Teaching assistant calls low pay disrespectful

Rebecca Ring earns £10.60 an hour as a classroom assistant, just 18p an hour more than the minimum wage

A teaching assistant and mum of four has called her pay of just 18p more than minimum wage "disrespectful".

Rebecca Ring, who works at Ysgol Uwchradd Aberteifi in Cardigan, Ceredigion, is a union representative for Unison.

Members will vote on a possible strike with the union calling for a 12.7% pay rise for teaching assistants and other council staff including carers and refuse collectors.

They have been offered a £1,925 pay rise equivalent to a 9% increase for the lowest paid workers.

Mrs Ring is qualified as a social worker but said she went to work in the education sector while raising her children.

She earns £10.60 an hour, 18p more than the minimum hourly wage.

She is contracted to work a 30-hour week, but said she often works additional hours for no extra pay.

As a teaching assistant, her duties involve supporting teaching staff by helping pupils who may have difficulty following lessons, especially those with behavioural or additional learning needs.

More children now need help in the classroom since the pandemic, according to Rebecca Ring

Since the pandemic she said the pressure on her and others in the same role has increased dramatically.

"We're seeing more and more pupils coming through the doors that need additional support in the classroom," she said.

"Out of a classroom of 30, where you'd previously only need one classroom assistant in a class, there is now the need for two or maybe three assistants.

"We need to address all of that demand in one go."

Fair pay

As a Unison representative at her school, she called on her fellow staff to vote to go on strike.

"We're just asking for fair pay like everybody else and what we feel we deserve," she said.

"We're asking them to take into consideration all the factors - look at the work we're doing, look at the hours we're working, the skills we bring to the table and then try and set a fair pay to reflect that."

She said classroom assistants need a level of pay that means they are not "scrambling around to meet the costs of the odd treat for the family, and even school uniform, basic things like that".

Rebecca Ring says supermarket staff earn more than she does as a classroom assistant

She said her 17 year-old son, who works at a local supermarket while studying for A levels, earns about a pound an hour more than she does.

"Of course, I'm happy for him, he's doing well for himself," she said. "However it makes us realise we're not receiving the fair pay we deserve for the roles we're doing, especially when there's more demand on our time and our expertise.

"I'm not saying it's not a skilled job he's doing, however I feel the work we're doing in classrooms is more demanding and more skilled.

"We all undertake a level of training, we have to renew a lot of that training on an annual basis, we're always training to find new skills and find new ways to support the pupils in our care as well.

"To find out we're earning less than someone in a supermarket is quite disheartening really."

Unison's ballot on strike action will close on 4 July.

The Welsh Local Government Association declined to comment.