Jim Cunningham
Main Page: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)Department Debates - View all Jim Cunningham's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Good morning, Mr Howarth, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time.
The main reason I sought to become a Member of this House was to see that children had opportunities available to them, enabling them to develop, so I am delighted to have secured today’s debate on the importance of teaching assistants to our children and the whole school system. They add tremendous value to classrooms throughout the country. I hope to be able to counter the attitude of some, which is that they are a high-cost, low-return intervention. I want this House to celebrate their achievements and recognise the positive role they play in developing our children’s future.
I hope to emphasise the huge potential and promise of teaching assistants in improving and enriching educational outcomes, because these valuable assets are currently undervalued, underpaid and their contributions are largely unrecognised. I hope that this debate sets the record straight on this matter, once and for all.
Like many hon. Members present, I have long argued that those teaching our young people and assisting their learning are of the greatest importance to all our lives. That is why I not only supported the call for our teachers to be properly trained and qualified, but tabled early-day motion 753 in November, to recognise the immense value teaching assistants bring to classrooms and schools throughout the United Kingdom.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is right; there is a difference between teachers and teachers’ assistants. There is no intention that teachers’ assistants should replace teachers—we always have to make that clear, because that is a common misapprehension—but, equally, we can value them by giving them better training as well.
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.