Letter To Michael Gove On Teaching Assistants

teachers teach. teachign assistants support that teaching for some of the most vulnerable students in the education system. i ahve been a teachign assistant for 16 years and support many students with a wide range of abilities, disabilities, behavioural, social and emotional difficulties. without my support i know that those students would not have achieved the education level that they did, and many would not have achieved any grade at all at GCSE. however,more importantly, they would not have coped emotionally and their self-esteem would have plummeted. yes, we need literate and numerate students leaving for the workplace. but we also need well rounded confident individuals with the social skills to contribute to an equal society. Mr Gove was an able student (I assume) with a supportive home environment – many of the students i support are not so lucky. I agree wholeheartedly with the letter about teaching assistants as i see this every day with the colleagues i work with and other staff withing school and parents agree. teaching assistants are only paid for 38/39 weeks of the year and most for only 6 hour days. they therefore work many hours of their own time unpaid. Liaising with teaching staff, outside agencies and parents, planning and preparing differentiated work, training and researching the latest (regular) changes to the curriculum. many students would not be able to attend school trips without a teaching assistant – extra hours and residential hours are unpaid. we have had our pay frozen for the past 2 years and our pension eroded (something Mr Gove has not had to put up with). now Mr Gove seeks to undermine and devalue the work that we do. shame on him!!

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