Making Effective use of Teaching Assistants to Improve Outcomes for Disadvantaged Pupils

WHY? Disadvantaged pupils on average do much less well than other pupils Poor life chances Low wages/unemployment Ill health including mental health Shorter life spans Crime Cycle of Poverty

Barriers to Learning Poor attendance Poor behaviour/attention spans/attitudes/aspirations Poor speaking and listening skills Lack of confidence Don’t read at home Hunger/poor nutrition Poor literacy – lack of exposure to different experiences Child protection issues

So what do we expect? Pessimism of the Intellect Optimism of the Will

What works?

The next few slides may upset all the TAs in the room……. Hold on The next few slides may upset all the TAs in the room…….. Hold on....it’s going to get better

7 Education Endowment Foundation toolkit: What does effective practice look like? Leave one copy of the toolkit. Metacognition and self-regulation –learnign to learn. Reflecting on what worked to help them learn – what stopped them. Making choices about which strategies to use to learn.

TAs don’t work to improve disadvantaged pupils’ outcomes Study between 2003-2008 (DISS project) 8,200 pupils progress tracked in English, Maths and Science. In 16/21 results there was a negative impact of TA support. There were no positive impacts and the more support that pupils received from TAs the greater the negative impact for SIMILAR pupils who did not receive support from TAs. The most marked negative impact was for pupils with the highest levels of SEN who spent the most time with TAs.

So why do we spend so much money on TAs? The proportion of teachers in mainstream schools has remained relatively stable over the last 10 years but the proportion of equivalent full-time TAs has trebled from 79,000 to 243,7000 Over a third of the workforce in Primary Schools are TAs £4.4 billion is spent on TAs per year

The next slide may upset all the teachers and Senior Leaders in the room…… Don’t worry……it’s going to get better..

Don’t blame TAs The Research suggests that it is the decisions made about TAs by school leaders and teachers, not made by TAs that best explain the poor outcomes.

Describe the role of TAs in your school What do TAs do? How do they do it? What are the benefits of having TAs?

What? Small group and 1:1 contact with children with the most need Intervention groups Photocopying/Admin tasks

Benefits More informal (better?) relationships with pupils who sometimes find it difficult to integrate? Help manage behaviour? Free up teacher time to concentrate on other children? Do the tasks that were removed by 2003 National Workload agreement?

IS THIS TRUE IN YOUR SCHOOL? How? For some pupils a TA is the primary educator leading to a “separation effect” Task completion and spoon feeding –shut down discussion –breeds dependence Communication between teachers and TAs is often ad hoc (not planned with sufficient time) TAs often do not get induction and may not be trained IS THIS TRUE IN YOUR SCHOOL?

https://educationendowmentfoundation. org https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/resources/making-best-use-of-teaching-assistants/ta-online-course/ta-deployment-at-school-level/

A self- assessment guide Deployment of TAs in the classroom TAs interactions with pupils Teacher/TA preparation and training TAs delivering targeted, structured interventions

A self-assessment guide Deployment of TAs in the classroom

How do you get to Exemplary? Recommendations Summary

Ready to go?

A Strategy A group A vision A review of what does happen now Develop whole school practices (slowly and evaluatively) Provide training and time

Vision/strategy tools Acting on the evidence Ten reasons to improve the use of TAS Visioning exercise Action planning template

Survey – free on-line – anonymous Observations of TAs Review -tools Survey – free on-line – anonymous Observations of TAs Evidenced based interventions?

Developing practice- tools Scaffolding framework Teacher-TA agreement template TA policy Professional Standards for Teaching Assistants

Task Review the tools Which might you use and how? What might you do instead/differently?

Summary TAs can be effective in reducing differences between disadvantaged pupils and others if… They are used to deliver structured, evidenced based interventions They are properly trained and prepared (and valued) They develop independence in pupils rather than dependence They don’t always work with the same pupils