CHAPTER OVERVIEW AND AIMS
ā To explore some of the issues and policy changes that have contributed to the development of the role of Teaching Assistants (TAs)
ā To encourage reflection on practice and consider how the TA role has changed in the recent past
ā To consider the personal skills and qualities required to undertake such a diverse range of responsibilities
ā To explore some of the challenges faced by TAs
Introduction
This chapter will introduce you to how the role of support staff in schools, in particular TAs, has developed in recent years and will also consider some of the reasons why these changes have taken place. We shall explore the diverse roles that TAs undertake and some of the challenges they face in carrying out these roles. We also reflect on the skills and qualities required to carry out the role effectively.
Context
As we discussed in the introduction to this book, the term āTAā includes practitioners working in a wide range of roles. Traditionally, support staff were more likely to be employed to support younger children and were known as nursery nurses. Later, as a result of some of the reforms detailed below, their titles changed and they have since been referred to as Teaching Assistants (TAs), Classroom Assistants (CAs), Learning Support Assistants (LSAs), Specialist Teaching Assistants (STAs) and Higher Level Teaching Assistants (HLTAs) alongside other terms (Cajkler et al., 2007). The number of support staff in schools has increased significantly in recent years from 81,900 staff who were classed as ānon-teachingā, but who worked directly with children in 1997 (DfEE, 1997) to 235,000 full-time-equivalent school support staff in 2016 (DfE, 2016). This increase can largely be attributed to changes in government policy in three key areas: firstly, as a result of education reform in the 1980s; secondly, the desire to improve standards, particularly in literacy and numeracy in primary schools; and finally, workload agreements for teachers in the 1990s. These are considered in more detail below.
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In 1997 an inclusive education agenda was introduced which aimed to educate as many children as possible, including those with special educational needs (SEN), in mainstream schools (DfEE, 1997). TAs were employed to support the inclusion of children with SEN in mainstream classrooms and this caused the number of TAs to increase dramatically (Walton and Goddard, 2013). This was seen as the āroot causeā of the growth in TAs and also resulted in the first changes to their role. In 2010 there were 48,100 TAs who were employed specifically to support children who had SEN (DCSF, 2010). We look at this aspect of the TA role again in Chapter 10.
The second reason, which relates predominantly to primary schools, was the desire to raise standards in literacy and numeracy. In order to achieve this, the government introduced the National Strategies for Literacy and Numeracy (DfEE, 1998; 1999). These strategies required a complex system of classroom management and more than one adult to teach each class. TAs were recruited to work with small groups of children in classrooms and often worked with lower-ability groups. The standards agenda and accountability will be discussed again in Chapter 2.
The third factor was due to workload agreements for teachers. During the 1990s the workload of teachers had increased to such an extent that PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP was commissioned by the government to undertake an investigation into teacher workloads, which led to the National Agreement (DfES, 2003) to remodel the school workforce. One of the recommendations was to deploy school support staff more effectively and it was proposed that they should take over some of the administrative tasks traditionally carried out by teachers (Sharples et al., 2015). TAs began to take on greater teaching roles, allowing teachers guaranteed non-contact time for planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) and in order to reduce workloads for teachers.
The above reforms gave rise to the change in the role of many TAs who, in a relatively short period of time, have gone from classroom helpers to important members of an educational team (Chambers, 2015). In the 1980s TAs were often not allowed to undertake a teaching role in classrooms but carried out art and craft activities with children and typically maintained display boards and ran the school library. At the time of writing, however, it is quite common within primary schools to have a full-time TA in every class, with additional TAs employed to cover specific roles. In secondary schools, TAs can often have specific expertise in curriculum areas and are assigned to subject areas or departments (Blatchford et al., 2012). Today TAs can also often be found in all age phases, leading curriculum areas and developments; heading school-based initiatives; working with professionals from other services; and teaching whole class sessions, in addition to many of the roles that they have traditionally undertaken.
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REFLECTION POINTS
ā How has your role changed since you first started working in schools?
ā How do you feel about the responsibility you have for childrenās learning?
ā What part of your job do you enjoy the most?
ā How do you think you would feel working in the type of role detailed above, where you were not generally involved in learning and teaching but did mainly administrative and sometimes creative tasks such as photocopying, displays or art activities?
ACTIVITY
ā Talk to one of your colleagues who has been a teaching assistant longer than you. Try to find someone who has been in the role for a number of years. Ask them how their role has changed.
Towards a typology
In the early 2000s the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) set up a working group to consider TA roles and broadly categorised the role of support staff in schools into three groups: roles supporting pupils, such as children with SEN or who were bilingual; more technical roles supporting the curriculum; and roles supporting the school, such as secretaries and bursars, but the boundaries between these were described as being ārather porousā ā meaning that some roles involved aspects of others (Kerry, 2005). Kerry attempted to develop a typology of the roles TAs undertake, focussing on levels of responsibility ranging from what was somewhat unkindly termed ādogsbodyā or āpig ignorant peasantā through to āmobile paraprofessionalā (Kerry, 2005).
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The role described by Kerry as ādogsbody or pig ignorant peasantā is characterised by TAs who typically carry out manual and/or menial tasks such as the washing of paint pots, backing of art work and generally clearing up. In our experience there are now very few TAs currently employed in this type of role. Kerryās typology culminated in what he terms āmobile paraprofessionalā and, he claimed, is typified by status of Higher Level Teaching Assistant (HLTA) (Kerry, 2005). More recent research by Blatchford et al. (2012) identified seven āpost titlesā but found that within these post titles the staff were engaged in similar activities. The formulation of the National Agreement in 2003 resulted in a lack of clarity of teacher and TA roles, giving rise to concerns over professional status and job āboundariesā (Blatchford et al., 2012).
As a direct result of the National Agreement (DfES, 2003) and the Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003) agenda, the HLTA role was introduced in 2003. (The philosophy behind the HTLA role will be discussed further in Chapter 2.) The role requires a basic level of education, plus additional training and evidence that candidates have achieved an appropriate level. This training is below the level of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). Initially, government funding was available to support schools and therefore TAs to undertake this training but this was withdrawn in 2012 following the election of the Conservative/Liberal coalition government. It should also be noted that the award of HLTA status did not necessarily entitle the recipient to an HLTA role within a school, nor did it incorporate any higher-level academic qualification.
Qualifications
Currently more and more TAs are either entering the profession with undergraduate degrees or are gaining degree-level qualifications while working as a TA (much like yourself), and there is an argument that school leaders are not making the most of this āvaluable resourceā (Russell et al., 2013). Many TAs are also recognising that they have specialist skills which could support them to gain teaching qualifications in the future. While the role of the TA has developed and TAs have become an integral part of classroom life, there is still no minimum entry-level qualification for teaching assistants (Blatchford et al., 2012). According to Higgins and Gulliford (2014), 59% of the TA workforce enters the profession with qualifications at General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) level 2 or below, including English and maths GCSEs (Russell et al., 2013). There are currently no mandatory qualifications for TAs working in schools in England (Blatchford et al., 2012), although increasingly some local authorities and individual schools will specify the qualifications and experience they expect of applicants. Additionally, many TAs do not hold qualifications, including those that are sector-related or level 2 qualifications including GCSE English and maths (Russell et al., 2013).
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Despite the connection between poor pupil outcomes, if pupils are working with poorly trained and managed TAs (which will be discussed more fully later), continuing professional development (CPD) and training for TAs are still āpatchyā (Cajkler et al., 2007). Giangreco et al. in Rose (2010: 254) argue that TAs are often inadequately trained and āreactively assignedā. A recommendation of the Lamb inquiry into SEN (2009) was that the then Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) should develop guidance on the effective deployment of teaching assistants. This was not a new recommendation. Moyles and Suschitzky (1997) made a similar recommendation, identifying that a lack of training and an inadequate career structure were barriers to effective use of TAs, stating that the ad hoc way the role of TAs has developed across the United Kingdom (UK) has resulted in a lack of uniformity surrounding the TA role in the classroom.
Cajkler et al. (2007) highlighted that where training was available it was reported to develop staff confidence and knowledge as well as their instructional skills, but training was generally in the form of short courses (one day or less) and was accessed at the discretion of the headteacher. Cajkler et al. (2007) also identified that the payment of TAs while undertaking training varied, with a number of the courses conducted exclusively in the TAās own time. Yet as early as 2002, in an evaluation of the impact of TAs, Ofsted reported that the quality of lessons where there was a TA present was better than when a TA was not present. Ofsted (2002) went on to say that when TAs had adequate training, their compe...
