Support for Learning

Introduction

In recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of TAs working in schools in the UK. Government statistics show that in November 2013 there were 243,700 TAs employed by state schools in England, accounting for 26.4% of the workforce (DfE, 2014). In primary schools, the number is even higher, with TAs making up 33% of all people employed (DfE, 2014). Despite this increase, while much is known about the roles and responsibilities of teachers within the classroom, there remains very little clarity regarding the role of the TA (Blatchford et al., 2012).

Traditionally taking on a supportive role for teachers, focussed on administrative tasks and the preparation of resources in the classroom (Moyles and Suschitsky, 1997), the role of TAs has shifted as the numbers employed have increased. TAs have been found to be increasingly involved in direct instruction both of individual pupils and of whole classes (Butt and Lance, 2005), with observational studies reporting that direct pedagogical interactions with pupils account for the majority of TA time (Blatchford et al., 2009). The deployment of TAs has been shown to be directly related to pupil statements, with schools translating the hours of support listed on statements to hours of TA support (Webster and Blatchford, 2013).

With specific relation to pupils with SEN, head teachers have reported that the inclusion of pupils with SEN has been the main reason for employing greater numbers of TAs within schools (Webster and Blatchford, 2013). TAs have been found to be the primary form of support in place for pupils with SEN within mainstream settings, taking responsibility for the teaching and support of pupils to whom they are allocated (MacBeath et al., 2006). Researchers have raised concerns about a blurring of boundaries between TA and teacher responsibilities within the classroom (Butt and Lance, 2005). Others have highlighted a lack of consistency in TA approaches to support across settings (Giangreco et al., 2005).

There has been little research in relation to pupil perspectives of TAs and their understanding of the TA role. Where researchers have spoken to pupils, the children interviewed have most often spoken positively about TAs' support, saying that they enjoy the company of their TA and appreciate the support for things they find challenging within school (Mortier et al., 2011). In other studies, however, pupils have also expressed concerns about the support received from TAs, including a feeling that pupils lacked autonomy and control over how they were helped in school (Skar and Tamm, 2001; Tews and Lupart, 2008).

Researchers have reported that primary school pupils are able to distinguish between teacher and TA roles, with teachers described as being ‘in charge’ of the classroom, and TAs described as ‘helping’ (Eyres et al., 2004; Moyles and Suschitsky, 1997). There have been concerns raised about how some pupils understand the TA role, however, with some researchers reporting pupils view their TAs as friends (Broer et al., 2005; Giangreco, Edelman and Broer, 2005). This needs to be considered in relation to findings that pupils with SEN may be more likely to interact with TAs than with peers within school (Tamm and Skar, 2000; Webster and Blatchford, 2013).

Very few studies have asked TAs about their role, in terms of both their main activities and their views of their position within schools. Marks et al. (1999) found that TAs felt they had primary responsibility for teaching the pupils they supported, with behavioural support also listed as an important role. Cajkler and Tennant (2005) interviewed TAs alongside other school staff and stakeholders, and confirmed that academic support was seen as the main role undertaken by TAs. Both TAs and the others interviewed also mentioned differentiating the work set by the class teacher, and supporting pupils to be more independent within the classroom.

It was the aim of this study to extend exploration of how supported pupils and the TAs themselves understand the TA role within mainstream settings. Comparing the perspectives of these two groups may highlight similarities and differences in relation to their views of support, which could in turn provide new insights into TA deployment and the experience of support for pupils with SEN.

Sample

Eleven pupils with a statement of SEN contributed to this study. The pupils were all taught within a mainstream school setting and had at least 15 hours of scheduled support from TAs each week. Demographic information for the pupils in the study is outlined in Table 1. All of the pupils were verbal and had sufficient language ability to take part in an interview; all, however, also had needs relating to speech, language and communication outlined on their statement. Ten of the pupils had needs related to social interaction skills listed on their statements.

In terms of TA support, as shown in Table 1, pupils were either supported by allocated TAs who were in class specifically to support them, or by class TAs who worked with the whole class but were available to the target pupil should they need help. Across the sample, four pupils had a single allocated TA, four were supported by a pair of TAs and the remaining three (Kai, Henry and Lucie) were supported by class TAs.

Interviews were carried out with all allocated TAs and with the Class TAs identified above, resulting in 16 TA interviews. As shown in Table 1, the majority of TAs had been working in their current posts for more than 3 years. Only one of the TAs had any training specific to the support of pupils with SEN, and 13 had no qualifications or training relevant to educational support. Two of the TAs were qualified teachers; both said that they had decided to work as a TA after having children.

Methods

Data collection was carried out between January and April 2014.

Semi‐structured interviews were undertaken with pupils in this study, supported by drawing activities. Semi‐structured interviews were chosen as this gave pupils the opportunity to express ideas and perspectives on a range of topics in their own terms (Folque, 2010). The aim was to have an interview that felt more like a conversation so that the whole experience felt less formal to the pupil. As such, at the start of the interview pupils were asked to draw a picture of an adult who helped them in school. Drawing tasks have been recommended for research with children because this method encourages child participants to take time to respond to questions (Einarsdottir et al., 2009), and has also been used as a means to break down adult‐child power relationships within the research environment (Parkinson, 2001). While they were drawing, pupils were asked about their experiences of TA support and about how they felt their TA helped them within school.

Following parental consent, all children were asked prior to the interview whether they were happy to be interviewed and whether their answers could be recorded. In this study, two pupils chose not to take part in the drawing activity but were still happy to be interviewed. In all pupil interviews, a known adult was present as a support for the pupil. In most cases this was a parent, but for three pupils it was a member of school staff. These adults were asked not to answer questions for the pupils or to provide interpretation of their responses. All pupil interviews took place within their school, in either a classroom or an office space.

Semi‐structured interviews were also undertaken with TAs within schools. TAs were asked about their experience and qualifications and about their time working at the school. They were also asked how they would describe their main job role. All TA interviews happened in classrooms at the target pupils’ schools. The TAs included in this study signed consent forms and were also given the opportunity to read transcripts of their responses and approve their inclusion.

Interviews were recorded using a digital voice recorder and were later transcribed as a line‐by‐line account without narrative description (Jenks, 2011). Pauses and periods of silence were recorded by noting the amount of time on a separate line. This is in line with research suggesting that silence should be viewed as part of the conversation when working with children with speech, language and communication needs (Lewis, 2011).

Following transcription, data were analysed inductively using categorical coding. A coding frame was designed to capture themes, similarities and differences in relation to how TA support was talked about by both groups. Data analysis was approached as an iterative and reflexive process to ensure patterns were emerging from the data rather than being imposed upon it (Berkowitz, 1997).

Findings

The overarching finding of this study revealed a difference in the way the TA role is understood by TAs themselves and by the pupils being supported. The themes arising from the literature can be grouped into five types of support. These are discussed in relation to both TA and pupil responses, with illustrative quotes from the interviews included.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The inclusion of pupils with SEN within mainstream schools is routinely being supported by the use of TAs in the classroom. This study provides new insights about how the TA role is understood by both pupils with SEN and by the TAs themselves. Previous research has focused on pupil views of their TA support rather than unpicking how the TA role is understood by those working as TAs and those being supported. The comparison between these two groups showed very different viewpoints in relation, raising questions about TA deployment, TA role boundaries and about the amount of information given to pupils regarding their TA support.

This study captured variation in relation to TA and pupil views of the main activities undertaken by TAs in their support of pupils with SEN. The TAs interviewed spoke most frequently about behavioural support, keeping pupils on task in the classroom and avoiding disruption to the other pupils in class. This form of support was not mentioned by pupils at any point. In contrast, pupil statements suggested they felt their TAs primarily offered academic support, helping with reading and writing tasks. This disparity could suggest different priorities for the two groups, with pupils feeling that they need help with academic tasks and TAs more focused on managing pupil behaviour. This is an interesting finding, given research that has suggested pupils do not always feel able to have autonomy over how they are supported and may be supported with tasks where they feel they do not need help (Mortier et al., 2011; Tews and Lupart, 2008).

Focusing on the TA reports, a wide range of roles were included, suggesting that TAs are performing a number of different activities in the support of pupils with SEN depending on their school's pattern of deployment (Webster et al., 2013). This raises questions about the boundaries of the TA role and the specific activities required of the post, suggesting there is a lack of clarity both within and across schools (Blatchford et al., 2013; McCoy and Banks, 2012). As in previous studies, the TAs interviewed within this study had little or no training relevant to the support of pupils with SEN and this could also relate to the differential support seen across cases.

In 2006, a set of national occupation standards for support staff in schools was released by the Training and Development Agency (TDA, 2006) but, given the changes that have taken place in the last 10 years, these need updating. At the time of writing, the Department for Education is in the process of developing a set of standards for Teaching Assistants which should clarify the expectations of the TA role and provide a measure against which support can be evaluated. For these standards to be successfully implemented, school staff will need to work together to ensure all staff know how TAs are to be deployed and what support they will need to fulfil their role effectively. This could include the training of teachers regarding how best to use TAs within class, or SENCOs as to successful TA deployment (a training gap that has been identified in previous research; Giangreco and Broer, 2005).

Several of the findings suggest that the TA role also lacks clarity for the pupils being supported. Some of the pupils spoke of non‐specific help and did not offer specific activities that their TAs undertook to support them in school. Alongside this, a number of pupils talked about their TAs as friends, citing ‘playing’ as a key role of the TA. This has been raised as an issue by other researchers, who have felt this impacts negatively upon pupil views of friendships and upon later social outcomes (Giangreco and Broer, 2005).

Although a small number of pupils within the study viewed the TAs they worked with as being resources for the whole class, the majority of those interviewed here talked about their TA as being solely responsible for their own support within the classroom. This is in line with research showing that TAs are taking sole responsibility for pupils with SEN within mainstream classrooms (MacBeath et al., 2006), and others reporting that pupils with SEN spend their majority of their time in interactions with TAs (Webster and Blatchford, 2013). Alongside this, some evidence was found to suggest that there may be a blurring of the teacher/TA role for some pupils with SEN. This runs contrary to previous research findings (Fraser and Meadows, 2008; Eyres et al., 2004) but may be explained by the deployment of TAs in the student schools. Research with a larger cohort of pupils supported by Class TAs rather than those in receipt of individual allocated support could investigate this further.

The pupils interviewed within this study expressed clearly their own perceptions and understandings of the TA role and of how they were supported in school. Although all pupils had needs related to speech, language and communication outlined on their statements of SEN, there was no evidence of pupils having difficulty with the interview and all gave clear ideas about the things their TAs did. As such, a key recommendation of this study is for pupils with SEN to be included in discussions about their support. In this study data collection methods were designed to support pupils to take part in conversation around their support; these could also be used within schools to ensure pupils understand the role of their TA and are able to express their views about the support they would like to receive. Supportive conversations such as these could also be used to ensure pupils understand the distinction between TAs and friends.