The National Joint Council has unveiled a pay offer for school support staff that could cause problems for schools if the government fails to provide extra money to fund it. But for the hardworking support staff who have struggled on low pay for years, the rise couldn’t come too soon.
Donna Spicer, a teaching assistant who works in a primary school in Plumstead, South London, told Tes she could barely get by on her salary of £16,500. “Over half my wages go on my rent,” she said. “By the time I’ve paid out gas, electric, council tax, water, all the essential bills, I’m actually left with £230 for the whole month. Out of that, I’ve got to get clothing, food, travel to and from work. It goes nowhere.”
Ms Spicer said her teaching assistant colleagues were in a similar - or worse - situation.
“I know a lady at work, her car broke down, and she was struggling to get into work because she couldn’t afford to fix it,” she said.
Another colleague with young children was forced to go to a food bank, which made her feel “so ashamed”.
Ms Spicer said she had also “gone without”. “There have been times when I was eating one meal a day...one winter it was literally a choice between heating and eating”.
She said that the most galling thing was that in her 18 years working as a teaching assistant, the responsibilities of the role had grown without being matched by an increase in pay.
“Where I work, we’re classed as non-teaching staff. That’s a real grind to a lot of us because actually, we do teach the children.”
Mateta Perosa, a school cook at an all-through school in Bristol, who earns just under £11,000 a year, said that even if she received the rise offered by the NJC, she would not earn enough money to rent a house for her family.
She and her partner, who is a member of support staff at a nearby special-needs school, rent rooms in a house belonging to friends.
“Of course, we’re making a compromise,” she said. “Privacy, comfort. I’d like my child to have a larger room or a bigger play space. I’m from Slovenia and my partner’s from Portugal - when our family comes to visit, we’re forced to arrange sleepovers in other people’s houses”.
“We’re just about managing. We don’t have a car and we cook from scratch.”
She said that the numbers of catering staff at her school have been cut, even though pupil numbers are growing. “Everyone’s so overwhelmed and stressed and tired,” she said.
Karen Jackson, a teaching assistant at a Gateshead secondary academy, said she had not had a proper pay rise for seven years. “You have to think very carefully about what you’re buying,” she said. “What do you need? Can you do without that this month? It’s a case of always balancing.”
“In a way, I’m fortunate I don’t have any dependents. But, in another sense, all my money goes out. I have little left to enjoy life with.”
She said a pay increase would not necessarily bring peace of mind. “If schools had to find that money, how many redundancies would they have to make in the future? And then that will impact on the children.”
This is an edited article from the 19 January edition of Tes. Subscribers can read the full article here. This week’s Tes magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here
