Pros
The college offers a variety of cafes to eat from. The multi-gym was free to use after work. Lessons can be interesting to learn from. The college promotes multi-culture well.
Cons
This is an honest and in-depth review. Car Parking: I will start with the college car park, which is not free for staff. Term time only staff (LSA's) were charged £8 per month from their salaries to use the car park on site. Even when the term holidays ran, the fee was still automatically deducted from your wage. The role of an LSA has changed drastically over the last 3 - 4 years. Timetable / Workload: Your start time will be 8:30 am every day but the time you finish depends on how well you can do your job or if you are liked by management. Since college re-started post-covid, lessons can now finish from 6pm onwards. Some of the finish times are un-realistic if you have dependant children to pick up or have child care issues. You are given a time-table at the start of the academic year which looks great. You get to know the students you work with for a couple of weeks and are then pulled from the lessons and put in different ones after induction has ended. After this, it is sometimes difficult to build rapport with HN students for a few weeks until they adjust to the change and warm to your support methods. Timetables are brutal and chaotic. Again, this heavily depends on how well you can do your job or if you are liked by management. Other staff ( including myself) had ridiculous timetables which had back to back lessons from 8:30/9am right through to 3pm without a break or lunch hour. Other staff in the department seemed to get away with a much less workload which was clearly evidenced on their own timetable - as you were able to check other staff. Those that had full time tables were working between 8 - 10 hours extra per week than others who were getting paid the same, but they benefited from 'Down Time' (a coffee or a quick cake or a chat). Over the academic year, the amount of extra lessons some staff covered totalled to weeks worth of extra work. Lunch: Most staff barely got a full lunch hour and often had to settle for 30 minutes at the most. If lessons fell awkward, you would have your lunch break at 10:30 and then work till 5pm (my experience). Or alternatively, it was a common practice to work from 9 through till 2pm onwards and then be given a quick lunch break. The amount of back to back lessons combined with the lack of lunch breaks got so bad, some staff, myself included, had to take a toilet break just to go and eat a sandwich or inhale a chocolate bar for some sugar. It used to be a running joke that you were going to grab a bite to eat in the toilets, but in reality, thats the only way you could sometimes grab something to stop yourself feeling sick from hunger. Personal Care: The college had previously contracted an external agency to provide personal assistance to those students who needed it when attending the toilet. This agency work was stopped and added onto the role of an LSA without a wage increase. It became a frequent occurrence that select LSA's would have to take students to the washroom and use the hoist to position them on the toilet or use toileting apparatus such as urine bottles. Changing soiled pads and cleaning/wiping the student was also a daily occurrence. Certain staff were always put with these students that needed personal care, whilst others in the team got away with close to nothing or the bare minimum. (This is the stuff they don't make clear in the job spec). Staff: Most staff were pigeon holed into certain lessons. Rather than staff being placed in lessons they themselves were good at - EG, Business, IT or Engineering, they would be placed in completely contrasting subjects. This to me, defeats the object of utilising staff skills and pre-existing knowledge. The more that a member of the LSA team can help a student succeed, then surely they are best placed with that particular student, however no matter how much you asked to be put in a lesson, it rarely happened. Certain staff were always given much easier lessons with far less of a mental and physical demand. This often lead to animosity between staff. Certain tutors across college could not work with certain LSA's as they did not get on so it was down to others to go into those classes which the other members of staff did not fit. Generally, everyone in the LSA team was always in the same sinking life boat holding on, so there was always someone to sympathise with about how ill-treated you were with breaks and workload etc. Seeking Help: Asking team leaders/management for help did not seem to get you anywhere. In some cases, it went the opposite way and you were given more to do, either more lessons or admin tasks instead of a recovery time. I felt I could only comfortably talk to one team leader in confidence without the fear of judgement and that they would actually listen to me. My timetable was full, hectic, and unachievable. I struggled with the workload and lack of lunch hours. Being a strong, mentally balanced and grounded character I was shocked when I felt myself slipping into depression. All I could think about was the next working day and how bad it was going to be. My thoughts were clouded with black and my persona had drained. Progression: There is no route for progression from an LSA unless you become a "specialist" - which is another term for team leader. Past that you get to one level of management, and then another level of management beyond that. Wage: Horrendous. Does not and goes no where near the reflection of duties and workload. On average you will get just over £1050 deepening if you pay car parking or pay into a pension or unison. The hours are long and the work can be tough. Trade union: Basically a joke. The union rep for the LSA team always said they make a point of stating the role is underpaid but has never actually achieved anything to do with a wage increase or workload etc. May be a case of they are fearful of their management if they speak up about the flawed system. Advice: Avoid this role. Choose to work in a fixed setting such as a primary or secondary school with fixed hours and a set workload.