TEACHING ASSISTANTS EFFECTIVENESS

Factors in Teaching Assistants effectiveness and how these could be introduced in my school.

Teaching Assistants in school

Introduction

The role of teaching assistants in schools has been developing over a number of years. In recent decades there has been a move towards the increasing inclusion of pupils with special needs in mainstream schools. This has led to a greater need for additional support in classrooms, a role often provided by teaching assistants. More recently, a drive by the Government to raise standards in schools and tackle teacher workloads has also changed the way teaching assistants are being used in schools and has increased the diversity and range of tasks that they carry out. A National Agreement 'Raising Standards and Tackling Workloads' between the Government, local authority employers and school workforce unions was signed on 15th January 2003. The Agreement has a number of key features, which include contractual changes for teachers and a progressive reduction in teachers' overall hours which will inevitably lead to further changes in support staff roles. (Smith, 2004)

About the study

The research was based on a secondary data which was collected using different internet articles and cases which are a recent literature review and which focused on the current role of teaching assistants in schools. The review identified a number of areas for further research which were followed up in the current research project. These included establishing the current working conditions of teaching assistants, identifying the tasks they were involved in, (Smith, 2004) the impact they were having in schools and professional and career development opportunities experienced by teaching assistants. The views of head teachers, teachers and teaching assistants were obtained by means of a questionnaire, distributed to a sample of primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. At least one questionnaire was returned from 318 schools. In over 60 per cent of these schools, questionnaires were completed by the head teacher, at least one teacher and at least one teaching assistant. (Smith, 2004)

Case Study

Based on the most frequent responses to a number of questions which asked teaching assistants to provide background details, the following picture emerged. Teaching assistants were most commonly known as 'teaching assistants', they tended to be in the age range of 41 to 50 years, they were usually female, tended not to speak an additional language other than English and had caring responsibilities for example a child or elderly relative. These findings reflected responses from teaching assistants in both the primary and secondary phases.

The findings acknowledged similarities and differences in the views and experiences between the groups of respondents (head teachers, teachers and teaching assistants), and between respondents in the different phases (primary and secondary). Findings are presented on the characteristics of teaching assistants, the employment of teaching assistants, the ways in which they are deployed in schools, their professional and career development opportunities and the impact of teaching assistants in schools. (Allred, 2006)

Teaching Assistant Effective

To develop an effective evaluation system, the question must be posed “What characteristics define a good assistant teacher?” ...