The new career structure being drawn up by the GMB union, Unison and LEAs will divide classroom assistants into grades. Proposals include creating three levels of classroom assistants and the creation of a higher-level classroom assistant job.
Avril Chambers of the GMB, who helped to draw up the guidance, said that in London the re-evaluation of classroom assist-ants in Tower Hamlets last year had led to an 18.5 per cent pay rise. She said that there may be slight variations in job title in each local education authority, but there would be recognised entry points and qualifications to allow career progression.
Job descriptions and specifications for nursery nurses are also being evaluated to put their current responsibilities into context.
Ms Chambers said, 'Nursery nurses now have to plan, monitor, assess, and talk to parents and other professionals, the list goes on. Duties and responsibilities have changed beyond all recognition, and a lot of the GMB nursery nurses, and certainly those who have been in the profession for five to ten years, are telling us that what they are actually doing now is what the nursery teacher did when they first started their jobs.'
Ms Chambers stressed that the specific job title of nursery nurse would remain, as would current terms and conditions.
An NUT spokeswoman said, 'We don't disagree with grading, but we disagree with the tasks the Government says that teaching assistants should take on, such as cover for an absent teacher, because classroom assistants are not trained teachers.'
