Two new reports looking at school workforce remodelling and the role of support staff raise concerns about whether the huge increase in teaching assistant numbers is proving beneficial for children (see News, page 3, and Analysis, pages 10-11).
One effect is that support staff are standing in for absent teachers for worryingly long periods of time. This many not be surprising - they are readily available, and it saves on supply teachers! This is not their job, however, and is unlikely to lead to satisfactory outcomes.
However, even where teachers are present, the Institute of Education's research found that the more 'support' pupils received, the less progress they made. Although this sounds counter-intuitive, it arises from the children most in need of help actually spending less time with the teacher and more with an assistant - a substitution for teaching expertise, not an addition to it.
No-one denies that many teaching assistants are dedicated and hard-working people. In some schools they are deployed really well with fantastic results, especially where expectations are clear and they are trained for specific interventions. But in too many cases, TAs are under-trained and under-qualified and being used inappropriately.
It used to be common practice to employ a qualified NNEB nursery nurse (Level 3) in early years classes - someone with specific expertise and a defined role. Now the Government has a goal for all TAs to be qualified to Level 3, but only a third are currently above GCSE level. It would be a great shame if, through lack of funding and training, the rise in support staff numbers actually means that we lose more than we gain.
