Job Losses in Hackney BSF and RM?

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Originally Posted by Grommit

We have just been told that there is a push for Teaching Assistants to go on new "Basic ICT Support" courses and these are being funded by the government...

They will be taught on Printers, Printer Jams, how to set up PC, basic PC trouble shooting and basic IWB trouble shooting.. :mad:

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Who told you that?

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Originally Posted by trogers

Who told you that?

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The County... they send letters around offering to fund courses for TA's to be taght low level ICT support..

I don't think the TA training is entirely BSF related. I'm pretty sure I heard that advice elsewhere, probably becta and unrelated to BSF.
I does make sense that (IT based TA's) are given basic troubleshooting/maintenance skills, previously teachers did it, but it's the teacher unions that opposed teachers doing any admin based work.

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Originally Posted by CyberNerd

I don't think the TA training is entirely BSF related. I'm pretty sure I heard that advice elsewhere, probably becta and unrelated to BSF.
I does make sense that (IT based TA's) are given basic troubleshooting/maintenance skills, previously teachers did it, but it's the teacher unions that opposed teachers doing any admin based work.

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So how will they cope under the BSF Managed Service where they have to contact the help desk and go through some basic IT support ? :troll:

It is also worth pointing out that this sort of training is aimed at TAs / LSAs ... not HLTAs as these may have a teaching commitment and are often viewed by the unions as teachers (when it suits the unions ... damn .. being cynical again!)

The idea was aimed at teachers first to make them more IT intelligent, but has now filtered down. This has been round for years (Pre-NOF) but workforce remodelling has shifted things around.

It is also worth pointing out that this training is expected to be taken up by *Primary* TAs as there is often a gap in support provided and until schools are forced to switch on to dealing with supporting their ICT/IT then a stop gap is needed.

Strange really that this actually puts the skills into the school that BSF can remove ... meaning that the school still needs in house skills for support over and above what is being provided by BSF.

Hold on ... doesn't this mean that people's jobs are being moved around without consultation? Perhaps someone needs to chat with their union about this. Or perhaps it is a chance for people to ask questions about where IT is in the vision of their school before they even get into BSF or any form of outsourced support.

Then again ... how many members have run internal training for those supporting teachers on basic fault finding and fault resolution as a way of leaving them free to get on with the more difficult issues. I would be interested in seeing how many schools have done things internally already.