Interestingly, the new report was part-authored by Rob Webster, who comments below. Rob is part of the team at the Institute of Education (along with report part-author Peter Batchford) which has both conducted extensive research into Teaching Assistants and become a leading supplier of consultancy on Making the Best Use of Teaching Assistants, the IoE's Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants (MITA) programme. Lead author Jonathan Sharples is part of the Institute for Effective Education, which is coordinating a project with the EEF to use teaching assistants to help improve poorer pupils’ results.)
The Sutton Trust/EEF Toolkit claims that Teaching Assistants have ‘low impact for high cost’. This claim is repeated endlessly. The suggestion that Teaching Assistants have 'low impact for high cost' is based on a purely economic model of ‘value for money’ which does not take in to account the many benefits to children of having additional adults working with children in schools. Teaching Assistants are a hugely valuable asset to pupils, teachers and communities and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. We need to stop repeating rubbish about Teaching Assistants.
How many teaching assistants are there, and where do they work?
The answer may surprise you. The TES, for example, reported in November 2014 that, ‘there are 232,000 Teaching Assistants in England, compared to 442,000 teachers.’ This, however, does not give a clear picture of the huge differences between Primary and Secondary schools. The Institute of Education reported (also in November 2014) that there were, “There are more TAs working in English state-funded primary schools than teachers: 257,300 vs. 242,300. In secondary schools, there are 70,700 TAs to 257,300 teachers.”
So, as so often in English education, the situations in Primary and Secondary are very different: Primary classes are likely to have a teacher and a TA, Secondary classes are likely to have a single teacher. The difference between the figures, which are based on the same data set, is odd, isn’t it? On closer inspection, it appears that the figure of 232,000 is based on FTE, or Full Time Equivalent, numbers (and is incorrectly reported – it should be 243,700 according to the DfE). The figure of 328,000 (257,300 + 70,700) is based on headcount, i.e. actual number of people employed. This confusion is just one of many mistakes people make about schools, unfortunately.
So, there are lots of TAs in Primary, not so many in Secondary.
What do Teaching Assistants actually do?
I work in Primary, so my experience is specific to that area. And whilst evidence isn’t the plural of anecdote, and so on, here are my anecdotal observations. In the inner city schools in which I’ve worked, I had a TA for every single one of my teaching hours. In the rural schools where I have worked, I’ve usually had a TA for Literacy and Numeracy (or English and Maths, as we now say). In these schools, I have not often had TA support in the afternoons, and where I have, I’ve been expected to use TAs to support children with specific educational needs such as reading or number work. Where I’ve had children who have needed specific support, often for behavioural issues, I‘ve occasionally had TA support for limited periods of time.
My TAs have been parents of children in the school, often untrained, but always keen and very supportive. Over time, TAs have been expected to become more like teachers, especially during core subject lessons and observations. Certainly, TAs often take groups of children during Maths and English, following teacher’s planning for specific groups of children.
As a teacher, I have appreciated the wider support provided by another adult in my classes. Having a second pair of eyes and hands makes a huge difference, particularly when problems arise, and there are hundreds of small ways in which having a second adult helps the smooth running of a class.
Teaching Assistants in Secondary do a very different job. The National Careers Service suggests that, “At secondary level, you're likely to concentrate on working with individuals and small groups and, depending on the subject, you may assist with practicals, for example in science.” The National Bureau for Students with Disabilities suggest that, “Most teaching assistants in secondary schools work as special needs assistants. This may include taking notes for pupils in lessons or carrying bags and books. Secondary schools usually have learning support departments, where teaching assistants work with individuals or small groups of pupils to complement the work being done in class.”
So, Secondary school TAs work with children with specific educational need, often with children identified as having lower ability than their peers, with some TAs providing support to all abilities in specific subjects such as science.
Primary school TAs have a broader role, with the National Careers Service suggesting that their job ‘may include’:
- getting the classroom ready for lessons
- listening to children read, reading to them or telling them stories
- helping children who need extra support to complete tasks
- helping teachers to plan learning activities and complete records
- supporting teachers in managing class behaviour
- supervising group activities
- looking after children who are upset or have had accidents
- clearing away materials and equipment after lessons
- helping with outings and sports events
- taking part in training
- carrying out administrative tasks.
This tallies with my experience, with the important proviso that not all primary schools have the same level of TA support.
What does the research say?
Virtually nothing. What? I thought we knew that TAs make no difference? ‘Low impact’? This is simply not true. The role of TAs is almost entirely misunderstood by those who seek to economise their activity. In measuring the wrong thing badly, what TAs actually contribute to a school – support, assistance, reduction in stress and workload, good cheer and much, much more – is completely and utterly disregarded. But still, let’s look at the ‘evidence’, such as it is.
The Sutton Trust-EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit is the most quoted source of ‘research’ into the ‘effectiveness’ of Teaching Assistants. It has a section on ‘Teaching Assistants’. In common with many others, I question much of the thinking behind the Toolkit, which is based on meta-analyses and effect sizes, both of which are extremely problematic. The Toolkit is used to justify much of the current thinking about Teaching Assistant ‘effectiveness’, however, and it is worth examining what the Toolkit has to say about the subject.
Firstly, the Toolkit authors admit that, “Overall, the level of evidence on teaching assistants is limited. A number of systematic reviews of the impact of support staff in schools have been conducted in the UK and internationally. However, there are no meta-analyses specifically looking at the impact of teaching assistants on learning.” So, there’s virtually no actual evidence.
Remember what the Toolkit does. It only looks at the ‘impact on learning’ as measured in an extremely limited and unreliable way. Whilst the EEF has funded two trials of its own, these only use measurement of Test Score gains as success criteria, and therefore do not tell us much about the general effectiveness of TAs.
Secondly, the Toolkit itself suggests that the evidence it presents is “limited”, and is rated two out of a possible five stars. I’d suggest that evidence for the actual effectiveness of TAs as they are currently used in schools is actually non-existent, for reasons I’ll outline below.
Thirdly, the Toolkit suggests that Teaching Assistants will have an average impact of “one month progress.” Again, this is based on a very limited interpretation of what Teaching Assistants do, and is, as a result, damaging, ridiculous and wrong.
Finally, the Toolkit claims that the average cost of a TA is £18,000 pa, and that TAs are 'high cost'. This is reported as costing £4 billion. Whilst the costs to a school might be somewhere near this figure, the average salary of a 'full time' TA is actually much closer to £11,000 pa, since 'full time' TAs actually work and are paid for around 30 hours a week, for 39 weeks a year. Much of the difference between salary and cost goes back to the government one way or another. it certainly doesn't go to TAs.
My summary of the Sutton Trust/EEF’s evidence on Teaching Assistants is: Non-existent, based on a complete misunderstanding of the role of Teaching Assistants in English schools.
The other major source of ‘evidence’ on Teaching Assistants is the Institute of Education’s Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS) project, funded by the English and Welsh Governments from 2003 to 2009. This was followed up by the Effective Deployment of Teaching Assistants (EDTA) project (2010-11), funded by Esmee Fairbairn; and the Making a Statement MaSt project (2011-13), funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
These studies found that, as I suggest above, “Teachers felt that support staff increased the amount of one-to-one attention for pupils in need, reduced teachers' workload and stress levels, and increased their job satisfaction.”
But they also found that, “the more support pupils received from support staff, the less progress they made.” Which sounds worrying. Although it isn't. At all. The problem with this conclusion is that it completely misunderstands how children develop in they way they do. In particular, it misunderstands why it might be that “the more support pupils received from support staff, the less progress they made,” mistaking – as so very many do - correlation and causation.
Why do those TAs support make less progress?
If you are a teacher, this should be – after a moment’s thought - immediately obvious. To those who don’t actually work with children on a day to day basis, I’ll make it very clear. Different children progress at different rates, and different children achieve different levels of academic success. Those who find school easy make higher levels of progress and achievement more. Those who do not find school easy make lower levels of progress and achievement less. I'm not making this up to suit my argument: There is lots of evidence that this is the case.
Teaching assistants tend, on the whole, to be asked to work with those who do not find school easy, because they are the children who generally need the support. And that is a clear explanation why those children make less progress and achieve less. It is not because they work with Teaching Assistants. The correlation and the causation are completely misunderstood. The umbrellas don't cause the rain.
In addition, schools in those areas where there is a higher level of educational need tend to have more Teaching Assistants than schools in lower areas of need. Pupils in these areas tend to make lower levels of progress, on average, than those in levels of high advantage. It is not the support of Teaching Assistants which causes this. The presence of more umbrellas doesn't cause the rain to be heavier.
As with so many areas of education, the basic assumptions about what happens in schools, and the assumptions regarding the drivers of children’s progress and attainment are so fundamentally wrong, that the conclusions drawn are equally – and damagingly – wrong. We support children because they need support. Children don't make less progress because they need more support. Children who get support make less progress because they find learning difficult.
Finally, I need to ask why so many people are happy to disparage the support Teaching Assistants clearly provide. And the answer, I think, comes from an old refrain: Follow the money. Making money from TAs is difficult. They don’t tend to get much training, so there’s little possibility of making money there. They don’t tend to have budgets to spend. They don’t need to buy in additional services. They don’t need anything which the army of consultants surrounding schools can offer. These days, unlike the mid-2000s, you can’t make money from the work TAs do.
So what should we do about this irritating non-truth?
Firstly, remember that children are unique. They are not plants being given fertiliser. Different children progress and achieve at different rates. And those who struggle need extra support for a myriad of reasons, not least because all children benefit - often quite indirectly - from that support.
Secondly, don’t accept economic arguments about Teaching Assistants. Most of what they provide can’t be measured in numbers. And challenge the £4 billion fallacy.
Finally, imagine schools without the army of teaching assistants providing all the support they do to allow teachers to focus on actually teaching the children in their classes. From Primary classrooms with children in tears because a pet has died, or with someone can’t control their temper, or those simply take a long time to memorise number facts, to the Secondary classrooms which don’t have those in the highest need suffering in silence (or otherwise), to the Special school providing the careful nurture atypical children require. And then say that Teaching Assistants have ‘low impact for high cost’. Just. Stop it.
(Now you have read this, watch this video and see how long it takes you start yelling at the screen. It’s insulting, Not Even Wrong, nonsense.)