Friday was Work Your Proper Hours Day and the TUC issued this report to go with it.

Trades Union Congress

It looked at variety of professions, 3 guesses which one worked the most unpaid hours:

• Value of unpaid overtime per employee £12,009
• Value on unpaid overtime per profession £7,348(millions)
• Percentage doing unpaid overtime 52.4%
• Average hours of unpaid overtime 11.2

Yep - teachers
So even with the reforms in the workplace, the 24 (or is it 25?) tasks, the Well Being Programmes, and the rest, teachers are still working more longer hours than they are paid. This even takes into account the ‘holidays’ and ‘early finishing’ that people are often so envious of!

What About Teaching Assistants?

I couldn’t find any figures for teaching assistants but I suspect it is vastly more than even teachers! It’s easy to see how a culture has grown up in schools where the teachers are not expected to make a fuss if they work unpaid hours and so they in turn just expect the TAs to do the same. They often forget that TAs are not paid for any hours they don’t have in their contracts, so no paid lunchtime, no paid holidays, and a very low hourly rate.

Not that TAs do themselves any favours. I’ve known people whose hours were cut because of budget issues carry on working.

“because if I don’t there will be no one there to run X for the children”

(OK, I confess - I was that loony!)

Early on in my time as a TA someone told me that schools run on the goodwill of teachers, TAs and the other support staff. I suspect that’s very true. People chose to work in schools in part because they care about children and their education and the institution relies on that.

Now we are expecting education workers to use even more of their ’spare time’ learning about internet technologies and undertaking informal CPD. It’s only going to work if they can see it as a way of eventually reducing those 11+ extra hours a week, not just another burden.

How are we going to do this? Ideas on a postcard please or better yet you could leave a comment below

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Here’s a can of worms being opened! Mathew Needleman states that in his district in the US teaching assistants are being withdrawn from classrooms because they have been shown not to have a positive effect on children’s learning

The first bit will sound really familiar to UK Teaching Assistants since Remodelling the Workforce

Creating Lifelong Learners » Blog Archive » How to Use a Teacher’s Assistant (But Not for Fun or Profit)
TA’s are most often used to do jobs that teachers would do themselves if they didn’t have a TA…making copies, putting up bulletin boards, grading papers, etc. It’s easy to see how these activities improve the life of a teacher but do not necessarily impact students’ academic standing particularly in low achieving schools. In fact, they might contribute to the teacher becoming less efficient in time management because they can simply rely on a TA when they are unprepared.

Hmm, not sure I agree with his conclusion there. Freeing up teachers does take a bit of pressure off them and in my experience it made them altogether nicer to live with! That had a very positive impact on children’s learning and on my job as a TA. When people are over-stressed they tend to pass it on to anyone under them be it support staff or kids. As for the stuff about displays Most people reading this will know that I think working with small groups, talking through concepts whilst making displays is a very valuable and legitimate use of TA time!

Still, I agree some of the admin stuff not always the best use of TA, or teacher’s, time but it needs to be done. Then he goes on:

Another ineffective use of TAs is have them work in small groups with your lowest students while you work with the rest. I’ve known some TAs who were outstanding and as good in their delivery of lessons as the regular classroom teacher. However, the teacher is the only one who is credentialed and trained using core programs

Well, I have to agree that TAs shouldn’t work exclusively with any one group either the “strongest” or the “lowest” student group (and we’ll pass quickly over my objections to the use of that term!!). He goes on to say that really he doesn’t think TAs should be working with any groups introducing work, actually acting as teachers.

The ideal use of a TA then is not to replace the teacher or take care of the messy jobs (like copies) but to provide an additional small group teaching experience with students. The key word here is additional.

Nice in theory However, in practice, I was always expected not just to provide additional support to learning but to deliver original content as well. Particularly with intervention schemes like ALS, ELS, FLS and Springboard Maths and also with Guided Reading. I mostly drew the line at covering PPA time on moral and educational grounds and to preserve my sanity! (It was one of those things where those of us who didn’t believe in it tended to do it less!) Usually it would be mentioned that I was ‘a safe pair of hands’ and I’d be left to get on with it. I suppose if I’m honest I quite relished the chance to get a group to myself and work creatively with them. I do worry about less qualified and confident TAs getting into deep water in those situations though.

I totally disagree with him about TAs working or sitting with individuals and repeating/explaining a teacher’s instructions.

• Sometimes a quiet presence next to them, a calming look or gesture, can help a child with behaviour issues get through a carpet session.
• Sometimes having the teacher’s instructions repeated and simplified is exactly what children with particular learning difficulties need!

It’s not that these children don’t bother to pay attention, it’s that they don’t have time to process what the teacher is saying to the whole class. Breaking it down, letting them deal with it in small chunks might mean the difference between getting some work done, meeting those all important learning objectives, and a child having a ‘melt-down’. A skilled TA knows how to do this but still encourage the child’s independence and a skilled teacher knows how to let them do that.I suppose that what it comes down to, skill. I think a really good TA has a different and complementary skill set to a class teacher. Working as a team they can and do raise standards.

So - how do you use your Teaching Assistant? Or if you are a TA how would you like to be used?

Update 

There’s a couple of other good discussions on this issue:

One in the comments section of a post from Mr Read 

One on the TA Chat Forum

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As I said in my last post I’m looking for a new Wordpress theme for the Classroom Displays Blog. I’ve narrowed it down to three possibilities. Now I need your help again

First the current theme - Regulus:

Then a suggestion from a couple of friends - Cordoba Green Park:

Finally a theme that I’ve used on other sites - Cutline

I need help to choose! Vote here:

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I’m thinking of updating the Classroom Displays Blog theme. I’ve identified enough problems with the current one to make it seem like a good idea. But I think I need some help. Who better to ask than my Personal Learning Network?

My Wish List

I need a theme that:

• Allows me to post images without them getting chopped off by the sidebar
• Has a background that doesn’t detract from the images - nothing too dark or busy
• Two columns, otherwise it looks too cluttered for those without widescreens.
• IE compatible
• Uses a clear font in a good size, preferably not grey.
• I’d really like something that used blue lines underneath links - I know this is a bit old fashioned but then so are my readers!
• Quotes are set against a different background colour, have either 2 apostrophes or none. Not like this theme!
• No giant apostrophes
• Easily customisable header image - I don’t want to be confronted with a really complex template file to edit.
• Up to date - current for the latest version of Wordpress.

If you’d like to help me find one, please have a look at the Classroom Displays Blog and then either add to the wish list here or make suggestions for themes you think might work.

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But this colourful heart on a monochrome day just made me smile The person who took the photo says:

During today’s snowstorm, the world has really been that colorless. But, some four-year-olds did something about it!

Happy Thursday folks

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For ages on of my goals on 43Things has been to have more fun. It’s a good goal to have, it doesn’t mean I’m unhappy just that there’s always more room for fun in my life. I spend a little time thinking about how to achieve this and the results are things like theatre trips, short breaks to Paris, and more everyday things, like a walk by the canal on a sunny day.

So one of the joys of my Twitter PLN has been (re)discovering Bernie DeKoven. Anyone who was working in with kids in informal settings in the 70s and 80s will remember New Games and the wonderful, silly and often hilarious results of playing them.

Nobody wins, nobody loses and everyone has fun.

It stayed with me and underpinned many of the activities I used with children in schools. Pure fun and if something about cooperation or groups gets learnt along the way, great.

Well, Bernie’s a blogger these days and he’s compiled a list of 54 kinds of Deep Fun. It’s a comprehensive list but in his comments Josh G. adds one more:

Bernie DeKoven, funsmith
I’d have to say … “thoughtful fun”.

Fun that thinks. Fun that thinks about how to make things even funner!
And maybe fun that thinks about others and how to make sure they’re
having fun too.

Thinking is fun.

Can you believe I forgot that?!! What was best about my time playing New Games wasn’t participating in them, though that was fun, it was facilitating them and ensuring that the kids and adults had a great time.

Maybe I need to remember that and incorporate more opportunities for fun into my students activities.

I’d also like to add another kind of deep fun to Bernie’s list:

creative fun

The kind of fun where you are absorbed in the creation of something, the act of making for its own sake not to produce an outcome, like making mud pies or messing with play dough.

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