Our demoralised and squeezed support staff deserve better

Today should be a day of celebration. It’s the day UNISON and schools across the UK celebrate the work of support staff. Stars in our Schools is UNISON’s tribute to the often-underappreciated workers who keep schools going. 

Sadly, today is also a time of reflection and worry, as UNISON releases a report that lays bare the devastating impact the cost-of-living crisis is having on school support staff, pupils and the wider education system.   

The survey, of more than 6,000 teaching assistants, librarians, administrative staff, catering workers, cleaners and technicians, found that despite being squeezed financially themselves, staff are using their own money to help less fortunate pupils and their families.  

The figures are truly shocking.

Almost all the staff responding (98%) are concerned their pay isn’t enough to cover the spiralling cost of living.

Yet more than a fifth (23%) are using their own money to buy books, pencils and pens for pupils, and three in ten (30%) helping pupils and their families with the cost of uniforms.  

It is a measure of the dedication and commitment of staff that they’re putting others first, especially when more than one in ten of them (13%) reported having to use food banks in the last year.  

Many are also finding the financial pressures unbearable. They’re reluctantly considering turning their backs on the jobs they love for better paid, potentially less rewarding work elsewhere.    

UNISON’s research found that more than a quarter (27%) had taken second or third jobs to make ends meet and so they can stay in the roles that mean so much to them. But nearly half (49%) are actively looking for other jobs.  

The price the sector, the economy and wider society risk paying for not properly recognising and rewarding support staff is likely to be high. 

They’re exhausted, demoralised and squeezed in every direction by costs rising faster than their pay

The exodus of workers from schools is heaping even more pressure on the colleagues they leave behind. Staff are being stretched ever more thinly.

Pupils, especially those with special educational needs, are no longer getting the support they deserve, and their parents expect. 

The pandemic saw employees rise to the challenge of keeping schools open while huge swathes of society shut down.

For the post-Covid period to be a success, and those pupils who missed out on a quality educational experience to catch up, staff will again have to step up.  

But there are fewer of them now, and they’re exhausted, demoralised and squeezed in every direction by costs rising faster than their pay. 

For the government’s post-Covid catch-up to work, ministers must invest in education and those they’ve asked to deliver it.  

Earlier this week, MPs joined UNISON in Parliament to meet school support staff and hear first-hand about the challenges they face. It was a great first step.

But much more is needed. It’s time for a thorough reappraisal of the key role support staff play in schools.  

Ministers must look urgently at how they can better reward school support staff and halt the growing recruitment and retention crisis in schools.  

Gillian Keegan has a unique opportunity to right the wrongs of the past. She must reject the tired and discredited thinking that has so disastrously dominated the response of previous education ministers.  

This means investing properly in the workforce and creating opportunities for professional development that build on the huge range of skills staff already possess.   

Only by recognising the vital contribution support staff can make to the national recovery effort, and properly rewarding them, will the country truly bounce back better.