“Every day is spent supporting pupils through challenges big and small, but the pay and conditions don’t reflect the work actually being done.”
Throughout Wales, teaching assistants are being paid at one level but working across all levels. Covering classes. Leading interventions. Taking on more responsibility, without the pay to match.
That’s not fair.
For too long, level 1 roles have kept pay low while workloads grow. School support staff deserve proper recognition and proper pay.
UNISON members are organising to end grade drift and remove level 1 roles from the grading structure in Wales.
Add your voice.
Become a School Support Staff Champion
Level 1 roles are no longer fit for purpose
Level 1 TAs are defined as working under direction, supporting access to learning and providing general classroom support.
But the reality in many schools looks very different.
Members report:
- Covering teacher absence
- Delivering learning activities
- Supporting planning and preparation
- Managing behaviour independently
- Working unpaid overtime
- Being pulled from one role to another during the school day.
This is grade drift and it is widespread.
Level 1 no longer reflects the work being done in our schools.
Members have been speaking up
UNISON members have been campaigning for this for years, taking part in surveys, engaging in seminars, joining Facebook Lives and feeding back through branches.
Working in social partnership with employers and the Welsh Government since 2020, UNISON members have been central to developing the explicit recommendation to delete the level 1 teaching assistant role.
In September 2021, UNISON Cymru published TA duty logbooks to help members record when they were working outside their contractual remit. These logbooks allow you to record:
- Teacher absence cover
- PPA cover
- Planning and preparation tasks
- Hours worked over contracted time
- Whether overtime was properly paid.
Across Wales, members have used these to demonstrate the scale of grade drift.
In some areas, including Cardiff, evidence gathered by members has led to payment for additional responsibilities.
The evidence is clear. Level 1 roles are being used to pay staff less for doing more.
This is part of a wider schools strategy
Removing level 1 is part of a broader campaign to:
- End grade drift across all levels
- Stop inappropriate cover
- Ensure fair pay for the job actually being done
- Improve professional development
- Tackle recruitment and retention issues in schools.
The system increasingly relies on your skill, flexibility and experience.
Pay and grading must reflect that reality.
Are you working above your grade?
We need to keep building the case. If you are:
- A level 1 TA delivering lessons
- Covering teacher absence
- Undertaking planning or assessment tasks
- Working unpaid hours
- Being regularly redeployed outside your job description.
Become a School Support Staff Champion in your workplace to ensure teaching assistants win the changes they need.
Become a School Support Staff Champion
Fair grading. Fair pay. Proper recognition.
Teaching assistants deserve grading structures that reflect the real work done in schools.
This campaign is about restoring fairness and it will only succeed if you and your colleagues continue to organise together.
