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

2. 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

3. 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

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

5. What works?

6. 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. 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.

8. TAs don’t work to improve disadvantaged pupils’ outcomes
Study between (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.

9. 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

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

11. 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.

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

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

14. 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?

16. 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?

17. https://educationendowmentfoundation. org

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

19. A self-assessment guide
Deployment of TAs in the classroom

20. How do you get to Exemplary?
Recommendations Summary

21. Ready to go?

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

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

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

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

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

27. 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