Teaching assistants covering twice as many lessons in the pandemic

UNISON has discovered that twice as many teaching assistants (TAs) are standing in for teachers and giving lessons than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
A survey from the union has seen 4,460 teaching assistants respond, with 25% saying they had been asked to lead classes and 27% saying they’d been asked to provide cover supervision.
A survey in 2018 revealed that 12% of teaching assistants had been asked to undertake tasks from a higher grade, including standing in for teachers.
UNISON head