Changes to how pupil premium is calculated is costing schools £500,000 in lost income for Plymouth schools
This money would frequently be used to employ TAs to help disadvantaged learners keep pace and is linked to the qualification for free school meals that has risen over the pandemic.
Happily local portfolio holder and UNISON member Cllr. Jon Taylor has already written the the Secretary of state protesting this and Plymouth in UNISON would like to add their voice.
2021 03 12 – Letter to Secretary of State DfE RT Hon Gavin Williamson CBE MP
TAs are an underpaid and under appreciated group that have already been the butt of reorganisations in recent years as schools try to balance their budgets. We need more not less of them, and we won’t address education inequalities by cutting the resources that exist to redress them. Government has been quick to criticise education unions for arguing for remote learning to avoid schools becoming covid vectors. They imply that TAs are skiving off at home when in reality TAs have been at the forefront of Educare and when they have worked from home that have been the ones reaching out to vulnerable kids helping them to engage. As in so many things if you want the results you need to look after the people that help to deliver them
