Do you work in primary Beamup and what class do you usually work in.

Isnt teaching what we do? If you are not teaching the kids, what are you doing?

as cover supervisor the idea is that you dont teach, but i know that is not always the case.

you are supposed to give preset work and supervise!

that's a joke DQ nearly had to cover supervise for another TA who was doing PPA and had to go on a trip

Hi Dizzy. I work in Year 6. Today we had a TA who started this week (first TA post) left in charge of a year 3 class all day, to cover the class teacher's absence. As union rep, I went and spoke to her, told her she should refuse to do it and advised her to join a union. They just think I'm a militant troublemaker, but this is surely not right.

No its not right Beamie! i would have flipped if i was new and asked to do that!

CS Ed sounds like you have the job well in control and lots of background konwledge and experience to help you. There cant be anyhting worse for the pupils than to be copying facts.......we are told not to do this and to make lessons multisensory and accessbible to all....how can that be happening and be acceptable when CS are not allowed to teach!!!!

HT dont think things through do they!!!!!

Teaching is what all TA's do!!

You can't have a cover supervisor in primary, well not in key stage one you can't!! All our TA's cover PPA time - its a bone of contention at the moment as the pay thing is being discussed and new job descriptions are being drawn up. We were all getting extra pay, non-qualified teacher rate, for the PPA time, but that is being changed now due to the budget - they can't afford it now, and only half of us will be able to cover - we are not a happy bunch at the moment! I still say TA's get taken for granted such a lot - we need to stand our ground more often! AND get a proper pay scale related to what we do, our experience and our qualifications!

This is a classic example of what happens in my school. Friday I was covering my class due to unexpected absence of teacher and next door there were 1 teacher, 2 TAs and 1 parent helper and no-one offered me any help. Does this happen at your schools or do they share their staff around?

I think that's fairly typical dolly, but people will only do what they can get away with. Would one of them have come in with you if you had asked do you think?

I didn't know until the end of the afternoon that they had 4 staff and I was waiting for one of the parents to turn up. She was in the class next door but also had a child in my class. Next time I will ask and see what happens it always seems to be Friday afternoon when everyone else is finishing everything off for the week they don't want to share. My problem is that my teacher is the worst for not sharing staff so they are trying to get at her through me but that isn't fair.

Over the last 3 weeks I have had to do 16 hours cover supervision due to illness and courses I only work 12 hours per week and I get paid 1 hour per week at a higher rate to cover supervise. The theory is that over the year it will even out. I have now said I won't cover supervise any more and am worried my job could be on the line what do you think.

At the school I'm at, the head won't allow TA's to cover classes, (although we could do alot better than some of the supply we get in). It's not us, its the principle of the matter and the blurring of the line. We all agree with this.
We do take small groups, and to be honest the small group of up to eight will be alot harder work than the ones left behind with the teacher. Also if, left with a incompetant supply, some of us, will tell them 'I'm taking my group out.' as the disruption is too much for them.

Had a supply in today who was brilliant. He used to be a head but had no idea how our IT lesson should go so I started them off as this is usually one of the lessons I cover in PPA. He was quite happy to let me do this then take over once they were settled at their task. If all supplies were like this then we wouldn't mind .

I reckon fate must have had a hand in me finding these boards!

I've just got into work and have been invited to a meeting after school to discuss PPA and cover supervision in our school.

At the moment we have a full time teacher and 2 regular supply teachers that cover ours. Looks like the school budget is causing concern and they need to review the situation...erm...yeah right...I wonder why they have invite some of the support staff to tonights meet then...eh?

I'll let ya know...