Effective practice in the use of teaching/support assistants to

support pupils with SEN in mainstream schools

Introductory Activity

• Work with a partner.• Find out the following about your partner:

• Name• Type of school – primary, secondary,

mainstream• How many teaching assistants supporting

pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SENDs) work at their school?

Effective practice in the use of teaching/support assistants to

support pupils with SEN in mainstream schools

What does current research tell us about practice?

Numbers

• Total number of Teaching Assistants employed in schools in England

• 2000 – 79,000

• 2012 – 232,300

School Workforce in England: Nov 2012

Findings

• TA support can mean that pupils have too few opportunities to work independently.

• TAs generally support the lowest attaining pupils• When TA support was available, teachers were less

likely to plan tasks so that pupils with SEN could undertake them successfully.

• Pupils with TA support as the main type of provision made less academic progress than pupils with access to specialist teaching.

• TAs could not substitute for focused, highly skilled teaching.

Findings

• Limited observation of TA practice or evaluation of their impact on pupil outcomes.

• Consistent negative relationship between the amount of support a pupil received and the progress they made in English and mathematics.

• The more support pupils received, the less progress they made.

Findings

• When TA/pupil interaction increases, teacher/pupil interaction decreases

• Support is ‘alternative’ not ‘additional’ to teacher

• TA support for some pupils had little consistent impact on non-supported pupils.

• TAs took responsibility for tasks away from pupils

Findings

• TAs prioritised the end products of tasks

Try not to do it so fast and you might do it a bit neater. [And later] Oh, that’s looking super

now.

Feedback to student engaged in a writing task to demonstrate understanding of different types of genres.

Findings

• TAs more frequently supplied pupils with answers.

You need to explain what that phrase is telling you, Veronica. Does it make you feel that

she’s angry for him, or she’s upset for him, or . . . ? Use whatever word you feel. You need

to say that Grace Nicols feels upset . . . because he’s now living in London.

Findings

• TA support was reactive and unplanned

I don’t know what we’re doing today. I know we’re going to start with a game on the board.

So that will be quite good. • TA explanations were sometimes inaccurate

or confusing.

Findings

• TAs ‘close down’ rather than ‘open up’ talk and conceptual understanding

So, some people think it has to be just a single digit number because it stands on its own,

and you think it can’t be a single digit. So why do you think that? What’s your reasoning

behind that?

Teacher Talk

Findings

• TAs ‘close down’ rather than ‘open up’ talk and conceptual understanding

It’s four hundred – because that’s below five, isn’t it – the thirty two? Like three is below five – so it would be one thousand, four hundred,

wouldn’t it? Do you understand that?

TA Talk

Findings

• Little opportunity for joint planning or assessment between TAs and Teachers

• Teachers lacked the skills to manage and evaluate the work of TAs.

Teachers’ Standards (2013

8. Fulfil wider professional responsibilities• Deploy support staff effectively

•

Findings

• Teachers identified the benefits of TA support but did not always consider whether such support made a difference to pupils’ learning.

• General support in class made less of a difference to pupils’ learning.

• TAs had a positive effect on teachers’ workload, level of job satisfaction and levels of stress.

Findings

• Teachers felt that TAs had a positive effect on the quality of teaching.

• TAs had a positive effect on the overall amount of individual attention and on classroom control.

• TAs provided informal and personalised interactions

Findings

• TAs aided engagement• TAs provided immediate support and

differentiation.• TAs, when they are prepared and trained for

specific curricular interventions, with support and guidance from a teacher, show positive effects on pupil progress.

Findings

• The most effective practice occurred when:• all staff had a clear understanding of their own

roles and those of others.• there was collaborative planning between teachers

and support staff• there was a shared understanding of what

constituted good learning• there was direct involvement of support staff in

assessing and recording pupils’ progress

Findings

• TAs who had qualifications and training that were directly relevant to the specific areas in which they were working had the greatest impact on learning.

• High quality performance management which focused on the impact of TA support on pupils’ learning were effective in developing a new culture of professionalism and accountability.

Impact on pupil progress and achievement

Most studies have consistently found very small or no effects on attainment. . . .

There is some evidence that there is a greater impact when teaching assistants are given a particular pedagogical role or responsibility in specific curriculum interventions where the effect appears to be greater, particularly with training and support. Even here, however, comparisons with qualified teachers suggest they are consistently less effective (achieving about half the gains compared with qualified teachers.

Pupils with Statements

• Schools are making every effort to attend to the needs of pupils with statements amid a period of intense flux and uncertainty in schools and local authorities. However, quantitative and qualitative analyses identified five overarching concerns that capture the key results.

Concerns

• A high degree of separation and TA support strongly characterised the educational experience of pupils with statements. • Spent over 25% of their time away from mainstream class,

the teacher and peers• Almost constant accompanying presence of a TA wherever

the pupils were placed• Compared to average attaining pupils, statemented pupils

experience less time in whole class contexts and a much higher degree of one-to-one interaction with TAs.

• Often at the expense of interactions with teachers and peers

Concerns

• TAs have more responsibility for pupils with statements• Responsibility for the planning and teaching of

statemented pupils.• Devised alternative curricula and prepared

intervention programmes.• Had a high level of responsibility for moment-by-

moment pedagogical decision making• Teachers rarely had as high a level of involvement

in planning and teaching statemented pupils.

Concerns

• The appropriateness and quality of pedagogy for statemented pupils is unlikely to close the attainment gap.• Compared to average attaining peers pupils

received a less appropriate and lower quality pedagogical experience.

• Support provided by TAs was well intentioned, but unlikely to be sufficient to close the attainment gap between them and their peers.

Concerns• There are considerable gaps in teachers and TAs’

knowledge concerning meeting the needs of pupils with statements

• Teachers and TAs felt underprepared for dealing with the complex difficulties posed by pupils.

• Most teachers reported having no training on meeting the needs of pupils with high levels of SEN

• TAs held valuable knowledge about the pupils they supported and teachers often positioned them as the ‘expert’

• However, TAs had similar weaknesses in their knowledge and training.

Concerns

• There are concerns about the ways in which schools prioritise meeting the needs of pupils with statements.• Very little evidence of an effective and

theoretically-grounded pedagogy for statemented pupils.

• Specification on statements of a number of hours of TA support seemed to get in the way of schools thinking through appropriate approaches for pupils with pronounced learning difficulties in mainstream primary schools.

Implications for policy

• In terms of proposed Education, Health and Care Plans (ECHPs), a clear message from the project is that the new EHCPs avoid expressing support for pupils in terms of hours, and instead specify the pedagogical processes and strategies that will help meet carefully designed outcomes.

Recommendations

• Schools should:

• Rethink the TAs’ role

• Rethink the teachers’ role

• Rethink the school’s approach to pupils with SEN.

Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability – The

Green Paper (March 2011)

• Within schools, support staff can make a real difference to the achievement of pupils with SEN, but they need to be deployed and used effectively in order to do so. . . . . However, teaching assistant time should never be a substitute for teaching from a qualified teacher. Too often, the most vulnerable pupils are supported almost exclusively by teaching assistants.

This practice is not acceptable. Children with SEN need more, not less, time with the school’s most skilled and qualified teachers.

Classroom deployment Better value for money in schools (March 2011)

The Audit Commission

• In summary, the use of teaching assistants may hold the greatest potential for efficiency savings from classroom deployment. A large number of schools do not use teaching assistants at all, while their impact on teaching hours and attainment has been inconclusive.

Questions for school leaders and governing bodies

• How have you considered the role and responsibilities of teaching assistants in your school? How have you communicated these roles and responsibilities to the rest of the school workforce, parents and pupils.

• How have you reviewed how your teaching assistants have reduced teacher workloads, and supported improved educational attainment?

• How have you considered the contribution your teaching assistants have made to help achieve the schools’ objectives and outcomes for pupils?

• What is the quality of support, performance management, training and development for the teaching assistants in your school?

• How do you know if the use of teaching assistants in your school has had positive or negative impact on pupils in your school?

Draft SEN Code of Practice: for 0-25 years

October 2013

Teachers are responsible and accountable for the progress and development of the

pupils in their class, even where pupils access support from teaching assistants or

specialist staff.

Disability Discrimination

• The recent decision by a primary school to permanently exclude a boy for scratching a teacher caused controversy when the High Court concluded they had been discriminatory due to not making reasonable adjustments for his ADHD.

Disability Discrimination

• None of the LSAs at the school had been offered training regarding ADHD and the school had not enlisted the advice of the access to learning specialist team prior to the incident.

• This was considered as a failure to make reasonable adjustments.

Final Words!

• I wish they could make it so I could get around the school with no helper. It is like having your mum with you all the time.

(Year 6 pupil, PD)

Final Words!

• The teacher’s talking and all the time Miss [TA] is sitting near me telling me what she [the teacher] is saying. It is hard for me to look at both of them. I want to know what the teacher is saying but I’m supposed to look at Miss [TA]. I can’t follow two of them together.

(Year 7 pupil, HI)

Final Words!

• My assistant always comes over and tries to help me. He doesn’t always know what he is talking about and I would prefer the teacher to help me but if I tell the teaching assistant I want the teacher to help and not him, he gets angry.

(Year 8 pupil, PD)

Consider

• What are the implications for schools as a result of the findings and recommendations of research?

• Identify the top key challenge for your school in responding to the outcomes of the research.