Low-earning school support staff are paying for pupils’ food, skipping meals and taking on multiple jobs to survive, a major union has warned.
Unison said today that school support staff members across the UK - including teaching assistants, catering and cleaning workers, librarians and sports coaches - are buying food for hungry pupils and contributing towards the cost of uniforms, shoes and stationery.
And almost all of the 6,000 school workers surveyed by the union (98 per cent) between 20 October and 1 November said they were concerned their pay wasn’t enough to cover the spiralling cost of living.
The union has highlighted that despite these personal financial pressures, more than one-fifth (23 per cent) were using their own money to buy books, pencils and pens for pupils, and three in 10 (30 per cent) were helping pupils with the cost of uniforms.
And one in eight workers (13 per cent) have used food banks in the past year, according to the survey, with many saying they may need to turn to them again or were relying on their families to provide meals.
More than a quarter (27 per cent) had already taken second or third jobs to make ends meet and nearly half (49 per cent) were actively looking for other jobs.
Over a quarter of staff surveyed (27 per cent) said “they had to take on a second or third job to make ends meet”.
School support staff ‘struggling to make ends meet’
The survey shows that 23 per cent had one additional job, 4 per cent had two additional jobs and nearly half (49 per cent) were in the process of looking for other jobs.
And the report stresses that the “impact of extra jobs on mental and physical health, and work-life balance, is a concern”.
One Unison member, who supports children with special educational needs, told the union that they were working two jobs “to make ends meet, and have one day off a month”.
“There’s no incentive to do this job apart from the love of education and the pupils,” they added.
The report warns that for many, “worry and stress about paying bills and feeding their families is leading to them actively looking to leave the education sector for better pay elsewhere”.
“This is inevitably causing a knock-on effect for the colleagues and children they support,” it adds.
Another respondent who has worked as a teaching assistant for four years told Unison they were looking for a new home “because my £725-a-month rent is going up by more than £100”.
As a result, they will “be left with around £50 a month to live on”.
Unison head of education Mike Short said: “Schools are struggling to hold on to their support staff. Better wages are available elsewhere, and that’s causing a recruitment crisis.”
Mr Short added that these staff are “crucial to the smooth running of schools and to the learning experiences of pupils in the classroom”.
“Even though education workers are experiencing tough times themselves, they’re still helping less fortunate pupils and their families. That speaks volumes about their generosity and dedication, but it should never have come to this. The government should be hanging its head in shame,” he said.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are incredibly grateful for the work of all support staff in education and understand the pressures many are facing at the moment due to the challenges of recession and high inflation.
“Whilst decisions over pay are for individual schools, the core schools budget will be boosted by £2 billion in each of the next two years, thanks to the chancellor’s Autumn statement.
“The IFS [Institute for Fiscal Studies] has already highlighted the uplift will allow school spending to return to at least 2010 levels in real terms - the highest spending year in history - meaning in real terms we will be putting more into schools than ever before.”
