There are an awful lot of TAs out there and according to the latest reports the government is looking to take the advice of a think tank and radically cut their numbers.
Having worked in and observed hundreds of classrooms over the years I’ve seen some brilliant practice amongst teaching assistants and some that fell short of adequate. Sometimes the best practice was seemingly divorced from whatever was happening in the classroom. But TAs most often in my experience have the most impact in classrooms where the teacher knows how to manage the teaching assistant’s work so it complements their own practice and doesn’t occur as just an add on. It may seem strange but in many schools TAs are not managed by teachers, they have a line management all of their own. This means that many teachers simply don’t know what to do to maximise these extra bodies in the classroom. And yet in so many cases they are vital in supporting both children with statements and equally as importantly those who don’t actually have a statement but so desperately need that one on one that a busy classroom teacher with 35 or more students to occupy them simply does not have time to give.
At a time when class sizes look set to rise again and cuts are hanging like the sword of Damocles over every element of state education we are increasingly seeing perfectly good babies being thrown out with the bathwater: teaching assistants were brought in for a reason: to give hard pressed teachers a chance to focus on good teaching whilst needy students were offered the one to one help that they need. Why not re-evaluate the use of TAs instead of doing away with them ? Why does our Ed policy have to swing from one extreme to another rather than taking a more considered approach ?
Lets be reasonable : re think the role and function of TAS and clamp down on cases where they are used as cheap and unqualified replacements for teachers. Otherwise we end up doing the educational quick step again…one step forward three steps back, another innovation, another proclamation, and the outcome ? Mounting frustration.
Professor Jacqueline Baxter 