Classroom Advice please

rosie-lee

Just wondered if anyone here who works in a school can enlighten me a little...


Brief pretext...
My son is in a mixed age class of about 32 kids age range 7-11, year 3-6 inclusive.


He has been struggling with his maths homework lately and in trying to help, I asked how his class teacher had explained ... and suggested he ask for some help if stuck in class.


He was quite convinced that All his maths was taught by the Teaching Assistant, ....all Yr 4 work in a small group with her and Never interact with the class Teacher for maths ?


Before I query this with school, I thought I'd best check because it may well be Usual practice nowadays for a teaching assistant to be solely responsible for delivering parts of the curriculum.


My thoughts are that the school is paying the TA to Assist, not to be the ONLY Teacher he has for maths...


Does this sound right, usual, normal ?

LilElvis

rosie-lee wrote: »

Just wondered if anyone here who works in a school can enlighten me a little...


Brief pretext...
My son is in a mixed age class of about 32 kids age range 7-11, year 3-6 inclusive.


He has been struggling with his maths homework lately and in trying to help, I asked how his class teacher had explained ... and suggested he ask for some help if stuck in class.


He was quite convinced that All his maths was taught by the Teaching Assistant, ....all Yr 4 work in a small group with her and Never interact with the class Teacher for maths ?


Before I query this with school, I thought I'd best check because it may well be Usual practice nowadays for a teaching assistant to be solely responsible for delivering parts of the curriculum.


My thoughts are that the school is paying the TA to Assist, not to be the ONLY Teacher he has for maths...


Does this sound right, usual, normal ?

And, presumably, you will expect the teacher to be the ONLY maths teacher he has in year 5 & 6 too? And the same for English. How many hours are there in a school day? How do you expect that this is possible? This can only be a small, village school - if you don't feel that the teaching is adequate then enrol your child in a school which has one teacher per year group.

pigpen

sounds normal to me.. if a grown adult cannot do the work of a child under 11 they are in the wrong profession.


Teaching assistants are usually well qualified now to do such work with the children.. it isn't like the old days where they had a mum come in to help.. these are trained, qualified staff. In many ways the TA's do more hand-on teaching because they work with such small groups doing one task and don't have to worry about marking or planning or playground duty or any of the other teachery stuff.

My son was always struggling in class because he felt stupid asking for help in front of the other children.. one of my girls wet herself in class because she was too embarrassed to ask to go to the loo.. and other similar circumstances.. we found a way they could ask questions or say they were struggling without having to announce to the world and feel embarrassed.

One had a pencil case she would put out to ask for assistance, another would have a card they could raise.. Finding out the reason why they wont ask for help in class is the first step.

theoretica

The most important thing is that your son is struggling and how can you and the school work together to help this. Mixing things up so sometimes he has the TA and sometimes the teacher may not be the solution as having two different people teaching the same thing can be confusing. Mentioning your concerns about him doing maths just with the TA might also be seen by the school as an accusation and get their backs up which you don't want.

rosie-lee

I haven't posted here for a rant or an argument, I asked for advice...politely on the MRF board in preference to the Discussion board.
Knowing that there will be plenty of teachers and teaching assistants on here who could advise me if this was usual practice nowadays.


Before I consider any criticism, make any assumption the teaching is bad or undertake the knee jerk reaction You suggest LilElvis, of pulling my child out of school and sending him over 10 miles away to one with same age classes !! .... I have merely asked about current classroom arrangements and if this is in line with government guidance that Level 1 teaching assistants are required to take sole responsibility for delivery of the Maths element of a Year 4 curriculum.
If this is the case, Surely if I want to have a chat about his maths, it would be the TA I should speak to and not the class teacher, It seems daft to be speaking to a teacher about a subject if she doesn't teach him... it would be the TA I would need to have a chat with.

tomtontom

Are they solely responsible, or is the teacher setting the work and the TA delivering it?

rosie-lee

tomtontom wrote: »

Are they solely responsible, or is the teacher setting the work and the TA delivering it?

Yes thank you, an interesting point.
I'll drop an email to school saying I need a quick informal chat Specifically about maths and who do they suggest I should see.


Now if I had put this in DT, the next post might well debate Who should get paid the most ! lol

LilElvis

Have you asked the teacher where the responsibilities lie, whether he/she sets the lessons or supervises them? Have you raised these issues with the school? Surely these were all questions you would have asked before enrolling your child in a school which doesn't have a "standard" one child per year group system. It's not a criticism, I'm just baffled that you have only thought to question the method of teaching now.

heuchera

rosie-lee wrote: »

I haven't posted here for a rant or an argument, I asked for advice...politely on the MRF board in preference to the Discussion board.
Knowing that there will be plenty of teachers and teaching assistants on here who could advise me if this was usual practice nowadays.


Before I consider any criticism, make any assumption the teaching is bad or undertake the knee jerk reaction You suggest LilElvis, of pulling my child out of school and sending him over 10 miles away to one with same age classes !! .... I have merely asked about current classroom arrangements and if this is in line with government guidance that Level 1 teaching assistants are required to take sole responsibility for delivery of the Maths element of a Year 4 curriculum.
If this is the case, Surely if I want to have a chat about his maths, it would be the TA I should speak to and not the class teacher, It seems daft to be speaking to a teacher about a subject if she doesn't teach him... it would be the TA I would need to have a chat with.

While you're waiting for some useful replies.. here's a link I found, regarding what sort of tasks a teaching assistant might be expected to do. I don't get the impression that they actually teach the subjects, so yours is a valid question.

https://www.tes.com/article.aspx?storyCode=6166868

12_month_challenge

Most schools nowadays have HLTAs A higher level teaching assistant who when training, would have had to have met 33 teaching standards to gain HLTA status and are able to deliver/teach to small groups.

If this is the case I would assume that he/she is delivering the work planned by the class teacher. Or even planning the work by themselves from the curriculum.

Definitely speak to his teacher though

I hope you manage to sort it out for your son's sake.

Person_one

OP, I think its a perfectly reasonable question and I'm sorry you've got some less than helpful responses.

Most primary teachers do a dedicated 4 year degree, don't they? I wouldn't expect a level 1 TA who has probably done a part time college course lasting less than a year to be able to teach to the same standard, or why would we bother with qualified teachers at all?

Its not a criticism of the TA to say that they are very likely to be less skilled, its just true, surely?