TAs "paying the price" for school workforce remodelling

Teaching assistants are carrying out higher level responsibilities without HLTA posts or rewards, says a report from the trade union Unison.

More than one in three TAs said their job included HLTA duties, but only 6% had even part-time HLTA status.

"There is strong evidence that schools are not appointing HLTAs when they could or perhaps should, and are relying on other support staff to carry out this kind of higher level work

"Some members of the school support staff workforce are therefore paying the price for remodelling in lower salaries", says the report.

The survey was based on evidence from more than 1000 members of Unison, and the managers of 200 schools.

Two thirds of the support staff in the survey said their job content had changed as a result of school workforce remodelling. One in ten said they were doing teaching duties - teaching whole classes, setting work for supply teachers, monitoring children's work and marking for part of the time.

There was a "worrying blurring" of the roles of covering for a teacher during an unplanned absence, and time-tabled teaching by someone in an HLTA role, says the report.

About four out of ten have received some sort of pay increase as a result of the changes in their work. Split contracts are common - just under half the schools in the study said they used them. But pay levels for staff on split contracts were lower than average. "This could be seen as remodelling on the cheap," says the survey.

Two thirds of schools were using term time only contracts, ranging from 38 to 44 weeks. Often different support staff in the same school had different arrangements.

More than two thirds of staff were "regularly" or "quite often" working on the school premises outside normal school hours, either catching up with general duties or doing distinct out of hours work such as breakfast clubs or extended schools. But only 15% said they were getting extra money for out of hours work, with most relying on Time Off In Lieu (TOIL).

Unison General Secretary Dave Prentis said: "Support staff are increasingly demonstrating their skills and value and are considered part of the education team in most schools.

"The survey shows their increased responsibilities are better rewarded in many schools but there is still much to do."

School remodelling - the impact on support staff Unison 2007
See also Unison's updated School Remodelling: a Unison survival guide

Children spending less time reading for pleasure

Children in England are abandoning books for computer games , an international study has found.

UK children read for pleasure less often than children in other countries, and the time they spend reading outside school has fallen since 2001.

More than one in three ten year olds spends more than three hours a day playing computer games says the study .

The biggest fall is among children who read well – not poor readers.

Children, Schools And Families secretary Ed Balls said that next year’s National Year of Reading aimed to instil a passion for reading in children of all ages.

“Today’s ten year olds have more choice than in 2001 about how they spend their free time; most of them have their own TVs and mobiles.

“That’s why I’m calling today for everyone’s help to get our children reading more and to kick-start a new national debate about the value of reading. We all need to help our children of all ages to see that reading can bring fun to their lives, feed their imagination, and develop their curiosity about the world."

Readers and Reading: the National Report for England 2006

Pupils want "purposeful" work

Primary school children are mostly happy at school, but their enthusiasm for learning tends to drop as they get older.

Children don’t like being put in groups which separate them from their friends, or in groups with children they don’t like. They don’t like working in groups in which too much or too little is demanded of them, says research from the Primary Review study

They like work to be interesting, challenging and purposeful, but lose motivation when they have to do a lot of writing with little physical movement. They also become de-motivated when they can’t see the purpose of the work, or it seems boring, repetitive or unchallenging.

Key stage 2 children feel under pressure to do a lot of work in preparation for SATS tests, and say teachers place more emphasis on completing work than understanding it.

Pupils think the main reason for attending to school is to get a good job when they are older, or to prepare them for secondary school and give them the skills they will need when they leave school.

Free music lessons for all

Free music lessons for a year will be available to all children in the first years of primary school, as part of a major campaign to raise the standards of music education.

Primary schools will receive funding for choirs, orchestras, new instruments, and performance as part of the £332 million drive to make music a key part of the school day.

Thousands of new musical instruments from violins and clarinets to african drums will be bought as part of the scheme, backed by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and his brother Julian, the prominent cellist and long-term advocate of musical education.

The government wants to see at least half of all primary pupils continuing with tuition after the first year.

Singing will be made a part of everyday classroom teaching, with £40 million of funding provided for the Sing Up programme, led by pop star Jamelia and composer Howard Goodall.

"Young people who are lucky enough to learn music and sing from an early age develop better social skills, memory, ability to listen and have more confidence," said Mr Goodall. "There are proven links between productive music lessons and a better all-round devlopment of young children."

Black children closing achievement gap

Black children are still achieving less than their white counterparts, Key Stage 2 test results show, although the gap is continuing to narrow.

In maths, 66 per cent of black pupils attained expected levels compared to the national average of 77 per cent.

Bangladeshi and Pakistani pupils achieved slightly less than average, whilst the smaller ethnic groups of Irish and Gyspy or Romany children performed even less well, with roughly 33 per cent reaching expected levels for English, against around 75 per cent for white British children.

Children with special educational needs and those receiving free school meals also did less well in Key Stage 2.

But children from Chinese and Indian backgrounds scored higher than the national average, particularly in reading and writing.

Girls also continued to outperform boys across the board.

Read the statistics

Northern Ireland TAs still on strike

Classroom assistants represented by the NIPSA union have voted to continue strike action.

All three other unions representing classroom assistants in Northern Ireland voted to accept a £15 million offer compensating for changes in working practices.

Strikes by the 3,000 NIPSA members will take place two days each week until Christmas. Talks are continuing.

Childhood is good, says government

Most children in England and Wales are happy, and live in stable family environments says the government.

Launching a report summarising recent research about children and families, children’s secretary Ed Balls rejected theories that today’s children are worse off than previous generations, and that Britain is a bad place for children to grow up.

The government also published the results of its own large-scale survey of children’s lives. The consultation, “Time to Talk”, collected the views of children, parents and professionals working with children. It found that two out of five children are worried about their personal safety, and one in five worries about their education, and about bullying.

"The vast majority of children and young people feel happy, safe, and are doing well at school," said Ed Balls, Secretary for children, schools and families.
"But we also know that there are some serious challenges to address. Our report shows that our children are well-educated, but that we are still not world class and that children from disadvantaged backgrounds continue to underachieve."
The research will form the basis of the government strategy for the next decade – the Children's Plan – published next month.

Children's drinking revealed

One in five Year 6 children drinks alcohol, a survey by Ofsted has revealed.

Twenty-one per cent of the 10 and 11-year-olds questioned said they had drunk a whole alcoholic drink before, with five per cent saying they had been drunk on at least one occasion in the last month, and another five per cent saying they had smoked before.

More than 111,000 children between the ages of 10 and 15 took part in the first national survey of its kind.

The majority of children considered themselves healthy, with 82 per cent having done more than 30 minutes of exercise three times a week.

The numbers of children who had drunk alcohol rose with age, with 21 per cent of 14 and 15-year-olds saying they had been drunk in the past month.

Tellus2: children and young people survey

Solar panels fuel new eco school

A new eco-school opened in East Lothian last week.
Environmentally friendly Windygoul Primary in Tranent, cost £7.3 million to construct and is designed to minimise energy use.

It is equipped with solar panels to heat water and electricity and pupils are able to monitor the amount of energy generated by looking at special control panels.
The school also has a living green roof and allows for natural ventilation.

Windygoul Primary School was opened by Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond, and has 100 nursery places and 392 places for children from primaries one to seven.

SEN children suffer massive bullying

Eight out of ten children with a learning disability have been bullied, say mental health charity Mencap.

Young people surveyed for the report had experienced bullying not just at school but in places such as the street, buses and in parks, which left them scared to go out.

When bullying had been reported to an adult, in four out of ten cases nothing was done, with children sometimes being told to accept it was “just part of everyday life”.

The charity is now calling on the government, and groups such as children’s trusts, schools and local councils to do more to prevent it.

Researchers spoke to 507 children aged between eight and 19 and visited disabled only, as well as mixed disabled and non-disabled schools in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Bullying wrecks lives; the experiences of children and young people with a learning disability

"Too much" maths and English taught

Science, arts and the humanities have lost out to a disproportionate weight on teaching maths and English in the primary curriculum, a study has shown.

A team from the University of Manchester found that children were taught an “alarming amount” of maths and English, to the detriment of other subjects.

Data was examined from the last ten years. The National Curriculum’s emphasis on testing maths and English is responsible for the change, say the researchers.

Dr Bill Boyle, who led the research, said: “It’s scandalous that around half of teaching activity is now on two subjects.
“Ofsted argues that the curriculum should be balanced and allow adequate development of each subject area.”

Scottish early years boost

Investing in a child’s pre-school life by providing good early years professionals will pay dividends for years to follow, Scotland’s Children’s Minister, Adam Ingram said this week.

New measures to improve nursery education include making sure all children have access to a nursery teacher and the development of degrees for early years professionals.

The government have promised to extend pre-school education by 50 per cent for all children aged three and four.

Stand-still on reading standards

Reading standards have barely improved since the 1950s, and any gains have been made at the expense of pupils’ enjoyment of reading, a report has found.

Half a billion pounds has been spent on the National Literacy Strategy ‘with almost no impact on reading levels,’ the report, published this week, said.

It forms part of the Cambridge University-led inquiry into primary education, the Primary Review.

An apparent rise in primary test results was criticised as masking the fact that there had been little actual change.

Evidence showed that the tests had caused stress amongst pupils and resulted in a narrowing of the curriculum, with teachers teaching to the tests.

But there were improvements in maths, especially since 1995, and Britain fared well when compared to other countries in standards of reading and science.

Sleep link to child obesity

Getting a good night’s sleep can reduce a child’s risk of being overweight, scientists have found.

Children who averaged nine and half hours sleep each night had only a 12 per cent risk of being obese, which rose to 23 per cent for children getting less than eight and half hours sleep.

The study looked at 785 children between the ages of eight and 11 and has just been published in the American journal, Pediatrics.

If children were tired they were less likely to burn off calories by being active during the day, the research found, and more likely to turn to junk food for a quick boost.

Having a television in a child’s bedroom was also cited as being a contributing factor to lack of sleep.