Teaching Assistants

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Lindsay Roy

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham]

I agree with my hon. Friend and will, later in my speech, develop the point about the importance of teaching assistants assisting and teachers teaching.

I am in no doubt that we need great teachers at all levels of learning, each one equipped to deliver a modern education, based on an up-to-date understanding of developments in teaching practice, specific subject knowledge and the latest in educational tools and technology. However, a report from Reform in 2010 took this argument further—much too far, I would argue—when it suggested that Ministers should remove

“the various Government interventions into the cost and size of the teaching workforce”

to increase accountability of schools to parents and to strengthen management and performance. The report went on to contend that a natural consequence of that would be

“a fall in the number of teaching assistants, since the value of the rapid growth in their numbers it claimed, is not supported by the research evidence”.

To give some background to today’s debate, a significant increase in teaching assistants resulted from the 2003 workload agreement in England and Wales—an effort by the previous Labour Government to raise standards in schools.

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) on securing this important debate.

Teaching assistants are an invaluable asset to youngsters on the autistic spectrum. What would be the likely impact in classrooms of a diminution in the number of people who are involved in that role and of those involved in their training and development?

[Alex Cunningham]

I have been amazed by somebody working with children with special needs; I will give that example later. Those people play a vital role and children with special needs in particular would suffer directly as a result of any reduction.

The aim of the workload agreement was simple: to allow teachers to teach. To do this, the agreement sought to lessen pressure on teachers by reducing the administrative bureaucracy and cutting teachers’ hours through the creation of new and expanded school support roles, including teaching assistants and higher level teaching assistants, and providing extra resource and high-level support for teachers.

Teaching assistants now make up more than a quarter of the total school work force in England, with more than 359,000 in classrooms across England alone. The vast majority—almost 250,000—work in primary schools; almost 20% are in secondary schools; and 9% are in special schools. With primary schools spending £2.8 billion on teaching assistants and support staff in 2010-11 and secondary schools spending £1.6 billion during the same period, such support accounts for a large proportion of the annual education budget. It is for precisely this reason that the role and worth of teaching assistants have been in the public spotlight, particularly since questions were raised several years ago about the value for money that they provide.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

That is most certainly the case. It does not matter whether it is maths, English or anything else. If children with a particular need can get that extra attention with a teaching assistant, the results can be positive.

The claims made in both newspaper articles that I mentioned were based on assertions from Reform, which in turn were highly selective in the evidence used. For example, although it is true that the teaching and learning toolkit produced by a collaboration of the Education Endowment Foundation and the Sutton Trust suggests that teaching assistants have a low impact for a high cost, it is important to note that the toolkit also specifies that this judgment is

“based on limited evidence”.

The implication, of course, is that the sentiment should not necessarily be taken at face value, or at least not without some fairly substantial caveats.

[Lindsay Roy]

As a former head teacher and school inspector, I have direct evidence of the impact on positive discipline and effective learning. Is that not recognised anywhere in the report?

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend has me at a disadvantage. I do not have such detailed knowledge, but discipline is critical. Teaching assistants have a role in that because they are able to contain a child and give them the attention that they need.

The Education Endowment Foundation makes it clear that a simplistic reading of its evidence is decidedly unhelpful. To be sure, the toolkit also specifies that teaching assistants can have a positive impact on academic achievement, but that assessment was not given equal weighting by Reform. The Institute of Education’s research openly criticises the idea of cutting teaching assistants as being

“only based on a partial reading of the evidence”.

The institute says that cutting teaching assistants would

“do more harm than good for students, teachers and schools.”

It is sad when institutions pick and choose what they want from research and distort it to give a particular impression. In fact, the Institute of Education’s original research found that support staff can have a positive effect:

“there is more pupil classroom engagement in the sense that pupils are more on-task and less off-task”

when teaching assistants are in the classroom. If that were not enough, the research confirmed that the results

“were not attributable to pupil characteristics”.

The research also found that the results were not attributable to

“decisions made by TAs.”

Instead, they resulted from

“the way schools and teachers deploy and prepare TAs—factors that are out of TAs’ control”.

The report’s intention seems to have been to generate scaremongering headlines, rather than to address the real issues that affect teaching assistants, which I hope to do today.

Before I continue, it is important that we are clear that “teaching assistant” is something of a catch-all term. Teaching assistants carry out a huge range of responsibilities to support teachers, ranging from administration to face-to-face work with children, and I do not doubt that they form a central cog in the modern education system. Many teaching assistants, however, feel that their contribution to education is poorly understood and undervalued. With Reform’s scaremongering being picked up by the mainstream media, many now fear that Government cutbacks and the need to make savings in departmental budgets will inevitably lead to their role being earmarked for job losses.

Although I understand that the Department for Education does not currently have plans for nationwide reductions in teaching assistant numbers, I cannot imagine that my unofficial reassurances will provide comfort to those who see their role as being directly in the firing line. I am therefore sure that teaching assistants would welcome confirmation from the Minister that no plans exist to axe teaching assistants and other support staff through a centrally driven edict.

There is no doubt that the Government’s plans for the future role and contribution of teaching assistants are in need of clarification. Despite the crucial functions that they fulfil, clarity for vital support staff has been notable by its absence. For much of this Parliament, the Government have remained indifferent to teaching assistants and other support staff, rarely mentioning their roles in documents that detail future policy intentions.

The previous Labour Government legislated for a school support staff negotiating body at the end of the last Parliament, but the body, which was intended to look after the pay and conditions of support staff, was abolished within the first year of the coalition as quangos were indiscriminately eliminated as part of a cost-cutting drive. Similarly, the Government have axed national funding for higher level teaching assistant training and have archived all the national teaching assistant and higher level teaching assistant training resources and guidance, with high-quality training for teaching assistants becoming just another victim of the coalition Government’s austerity package.

On that point, it is worth noting that early-day motion 753 had broad multi-party support, although not a single Conservative Member cared to add their name to the motion recognising the difference that teaching assistants make to the education and support of children in our schools. It is little wonder that stories suggesting staffing cuts are causing anxiety within the education profession.

Last year saw two separate days to celebrate the contribution of teaching assistants in classrooms across the country, and I understand that greetings card manufacturers got in on the act, too, to recognise the value that teaching assistants can add to education. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Although I am sure that, in many cases, teaching assistants ought to be used more effectively, most contribute very positively to education, which is clearly evident in the best cases.

Mark Fielding, for example, is a teaching assistant from Salford who worked one-to-one with a year-11 pupil who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Rather than working in a class-based environment, Mark helped to transform the pupil’s attainment from predictions of Es in maths and English in November to achieving Cs in June. Similarly, Mark has worked with a group with behavioural problems to raise their opportunities. Many were expected to leave school with no qualifications, yet, after Mark’s interventions, all achieved at least 2 GCSEs at C or above.

Guy Smith from Richmond worked with a year-11 student who was involved in offending behaviour and substance misuse and whose attendance at school was dropping. By attending youth offending team meetings with the pupil and providing support in lessons and with homework, as well as offering a contact to speak about any problems the pupil was having and attending meetings with the pupil’s child and adolescent mental health services staff and social workers, Guy helped the student to achieve 5 GCSEs at A to C. The student is now on a business administration apprenticeship with Richmond upon Thames borough council.

Put simply, there is more to be gained from sensible investment in teaching assistants than there is from running down teaching assistant numbers or from abolishing the role altogether. Our recognition of teaching assistants is long overdue, which is only exacerbated by the recent run of negative publicity that has sullied their good reputation. Although days of celebration and recognition are welcome, we must continue to push for more. We need serious action to confirm and codify the role of teaching assistants in our education system and the functions that they can rightly be expected to undertake, not to mention the remuneration that they can fairly expect, to ensure that their contributions are fully recognised.

I consulted a number of organisations as I prepared this speech, and I well understand why Unison and the GMB, which between them represent the vast bulk of teaching assistants, are anxious about the future for those they represent. With teaching assistants not having the reassurance of a national pay scale, pay varies not only according to geographical location but between and within different school types. That results in great uncertainty for teaching assistants, with terms and conditions that are not readily comparable with others who may be expected to fulfil the same role elsewhere, which can be bad for morale and can potentially leave teaching assistants under-rewarded for their contributions.

Fortunately, school leaders, rather than the Department for Education, are responsible for employing support staff. School leaders have sought to recruit more teaching assistants, despite the Government’s negative agenda, with a 5.7% increase between 2011 and 2012. Some 95% of school leaders say that teaching assistants add real value in schools. In case there is any doubt, Ofsted, which routinely reports on the positive impact of teaching assistants despite not having an official remit for inspecting support staff, looks upon the role of support staff very favourably. For instance, Ofsted’s report last year for Gorringe Park primary school in Surrey reads:

“Teaching assistants are sensitive to pupils’ needs and offer good support and guidance to those who need extra help. Consequently, disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs achieve as well as their classmates and sometimes better”.

That is repeated in schools across the country.

Although I will not go into greater detail, the role of teaching assistants has traditionally been closely connected to our schools’ work with pupils with the highest level of special educational needs in mainstream settings—colleagues alluded to that earlier—in terms of both teaching and inclusion, which must not be overlooked. Largely as a result of the failure specifically to address special educational needs in initial teacher training, teachers have historically not been sufficiently prepared to meet the needs of the pupils who struggle most with learning and engagement. Teaching assistants have taken responsibility by stepping up to the mark in such instances. With reforms that will change how schools address the needs of students with special educational needs due in September, clarification could hardly be better timed.

With schools set to receive additional funding to provide better support for disadvantaged students, it is time that the Government clarified their strategy on teaching assistants, not only on how they are to be funded but on how they are to be trained and qualified to ensure that their contributions have the maximum impact on the education of the young people they help. At the same time, school leaders also need to be clear about the role and purpose they see teaching assistants fulfilling in their schools by defining the contributions that teaching assistants will make to learning. That means initiating specific opportunities for teachers to liaise with teaching assistants in advance of lessons, not only so they know what will be taught but so they are clear on what tasks will be undertaken, their specific responsibilities and the teacher’s expectation of pupils. That happens in many schools, but it needs to happen everywhere.

We must also ensure that teaching assistants are not deployed in inappropriate roles. They are not there to substitute for teachers on a temporary or permanent basis. They are not trained to take a class of 30 children or to prepare detailed lesson plans for a term, and they are not there to help the school stretch the budget by substituting for a teacher, even on the odd day. They are there to assist classroom teachers in helping to enhance the educational achievement of the pupils and to provide that vital one-to-one support that some children need to ensure they reach their full potential. We have to get the roles right, so that teachers teach and teaching assistants assist. We must foster an environment of openness and collaboration if we are to raise standards and rival the best education systems in the world.

[Lindsay Roy]

Is there not a role for the Government to be a catalyst to share good practice?

[Alex Cunningham]

There is always a role for the Government to share good practice, and that is why I hope they will define training for teaching assistants across the country.

As with teachers, one key measure that raises standards is promoting continuous professional development throughout a teaching assistant’s career. That will ensure that their knowledge and skills remain at the fore. That level of training and development will allow teaching assistants properly to deliver specific, high-quality teaching interventions to the advantage of teachers and pupils alike, whether that is specialist support for pupils with special needs, administrative support to teachers to ease the pressure or targeted interventions in other areas of learning.