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It is important to highlight the vital roles of all higher–level teaching assistants, teaching assistants, learning support assistants and learning mentors to support class bubbles. Even in usual circumstances, teaching assistants are heavily relied upon, from providing whole class cover, to teaching interventions. TAs are essential to support children with additional needs. SEN TAs are working one–to–one, sometimes providing personal care and often working out of hours to prepare resources to support children who found the changes to school most difficult. In so many schools, leaders know that teaching assistants really are the glue that hold everything together. They are a positive presence in school and online, going that extra mile to support children, colleagues and the wider community.
During the autumn term, the dependence on support staff escalated once again. HLTAs in Twinkl’s Facebook groups reported they were given additional teaching hours; they were needed to cross bubbles to provide whole class cover and some even took on full–time teaching responsibilities to fill long–term staff absence. It wasn’t just higher–level TAs with whole–bubble duties – many teaching assistants were required to ‘act up’ too. Support staff provide consistency and familiarity for children, they are trained and up to date with the school’s ever–changing detailed risk assessments and as schools try to limit outside professionals coming into school, it could be concluded that TA cover was safer than bringing an external supply teacher in.
Supply teachers however, after facing a full term of school closures, have been called upon to save the day in so many cases. For some schools, with further staff absences and for those with less support staff to turn to, supply teachers have been an invaluable resource in the pandemic. Using long–term supply cover to fill an extended absence is far easier than trying to recruit a new
teacher temporarily. Heads have always had to juggle staffing and tight budget demands. Opening and closing bubbles has been a mammoth management task, often leaving little time for anything other than just coping. Leaders have been able to rely on their staff, knowing that the strong team they have built is totally up to the task, and they have been grateful for the massive efforts of everyone involved.
Now, with continued uncertainty, schools are once again facing a new set of challenges. School staff have continued to provide education and care to vulnerable and key workers’ children in school at the same time as remote teaching for all children at home, but with significantly reduced staffing levels. There has been further pressure on teachers to provide videos and live lessons, as well as (at the time of writing) no limit from the DfE on bubble sizes in school. Headteachers have had to make difficult decisions on how to staff provision in school, while allowing time for stretched teachers to plan and deliver remote learning for children at home. Our loyal teaching assistants have once again plugged these gaps. Some TAs in Twinkl’s Facebook groups have reported only TAs have been in school to cover bubbles, others have said they have been providing full–bubble cover each afternoon to allow time for teachers to provide digital learning. Many are being asked to support teaching online and make welfare calls.
No matter how the workload is organised, all school staff are working above and beyond to provide essential care and education to all children at a time of great uncertainty. Working together has always been a constant feature of schools and has been even more vital during the pandemic. Heads and teachers simply couldn’t do it all on their own. Reliance on each other, regardless of role, has enabled learning to continue and children to be kept safe.
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