Save Fife Classroom Assistants

Classroom Assistants and Clerical Staff were called to a meeting today with their Head teachers today (9th February 2011) and we were advised that we should be aware of the next set of job cuts to come from Fife Council. We were told to expect cuts in our hours, and a possibility of redundancies.

So once again education is being hit hard. First the playground supervisors, now lollipop men/women, classroom assistants and clerical staff but, who is it that is going to suffer? Not the powers that be at Fife Council who are making all these decisions but the children. Do the people who make these decisions have any idea how a school is run and just how much support staff are required to run the school effectively? Have they come in and shadowed a classroom assistant to see what their role entails?

Gone are the days of cleaning out paint pots. I personally feel we make a huge difference in schools. Why not ask the Head teachers and the teachers to see how they would feel if they lost the support of their classroom assistant. I also urge parents to question this decision because it's their children who will not be getting the extra support that some of them may require to keep them on task. We don't want to go back years ago when children just slipped through the net because there was not enough staff to support the needs of the school.

We work with children of all abilities including the same children that a Pupil  Support 2 works with (who are on a higher grade) but I do it because that is what the needs of my school are and at the end of the day we are there to support the teacher and the pupils.