‘Department for Education figures show there are now more teaching assistants than teachers in primary schools in England, 257,300 compared to 242,300’ reports TES.
Although teachers have the main responsibility of teaching in the classroom, Rob Webster, a researcher at the Institute of Education, University of London (IoE) says . . .“There also needs to be a focus on what we want these additional adults [teaching assistants] to be doing. We have to think through better ways of using them.”
The reason for the proposed changes is a six-year study by the IoE – ‘ The Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS) Project’ – the largest study of teaching assistants and other school support staff carried out in the world between 2003 and 2009. The research surprisingly revealed that ‘the more support pupils received, the less progress they made’.
Guidance and supervision of the teaching assistants themselves is lacking in three areas according to Mr Webster:
- The way they are utilised
- The way they interact with pupils
- The lack of investment into training and time assigned for them to prepare.
New Strategies
New strategies are being piloted which seem to be a reversal of the current system with ‘teachers spending more time with pupils normally supported by TAs and the TAs working with a ‘wider range of children or co-teaching‘. This is in contrast to the current deployment of TAs in ‘supporting children with special needs’. However, it has been found that this is not effective in three ways:
- It segregates such children
- The untrained TAs tend to over-cater to children rather than encouraging them to be independent
- The essential task of securing the learning process is sometimes overlooked in enthusiasm to finish a task
Reform to unleash the huge potential of TAs
The book ‘Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants, Guidance for Teachers and School Leaders has been written as a result of the (DISS) project, with the co-operation of schools. It aims to reform the ways TAs are used and interact with pupils and in the process ‘unleash the huge potential of TAs working in schools’ http://www.maximisingtas.co.uk/mita-book/4582884013.html
Are you currently working as a TA?
If so:
- Do you feel that your skills are being used appropriately?
- Can you see the benefit of the teacher taking over more of the support of the children with special needs whilst you work with a broader range of the class?
- Would you relish the opportunity for more training or preparation time being included in your contract?
Why not ask your school if they would be interested in joining the pilot which already has 40 schools participating – Mr Webster can be contacted on r.webster@ioe.ac.uk or go to the project website: www.maximisingTAs.co.uk. You may want to read the book so you are ready to embrace any changes implemented in your school.
In the meantime we’d love to hear your views and experiences of how TAs are deployed in your or school and the resulting impact on the children and their learning.
Nick Morrison. (2014). Teaching assistants: New revolutionary model for effective use of support staff. Available: http://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2014/09/05/project-aims-to-transform-the-way-schools-use-tas.aspx
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