Review on Warhurst, C., Nickson, D., Commander, J., & Gilbert, K. (2014). ‘Role stretch’: assessing the blurring of teaching and non‐teaching in the classroom assistant role in Scotland. British Educational Research Journal, 40(1), 170-186.
Introduction This paper is a critical analysis of an academic paper in which the principal focus is an investigation of whether there is a discprepancy between the job performance of teaching assistants in Scotland and the role defined by directors in education system and that shaped by local institutions. Following the pragmatic approach, the researcher adopted mixed methods, employing the combination of quantitative and qualitative method to achieve the goal. Although the concept has its
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Evaluation
Aim and research questions The key research questions in this paper are do classroom assistants in Scotland undertake teaching, if so to what extent and why. This is based on the premise that there are concerns about the extent to which the teaching assistants overstep the boundary from supporting teaching into the act of teaching pupils itself. The authors state that they have undertaken this study in order to “point to the disjuncture between the original policy intent and the implementation of classroom practice within Scottish schools”. According to Burns and Grove (1999), the purpose of the aims and objectives of a study, the research question and the research hypothesis is to form a link between the initially stated purpose of the study or research problem and how the study will be undertaken.
Previous literature
Policy context
+policy diffrences between England, Wales and Scotland ★ --> RAT why this research comparison
+existing research on what these assistants do in these countries
Quantitative and Qualitative approaches
The article adopts both quantitative and qualitative method in the research design.
In stage one, the authors choose to adopt a quantitative approach in which questionnaire is used to assess teaching assistants’ actual work which is categorised into 4 clusters with each question
The boundaries between the teaching role and other professional roles including points of referral to meet the needs of learners
Teaching Assistants or Learning Support Assistants – They complement the role of the Class Teacher and support learning for all pupils
Schools employ and have teaching assistants, to again, create the best possible learning environment for the pupils. As a teaching assistant I will work as part of a team working to make the pupils learning journey, a successful one. I will attend staff meetings and continue to develop my skills through in-house training and other relevant courses. I will maintain and contribute to school policies and procedures, and work in partnership with parents and carers on behalf of the school.
The role of the teaching assistant has in recent years become a very professional role . As with any professional job role , it is important to be able to carry out reflective practice .
A teaching assistant plays an important role for the standards of behaviour expected in the classroom.
The key aspects of the role of a teaching assistant are to help raise educational standards in the classroom by providing support for the pupils, the teacher and the school. They must also promote a quality learning environment and contribute to making a positive, quality and effective classroom environment. Which in turn shall maximise learning, minimise behavioural problems and help to create a safe and positive environment.
It is essential to establish respectful and professional relationships with children and young people in the role of Teaching Assistant. There are certain strategies which enable such a valued and trusted relationship be established. A relationship in which a child trusts and respects their TA and feels comfortable in their company, allows the TA to offer a supportive and caring environment in which the child can learn and develop.
Although the class teacher is primarily responsible to plan, deliver and review all learning activities for the class, a teaching assistant can work alongside the teacher and make contributions that can improve the teachers plan, alter the delivery to make it more effective for pupil attainment and extend the teachers initial review. “Planning, teaching and evaluation follow a cycle which gives structure to the learning process” (Baker, B., Burnham, L., 2010) and is vital in my role as a teaching assistant. I aim to describe how I aide the teacher to plan and deliver lessons and how I give feedback to the teacher about individual pupils, in order for the teacher make improvements in her planning and to be able to target individual
My role as a teaching assistant is to take on tasks such as preparing the classroom for lessons and clearing up afterwards, which allow the teacher to concentrate on teaching. To support pupils with particular individual needs, sometimes my role is to work one to one, while others work in small groups or work with one of these groups. The teacher is not able to give every pupil individual attention, assistants provide essential support to the pupils and the lead teacher. My responsibilities also include:
Teaching Assistants support classroom management and assist with general administration. They help manage pupil behaviour and support pupils’ health, safety and emotional/social development. Teaching assistants establish relationships with learners and help pupils to access the curriculum. They support the development and effectiveness of work teams, work with other professionals and liaise effectively with parents.
Another important point of this lecture, in my opinion, that has application in teaching is discrimination. Although all teaching assistants may be aware of the consequences of discrimination and therefore they may not intentionally want to do this act, they should act in a way that all students feel that the teaching assistant does not discriminate against them. For example, in lab classes, the teaching assistant should spend an equal time to ask the question of each student. If a TA spend 20 minutes to answer the question of a specific student, for instance, the rest of students may feel that the TA want to help him or her more than others. I, personally, take at most 5 minutes to answering the question of each student so that there will
“The term ‘teaching assistant’ (TA) is the government’s preferred generic term of reference for all of those in paid employment in support of teachers in primary, special and
After my maths lessons, I proposed a series of questions to myself: why does he call out during my lessons? Why do I have the expectation that he should put his hand up? Should I have imposed a different solution rather than have child x sit next to the teaching assistant? Could I have handled the situation more effectively? I continued to ask myself a series of questions which enabled me to reflect on what I did and why I did it. Although I may not be able to find a solution to my critical incident, I aim to explore and analyse it by reflecting on my teaching practice. Dewey (1933) in Pollard (1998) highlights that
The teacher's role is to plan lessons, direct and assess pupils learning. The role of the teaching assistant is to support the teacher in planning, delivering and evaluating learning activities and also, under the teacher's direction to give support to the class, whether it is the whole class, small groups or individuals.
In response to the general questions at the beginning of the questionnaire that were intended as straightforward factual questions to slide the subjects gently into discussion, it was shown that there is a breadth of teaching experience as expected. The minimum length of time teaching was five years and the longest was thirty-eight years. However, because two of the respondents had been employed in careers other than teaching the length of service did not mirror the age profile. This is significant in that this is an established team who has previously worked through many changes together. There was a range of responsibilities in terms of both subject expertise and responsibilities in terms of pay scale i.e. there were responses from teachers on the main pay scale, upper scale and from teachers with teaching and learning responsibility points.