A picket line at Richard Cobden Primary School

STRIKING school support staff have stepped up the pressure on the Labour-run council to intervene in their prolonged campaign for a pay rise with vivid accounts of the “broken and corrupt” system they have to operate under.

Unison members at Richard Cobden Primary School told the New Journal how their pay does not come close to matching the dramatic change to their day-to-day roles – as their request for a rise amounting to a few pence an hour continues to go ignored.

The dispute has seen several walkouts and picket lines at the Camden Town school gates could soon spread to other primaries as it becomes clear that workers doing essentially the same job are getting different levels of pay across the borough.

Teaching assistants said they are now routinely carrying out duties that are above and beyond what they are being paid for.

This is because children with high-level needs are being placed in the mainstream school system without the required support, it was suggested.

Many TAs are women and single parents who are being forced to take on second jobs to make ends meet.

One primary school teaching assistant said: “We have never worked with children with this level of need. It is not their fault, it’s that there is nowhere for them to go ­– there is no choice, and so they have to come to mainstream.

“But that is not our job. We signed up for doing photocopying, sharpening the pencils, sticking the work in the books. That’s what we used to do.

“But now we are dealing with outbursts of violence that are increasing and increasing. I’m talking about a really high level social and emotional issues, complex trauma.

“It is chaos. We have children who are nine and ten years of age who can’t read or write properly. We have children still wearing nappies.”

They added: “The children we are now working with have to be taken out of the classroom a lot. But are not getting one-on-one.

“Camden is failing these children. I feel like I am complicit in something so broken, corrupt almost. It makes me feel uncomfortable, because the cover parents think they are getting for their child is absolutely not happening.

“We are talking about parents who have fought for years to get the SEND provision – the doctors’ appointments, and advocating for their child. That is not easy for a lot of parents to do, but then they are not receiving what they think they are receiving. A lot of these children are vulnerable. It’s fraud really.”

The New Journal has reported on what has become termed a “SEND crisis” in Camden, with demand for places in specialist provision schools not even coming close to matching supply.

One of the TAs said: “What is more important than the education of children? It’s baffling there isn’t more investment. What seems crazy to me is that we all are working with children who may, statistically, end up going into low-paid jobs. How can I not fight for lower paid jobs to have better conditions and higher pay?”

The staff told of one example of a TA being “full-on punched” in the stomach and that they were working with “non verbal” children and children who were still wearing nappies in later years.

Another union member said: “I start at 8am and finish at 3.30pm. I get my kids to the play centre and then I go up to my second job.”

In an example of the kind of budgetary pressures all schools are facing, she added: “Just the other day I was told we haven’t got the funds for Pritt Sticks. I was joking the other day I got two Pritt Sticks I might try and sell them on eBay.”

Another TA said: “When I started I was doing a degree in the evenings. Now I am more exhausted than when I had to go home in the evenings and do my revisions and dissertation. I am completely wiped out now.”

Another said they felt that the council was “keeping me in poverty”.

The Richard Cobden strike is exposing a wider problem stretching across the borough, and more primary schools are in the process of joining the Unison union-backed walkouts.

Some schools in Camden have already found the money in tight school budgets to pay their TAs the higher rate.

The union members argue that the Camden education system can pay high salaries to “executive headteachers” while forgetting the lowest paid and often hardest working.

The TAs want to be moved up from a pay-scale three to pay-scale four in line with other schools in Camden.

It amounts to 23 pence an hour at the bottom end of the scale, going up to 94 pence an hour at the top.

Unison branch secretary Liz Wheatley said: “The way it works is that it’s the council evaluates job profiles for schools, and then the schools have to find the money for those job profiles.

“The job profile has certain tasks and what the council management is saying is that Scale 3 TAs can’t do certain things. They are saying to the TAs we will not pay you even if you go above and beyond.

“But they do that, every day, and they are not being rewarded for it.”

A Camden Council spokesperson said: “We continue to work closely with the schools, governing bodies, and unions as they seek to find a resolution – including ensuring pupils and staff are receiving support and that there is minimal disruption to pupils’ learning.

“Teaching assistant salaries are fully evaluated by experienced job evaluators – this is the same for all roles in Camden to ensure a fair approach.”