute teachers.

As a result of this new role the job of a teaching assistant, once filled in the main by parents on a voluntary basis, is set to become more regulated. The Local Government National Training Organisation has approved national occupational standards for teaching assistants, and nationally recognised NVQ qualifications become available from summer 2002.

In addition, two-year foundation courses for teaching assistants are being piloted by three universities leading on to a teaching degree course. Other establishments are developing programmes which would enable teaching assistants to qualify as teachers in England.

But there will be more pressure from unions for action against the scandal of term-time contracts. General union GMB in Scotland is highlighting the plight of other term-time school support staff, such as cleaners and those working at dinner times, who also get no holiday pay.

GMB senior organiser for public services Alex McLuckie said it was "bitterly disappointing" that so many, mainly women, workers have no source of income during school holidays and called on the government to take urgent action to end "this disgraceful situation."

How assistants lose out

The UNISON/Times Educational Supplement teaching assistants' survey asked local education authorities and head teachers of primary, infant and junior schools for details of the type of contract their teaching assistants are employed on.

There were responses from 809 heads and 49 local education authorities (LEAs) in England and Wales, the two sets of results giving slightly different findings.

The main points revealed by the research were as follows:

* nearly half (49%) of schools said that the LEA sets employment conditions for teaching assistants while most of the remainder said they were determined by the school in accordance with LEA guidelines;

* 41% of schools reported using temporary, term-time contracts for teaching assistants. However, responses from LEAs indicated that over 80% of teaching assistants are on term-time or casual contracts;

* teaching assistants are most likely to be on a limited pay range on the local government pay scale from £9,912-£10,233 at point 6-7 to a maximum of £12,390 at scale point 13. The responses from LEAs indicated that variations in hours and term-time working meant that the actual pay of teaching assistants is often less than that of a full-time, full-year worker on the same scale point. Actual minimum rates are likely to be in the £7,000-£8,000 range outside London;

* a small proportion of teaching assistants also lose out on sick pay and pension benefits, with 40 schools (5%) stating that teaching assistants are not covered by the relevant local authority sick pay scheme. Ten schools (1%) saying that they had not been invited to join the local government pension scheme.