Working in the field of teaching often comes with a bad rep. From being underpaid to the pressure of classroom management, it’s fair to say that teaching is not an easy job.

 However, being a teacher can also leave you with an abundance of joy and happiness.

 Whether it’s the positive impact you’ve made to a child’s academic, emotional and social learning or the set of skills and knowledge you’ve acquired along the way; here are our 10 reasons why teaching remains a rewarding career choice.

1. Children teach you as much as you teach them 

Being around young children and adults six hours a day can keep you feeling young. They can positively influence your vocabulary, fashion sense and ensure you are kept up to date with the latest pop culture references.  

2. No day is ever the same 

Most jobs come with a lot of repetitive tasks, which can sometimes result in feeling unfulfilled and unchallenged. Teaching is one of the few professions where you get the chance to be creative and engage in something new every day.  

3. You are a role model 

Ever heard the expression, with great power comes great responsibility? As cliché as the saying may sound, teachers are highly admired for being a good role model to their students. It is a great accomplishment when children can look to you to guide and advise them not just with school work but also with their social life. In fact, being an inspiration to young leaders is just one of the many perks of the job.  

4. Expect to laugh… a lot 

Children may be a handful at times, but there’s no denying their ability to make you chortle. They are a bundle of joy and, most of the time, have a great sense of humor. So if you’ve had a bad start to the day, you can always rely on your students to cheer you up and make you laugh. It’s these precious moments that make teaching absolutely worth it.  

5. Learn new skills 

Being a teacher allows you to expand and develop on new skills. Whether your chosen subject is English, Maths or Science; as a teacher, you can choose to build upon transferrable skills by participating in sports days, managing breakfast and after school clubs and can even offer counseling sessions. Did we mention that no day is ever the same?  

6. Establish genuine relationships along the way 

Working in teaching enables you to build positive relationships with students, parents and the wider school community.

7. Make friends for life 

You get the opportunity to form real and long-lasting friendships with like-minded colleagues, who share the same passion for teaching as you do.

8. That memorable and cherished moment when a student finally gets it

Nothing beats the moment when a student’s lightbulb goes off and they finally understand what you’ve been teaching them. Witnessing their growth and knowing you contributed to the child’s learning progression is a feeling like no other.  

9. Schools out for summer

There are many rewarding highlights of being a teacher. However it can be sometimes feel chaotic and nonstop, which is why teachers are rewarded with a much-needed and well-deserved six-week summer break. While your non-teacher friends continue to work their 9-5 jobs, you get the chance to relax, recharge and enjoy your summer holiday. The summer break is also the perfect opportunity to reflect on your teaching strategies and improve on lesson plans, if needed, for the upcoming school year.

10. End of year teacher gifts

Whether it’s a hand-made appreciation card or a purchased gift, it’s really the thought that counts.   There are so many advantages of being a teacher, fact. However, the best feeling is knowing you are educating tomorrow’s leaders and opening the door to all other professions. Now that is the ultimate job satisfaction.  

Are you looking to get your first job in the Education industry? Or would you like to progress with your career as a Teaching Assistant? Then read on, this article might just solve your problems.

Although not every school may require qualifications for a teaching assistant, you need to show your commitment to developing knowledge and new skills to impress at the interview. Qualifications would also equip you with confidence and familiarity on school related topics. It will also help you progress further and receive a higher rate of pay. Our training partner offers level 4 (RQF) Teaching Assistant courses and – unlike many other TA qualifications in the market – these are accredited by OFQUAL and will be accepted throughout England. Online learning means that you can study, no matter whether you’re busy working, a parent with their hands full, or have time on your hands. It also saves time and energy as you don’t have to commute to a location, you can do it at home, at a cafe or wherever you like. Advanced technology and online learning is definitely opening new opportunities for anyone with motivation and willingness to develop. 

Earn and study at the same time

TLTP Education will be here to help you find work whilst you are studying so that you can be earning and gaining valuable experience at the same time. We have specialist desks which means our Recruitment Consultants have in-depth knowledge of your job and are able to confidently find you your ideal role whilst providing the right support you need. You will have a dedicated consultant who will guide you through the registration and compliance processes and continue to look for work for you whilst you are studying and even after you have qualified.  

View our latest Teaching Assistant roles and apply today.

If you decided to start your career as a Teaching Assistant or to progress in the Education sector, give Stonebridge Careers Training a call quoting 'TLTP Education' to discuss your situation on: 01202 497 980. You might even qualify for a 19+ Advanced Learning Loan, backed by the government.

Teaching Assistants play a critical role in helping educate pupils. Managing a class of 30 is a huge task for any Teacher and the responsibility covers a wide scope of activities. This is where the Teaching Assistant (TA) comes in.

Teaching Assistants helps to set up the classroom, mark papers, answer student questions, support students in accomplishing tasks and can even supplement course materials and lessons from time to time. A TA will help to manage student behaviour in a discreet manner without disrupting the whole class and allowing the focus remain on the Teacher to deliver effective teaching. TA’s also go one step further and build happy and valuable relationships with students, parents and other staff members at the school. They play an essential role and often are the unsung heroes!  

Here are our ten reasons why we believe teaching assistants are essential and should always have a place in the classroom.

1. They offer one on one support

Many children are overwhelmed by packed classrooms and are unable to take things in, especially for those beginning primary school it can be quite daunting. Teaching assistants play a pivotal role in important one on one sessions and helping children overcome their anxieties. 

2. They provide access for children

Previously many children with disabilities would not have been able to access education so easily as they can today without the help from specialists. Teaching assistants today are highly trained in supporting with mental and physical disabilities, speech and language issues, behavioural difficulties and a range of other conditions. It’s a tough job however very highly rewarding. 

3. Extra set of eyes

An extra set of eyes is always handy and teachers don’t have eyes in the back of their heads!

4. They help your child find a Eureka breakthrough

Reading a tough word for the first time, reaching the end of a book or finally cracking a Maths problem, that excitement on a child’s face when they explode back into the house with a gold star could be thanks to the TA. 

5. Reduces the pressure off of the teacher

A class full of thirty students all needing help during a difficult lesson is impossible ground to cover for one person. A teaching assistant will help ease the load off of the teacher allowing them to focus on what they do best – teaching. TAs can be utilised in situations for all students to reap the benefit.  

6. Class control

Teaching assistants help to control the classroom by identifying on those difficult students or helping the teacher implement rules and taking the appropriate action where required. 

7. Teaching assistants work together with the teacher to implement strategies

A teacher and their assistant can work together and identify a group of people that need some intervention. Whether it’s a group finding the work difficult and need a helping hand or a group needing a good push because they’re excelling, having someone to take them aside means that there’s less chance of a child being left behind or held back.  

8. They’re friendly and approachable

Teachers have a position of power and authority and even though they can come across assertive they are in fact lovely, down to earth wonderful people. However due to their power they can be harder to approach, and many students find it easier to talks to the teaching assistant instead. 

9. They do a lot behind the scenes

There’s for a teaching assistant. Many arrive very early and / or stay behind after school finishes to help plan lessons, prepare the classroom, monitor and report on progress as well diving into the daily tasks of school life. 

10. They can also team teach

Interactive lessons are always a big hit especially when they are a bit different and are not just the same face lecturing them from the front of the room. Having seen teaching assistants and teachers join forces to deliver fun and exciting presentations, pieces of drama and even singing a song together, makes a difference in .  

For many students the teaching assistant is more than just a face in the class. They are a big part of their life who can have a serious impact on their future.  

3 cheers for Teaching Assistants!

Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray!

We are recruiting for some fantastic Teaching Assistant roles n Primary, Secondary and SEN schools. Browse through our current vacancies and apply today.

• Primary Teaching Assistants 
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Teachers and nurses have warned of taking industrial strike action unless ministers remove the pay cap across the public sector. The warning comes after the government announced the 1 per cent pay cap will be lifted for police and prison officers. The recommendations for police and prison officers are yet to be published by the pay review body and are waiting a government response, which the Prime Minister Theresa May has said will happen “shortly.” The genuine feel is that ministers will accept the advice given for police and prison officers pay for 2017-2018 by the pay review body, resulting in the first pay rise above 1 per cent for seven years. Unions are pressing for a 5 per cent increase for millions of nurses, teachers, council staff, civil servants and other workers who have had to endure a pay freeze or 1 per cent cap for seven years.  

In July the government announced that teachers would only receive an overall 1 per cent pay rise in 2017-18, although those at the top and bottom of the main pay scale would see their salaries rise by 2 per cent. The NASUWT teachers union said the average pay award for teachers last year was 0.6 per cent. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders' union, said that failing to include teachers in the pay announcement was "short-sighted and wrong," due to ongoing recruitment and retention problems.

A national rally will be held in Westminster in October and the TUC will seek a meeting with the Chancellor. Ministers are expected to accept recommendations for higher pay rises for police and prison officers, but unions warned against “cherry picking” of workers. John McDonnell, shadow chancellor, said: “The next Labour government will lift the public sector pay cap for all public sector workers and we are demanding nothing less than that from this shambolic Government. “The crisis in our public services is a crisis made in Downing Street. The pay review bodies have been operating under the constraint of a Tory 1 per cent cap for seven years. “The pay cap must now be lifted across the whole public sector rather than by playing one group of workers off against another.” National Education Union (formerly the National Union of Teachers and Association of Teachers and Lecturers) concluded the threat of strikes is a possibility.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: "The pay cap needs to be lifted for all public sector workers if we are to protect our public services, which are an essential part of everyone's daily life.” "The cap was not lifted this year for teachers and various other groups, resulting in pay being cut still further in real terms. We know that teacher supply is in crisis and, without sufficient teachers, the education of children will suffer. Giving teachers a fair pay rise is a crucial part of solving that problem."  

In the last 4 years the number of unqualified teachers in state-funded schools across the UK has risen by 62 per cent. Labour revealed the data from the DfE School workforce which showed in 2016 there were 24,000 unqualified teachers up from 14,800 in 2012, when at the time Michael Gove was Education Secretary removed the requirement for teachers to be qualified in the specific subjects they cover. Assuming an average class size of 25.5 children this means 613,000 children were taught by unqualified teachers. In the same period, the number of qualified teachers rose by just 1.4 per cent, from 427,300 to 433,200. A higher proportion of unqualified staff are in academies and free schools. In local authority secondary schools, 4.9 per cent of teachers are unqualified, but in secondary sponsored academies there are 9.6 per cent, and 11.3 per cent in secondary free schools.  

Labour condemned the findings, highlighting that the Government has missed its teacher training targets for the fifth year in a row. Mike Kane, a former teacher and the shadow schools minister, said the government was relying on unqualified teachers to plug the gaps in schools brought about by chronic underfunding. “Under Labour, all permanently employed teachers had to be qualified. This government changed the rules and scrapped that requirement, allowing schools to employ unqualified teachers, permanently threatening standards. “The Tories’ failure on teacher recruitment is putting school standards at risk, and it’s our children who will pay for their mess,” he said. “The Government have completely failed in their most basic of tasks and are clearly relying on unqualified teachers to plug the gaps,” he said. “Unqualified teachers have no guaranteed training in safeguarding children, controlling a class or adapting teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils,” Mr Kane said. “But under the Tories, they’re responsible for the education of hundreds of thousands of our children.”   

Plugging the gap
The results coincides with dramatic staff shortages felt across the sector with more teachers leaving the profession than entering for the second year in a row. was unheard of years ago, however this is now common practice in many of England’s schools. Teaching Assistants and staff from other areas were being pulled in to plug gaps for example native language speakers who do not hold a qualification in teaching are increasingly being used to teach MFL subjects. Worryingly, more than a third of Physics teachers do not have a degree in the subject, more than a fifth of Maths and English teachers hold no higher than an A-level qualification in the subject. Earlier this year the Government launched a £300,000 overseas recruitment drive in a bid to address the recruitment crisis facing the UK Education sector.  

The idea behind employing unqualified staff was to make it easier for schools to have lessons from people with particular skills, such as technology experts, sports tutors, musicians or linguists. But it was opposed by teaching unions who claimed it was a form of cost cutting and a lowering of professional standards. Local authority schools still require teachers to have qualified teacher status, but there are exemptions such as specialist instructors, teachers trained overseas and trainee teachers. Another former education secretary, Nicky Morgan, last year put forward plans that would have completely removed qualified teacher status. But these proposals were reversed by the current Education Secretary, Justine Greening, who has said she wants to strengthen QTS rather than end it. "Some people have suggested that QTS might be scrapped or replaced with some vague notion of an 'accreditation'," she said in a speech earlier this year. "Let me be absolutely clear: not on my watch." Ms Greening added: "Keeping and strengthening QTS is vital. This is not about removing school freedoms. But I believe that teachers should have the highest quality qualification and what I want to see is a QTS so well regarded, so strong that school leaders will naturally want all their teaching staff to have it. "QTS should be the foundation stone for the teaching profession to build on."    

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We trust headteachers to run their schools and make the right decisions for their pupils. The latest figures show that nine in ten secondary lessons are taught by a teacher with a relevant post A-level qualification – a clear indication of the importance headteachers place on ensuring pupils are taught by highly qualified teachers.” “The quality of new entrants to teacher training continues to be high, with 18 per cent of this year’s cohort holding a first-class degree. We are investing £1.3bn up to 2020, along with bursaries of up to £30,000 tax free in subjects including physics, to continue to attract the best and the brightest into the profession, particularly in the core academic subjects.” Unions and Labour claim that not enough trainee teachers began courses in more than three-quarters of subjects, with maths, physics, design and technology, computing and business studies all falling at least 15% short of their targets. About 6,000 trainee teachers began courses after achieving a 2:2 or lower in their degree subject, and less than half of trainees are studying for their qualifications in universities, they claimed. The only subjects to meet the required recruitment levels were PE, history, biology and geography, while English and chemistry narrowly missed them.  

Education Secretary Justine Greening told MPs she recognised there was concern over school funding and has announced schools will receive an extra £1.3bn over two years.

However this is not ‘new’ education money, instead it will be taken from elsewhere in the education budget including £280 million from the free-schools programme. In 2018-2019 the budget will increase from £41bn to £42.4bn and £43.5bn in 2019-20. The plans will protect per pupil funding in ‘real-terms.’ During the General Election school funding became a major issue, the Conservative manifesto pledged that no schools would see their budgets cut as a result of the proposed national funding formula, and to increase the schools budget by £4 billion by 2022. The Conservatives had promised an extra £1bn per year, which on top of planned increases, would have meant the core schools budget rising by about £4bn in 2021-22. Most of this extra funding was going to come from scrapping free meals for all infants, a policy which was then withdrawn. Earlier this month, Ms Greening had demanded that the government publicly commit, before the summer holiday, to give schools an extra £1.2bn. Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday Ms Greening said this "significant investment" would help to "raise standards, promote social mobility and to give every child the best possible education."

• Not new money from the Treasury, but money from savings within education budget
• £280m cut from the free schools budget and £315m from "healthy pupils" projects
• The DFE is promising £416m extra for schools from savings in 2018-19 and a further £884m in 2019-20
• A new minimum per pupil funding limit will be set in secondary schools at £4,800
• The Institute for Fiscal studies says the extra money is more generous than promised in the Conservative manifesto - and will freeze average school budgets at current levels over the next two years
• But in the years between 2015 and 2020, the IFS says school budgets will have declined in real terms by 4.6%

Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner accused the Conservatives of being in “full retreat from their own manifesto.” “Astoundingly, this has all been funded without a penny of new money from the Treasury – perhaps the Chancellor didn’t want to fund schools and thought that teachers and teaching assistants were just more overpaid public servants,” she said. Leader of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) Kevin Courtney said: "We have told the Government that schools are facing big real terms cuts. The Government has had to recognise that fact. 

This extra money is welcome but it is nowhere near enough.” Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, said that it is a “desperate attempt to pull the wool over people's eyes.” "Instead of providing the £4bn of extra funding promised in their manifesto, the Conservatives are recycling cash from the education budget,” she said. “It is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Schools are still facing cuts to their budgets once inflation and increasing class sizes are taken into account.”  

A protest over school funding cuts was held in London at the weekend[/caption] Ms Greening, who addressed the cash as the biggest increase in schools funding in a decade, is a queue of ministers that have called for more cash for her department – but she has apparently failed to convince the Chancellor to provide extra funding. For many years there have been complaints that schools in different parts of the country were receiving different levels of per pupil funding. She said the new formula would go ahead and would address unfair and inconsistent levels of funding. Under the new arrangements, from 2018-19, the minimum funding per secondary pupil would be set at £4,800 per year. Details of an updated version of the formula, with budgets for individual schools, are being promised for the Autumn.

27,500 teachers who trained between 2011 and 2015 had already left the teaching profession by 2016. That means that just over 23% of about 117,000 teachers who qualified over the period have left. New research by the Education Policy Institute found that half of full-time teachers work between 40 and 58 hours a week, whilst a fifth of full-time teachers are working up to 60 hours a week, 19% longer than the average elsewhere of 40.6 hours.

These extortionate hours leave teachers no time for quality of life forcing many skilled teachers choosing to take huge pay cuts and work as teaching assistants rather than contend with the vast workload expected of them.These alarming figures add further concerns and pressures to a profession that’s already in crisis and when demands for the government to remove the 1% pay cap that has been placed on teacher salaries until 2020.  

Tory MPs have complained the overall schools budget is too small and needs to be increased. Teaching unions have been urging ministers to lift the pay cap. They also want to make it cheaper for teachers to train and to introduce measures to encourage teachers to stay in post in areas with significant recruitment problems. Over worked and stressed, many teachers are taking lower skilled roles or leaving the profession altogether.   

Following the election chaos Education Secretary Justine Greening, has demanded an extra £1.2bn from the government and is in support of both relaxing the pay cap and increasing public spending on schools. However she is one of a series of cabinet ministers making spending demands on Philip Hammond, the Chancellor.  

Angela Rayner, the Shadow Education Secretary, who uncovered the figures showing the number of teachers leaving the profession, said they highlighted the “sheer scale of the crisis that the Tories have created in teacher recruitment and retention”. “Teachers are leaving our classrooms in record numbers, and the crisis is getting worse year after year. We are now at the point that more teachers are leaving than staying,” she said. “The government has serious questions to answer on the impact of their policies such as the continued cap on public sector pay, and their failure to tackle the issues like excessive workload that affect teachers in the classroom. The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said that the statistics were proof of the strain teachers are under, adding that the profession is at “crisis point”. “It is time that ministers finally admitted that we are at a crisis point, and came up with a proper plan of action to deal with it.”

The Department for Education said the rate of teachers leaving after just a year had remained stable for decades, adding that some teachers were returning to the classroom after quitting. A spokesman said: “Teaching remains an attractive career and the latest statistics show that around 90% of teachers continue in the profession following their first year of teaching – this has been the case since 1996. The number of former teachers coming back to the classroom has also risen significantly – from 13,090 in 2011 to 14,200 in 2016.” “We are actively addressing the issues that teachers cite as reasons for leaving the profession, for example by supporting schools to reduce unnecessary workload and improving behaviour management training for new teachers. Teachers play a hugely important role in our society, providing education and guidance for future generations.”  

Pressure is growing on the Prime Minister to abandon plans to cut per pupil funding in years to come by protecting school funding by an additional £1.2 billion. There was no mention of whether schools would receive extra funding in the has requested a public statement over the coming weeks so schools know where they stand before they break up for the summer holidays.

The Telegraph reports Ms Greening has been alarmed at the way Labour was able to exploit the Conservative manifesto on education during the election campaign. "There was no getting away from the fact we were cutting funding per pupil,” said a senior government source. “We need to recognise that in the wake of the election, and we must address the concern."  

The Conservatives promised to increase the schools budget by £4 billion by 2022 in their election manifesto, published in May. However when inflation and rising student numbers were taken into account, the promise amounted to a cut in per pupil funding, a fact attacked repeatedly by political opponents. Ms Greening has told the Prime Minister and the Treasury that she wants to change tack after the election and make sure that per pupil funding does not fall. That means an extra £1.2 billion spending by 2022, according to the Institute For Fiscal Studies [IFS], with similar amounts in the years between now and then.  

Public Services Pay
This demand has led several of Theresa May’s own ministers to speak out in adding more funding into the public sector. Pressure is mounting on the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to relax austerity and put an end to the pay cap after the party disastrously lost its majority in the General Election to anti-austerity Labour, which has pledged to scrap the 1% cap. Theresa May faces a chorus of demands from her own MPs over public spending.  After a decade of public pay freezes, the average pay of teaching professionals has dropped by £3 an hour in real terms, £2 an hour for police officers, £8 per hour for doctors, £1 per hour for prison officers whilst nurses’ wages have stagnated. In a speech to the Confederation of British Industry on Monday night, Chancellor Philip Hammond said the government’s approach to balance the needs of public workers with those who had to pay the bill hadn’t changed. Hammond said he recognised that “the British people are weary after seven years’ hard slog repairing the damage of the great recession.” He also said the time had come for a conversation on the level of funding of public services but it had to be a “grown-up debate” – arguing that borrowing was simply passing the bill to the next generation and that taxes couldn’t always fall on someone else. The governments approach has always been to balance the needs of the public workers with those who had to pay the bill.  

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is set to demand a salary boost for NHS workers who have suffered for years under the Tories’ one per cent pay cap. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is the latest senior cabinet minister to put pressure on the chancellor Phillip Hammond and the PM to change the policy.  

Boris Johnson believes the 1% public sector pay cap can be lifted in a responsible way.  Michael Gove, who has re-joined the Cabinet as Environment Secretary, urged the prime minister and the chancellor to listen to independent bodies that review public sector. He told the Sunday Times: "You've got to listen to the public sector pay review bodies. When they made recommendations on school teachers' pay I think I always accepted them. My colleagues who deal with these pay review bodies would want to respect the integrity of that process." A Number 10 source said the government was responding to the recommendations of public sector pay review bodies which are currently reporting to ministers "on a case-by-case basis.". But 1% rises for dentists, nurses, doctors and the military have already been agreed for this year, it added.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Nigel Lawson, a former chancellor to Margaret Thatcher, said it was Mr Hammond's job to keep control of public spending to avoid "economic disaster.” “It's not easy but it is necessary. People understand we need to pay our way on the road to economic success." Lord Lawson called on ministers to formulate the policy behind closed doors, adding: "Stop having this debate in public, it's ludicrous." 

When the matter was raised in the Commons, a minister said the government wanted to ensure "frontline public service workers" were "paid fairly for their work." Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said reports on the divisions within government over public sector pay revealed there was "turmoil" in the Conservative Party. "They're saying 'Wait for the pay review bodies', even though they're the ones insisting on a 1% cap," the Labour frontbencher told the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday. "We're saying to the pay review bodies: 'Get rid of the 1% cap and give a fair pay rise.'" Asked what level of pay rise Labour thought was fair, Mr Ashworth said the pay review bodies should consider one in line with the rise in average earnings across the economy.  

Since Theresa May backlash and criticism from Conservative MPs and most of the opposition parties. And, now Education Secretary Justin Greening has confirmed the plans have been scrapped after it was excluded from the Queen’s speech last week. “There was no education bill in the Queen’s Speech, and therefore the ban on opening new grammar schools will remain in place” concluded Ms Greening.          

Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner condemned the £500 million plan as a “vanity project” and said there was “no evidence it will help children move on from socially deprived background.” With such high opposition it would have been difficult to pass legislation to introduce them. The original plan was put in by the Labour government in 1997 when Tony Blair was Prime Minister. 

Justine Greening confirms the ban on grammar schools will remain. The Queen’s speech stated the government will “look at all options for opening new schools and would continue to work to ensure that every child has the opportunity to attend a good school and that all schools are fairly funded." She concluded the government would publish a Green Paper on Children and Young People’s Mental Health "focused on helping our youngest and most vulnerable members of society receive the best start in life." The notes said: "This will make sure best practice is being used consistently and will help to accelerate improvements across all services so that children and young people get the right mix of prevention and specialist support." The bill also omitted the plans to scrap universal free school lunches for primary school children, meaning no new major changes will be put forward for education within the next two years. This takes away the biggest source of extra funding promised for schools in the Conservative manifesto.  

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said that the Queen's Speech was an unambiguous decision not to go ahead with creating more grammar schools.

• No new grammar schools
• Plans dropped to stop free lunches for all infants
• No legislation announced for education
• School funding plans to be put forward at a later date
• Changes to how individual school budgets are allocated will go ahead
• Technical education to be upgraded

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) said the Queen’s Speech was a “missed opportunity” for the Government. “An investment in education now is an investment in our future, post-Brexit. There is no suggestion that the Government will properly fund the major overhaul to technical education promised in today’s Queen’s Speech.” “After seven years of brutal cuts, further education colleges have been forced to make wave after wave of redundancies, and a serious recruitment and retention crisis has been exacerbated by excessive workloads and real term pay cuts.” “These issues need to be addressed if the Government’s reforms are to have any chance of delivering the skilled workforce needed for a post-Brexit economy.”  

Responding to the Queen’s speech, Kevin Courtney, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), said the Government had made a “grave mistake” in not addressing the school funding crisis. “[Grammar schools] are an unnecessary and unwanted distraction,” he said. “It is now time that Theresa May turns her attention to the real and pressing issue of school funding.” “This was a major issue in the General Election. Schools are not crying wolf, there literally is not enough money for head teachers to run their schools properly.” School spending plans outlined in the Conservative manifesto last month indicated a cut of 7 per cent per pupil, the IFS calculated. Teaching union heads have called for an immediate five per cent increase in funding for “cash starved” schools, college and early years providers, as many providers face having to cut staff due to shortages.  

The government says it will bring forward its proposals on school funding at a later date.    

A recent teaching survey of 2,300 National Union of Teachers (NUT) primary members has revealed SATs are having damaging ramifications for both children and schools. Each year thousands of primary school children across the UK who undertake the National Curriculum tests are producing ‘unreliable data,’ causing some pupils to be incorrectly labelled as low ability, and others to go on to secondary school with “unrealistically” high grades.    

In April the House of Commons Education Committee raised concerns over the mental health of young children as an impact of the pressure placed on them to pass the tests. The survey revealed 94 per cent of those who teachers who took part in the survey agreed with the Committee board. Based on personal experience, teachers have noted that summer born children tend to have an unfair disadvantage and 33 per cent said that children eligible for school meals were also negatively affected (a common indicator of disadvantage).

• 96 per cent said that preparation of SATs does not support children’s access to a broad and balanced curriculum
• 93 per cent said that workload has increased as a consequence of the recent changes to the SATs exams

In response to the survey, members explained the effects of the primary assessment system:

• “It creates immense pressure on the schools to attain results and this means too much time and effort on preparing for tests. As a consequence the children give too much import to the tests themselves and are under pressure.”
• “The children who have a very low chance of passing the tests are withdrawn from interventions as the year goes on so that the focus is on borderline children. Absolutely disgraceful but senior management are under immense pressure to get the highest percentage of pass rate.”
• “Children are viewed as data. Children not capable of 'making it' are discounted so that resources can be focused on cusp children. Children assessed as 'safe' aren't always given the support to make progress they deserve.”
• “The current system does not enable schools, teachers, children and their families to celebrate the success of children who do not reach the expected standard.”
• “Children who know they are not on track to achieve the national standard feel anxious. They should be able to feel proud of how much they have progressed rather than being given a result that shows they have failed.

The lack of recognition could be seen to have a “damaging impact” on many children’s self-esteem, negatively impacting on their willingness to learn in later years. Primary school SATs are having damaging consequences on young children. Over the last few years both Key Stage 1 and 2 SATs exams have been under the spotlight with many parents and school leaders of the opinion that they put children under too much pressure at too young an age. In 2016, parents across the UK took their children out of school for a day’s protest over the exams to demonstrate the benefits of creative learning away from rigorous testing. Pressure on schools to compete in national league tables has led to pupils being taught a narrower curriculum, the Education Committee heard earlier this year. Teachers have focused their attention on Maths, English and Science subjects covered in SATs, resulting in neglecting creative subjects such as Art, Music and Humanities. The Government has since agreed to scrap SATs for six and seven-year olds starting next year, but concerns have been raised this may only increase the burden for children facing the Year 6 assessments. A new Key Stage 2 curriculum brought in last year was said to have made the end of year tests especially tough, resulting in several teachers and parents complaining of children left in tears and having panic attacks. Many schools have faced a continued recruitment crisis.

As result of the pressure around the Key Stage tests. Teachers do not want the additional pressure, the work overload and unrealistic expectations the SATs bring.  

Kevin Courtney, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union, said: “The Government will be left in no doubt from this survey that teachers believe the current assessment and accountability of England’s primary school children is not fit for purpose. There is widespread interest among parents, teachers and educationalists about creating a new assessment system which supports pupils’ learning rather than serving as a blunt instrument of school accountability. It is regrettable that this interest is only palely reflected in the DfE consultation. The Union will continue to work with its coalition partners in More than a Score to set out a positive alternative.”