'I think my life experience has helped'

Pauline Bailey has worked in the same school as a dinner lady for 15 years. For the last five years she has also been a classroom assistant.

The 57-year-old mother of two works at Burnley Brow school in Chadderton, Oldham, where a high percentage of children have special educational needs - 60 of the 360 pupils.

"I started as a volunteer reading to the children and it has just gone from there," Ms Bailey said. "I have got more and more involved with the job and I have been on courses."

There are five other classroom assistants, four NNEBs (diploma in childcare and education) and five bilingual support workers.

"I am not really worried about the money. I think it would be good to have more recognition for classroom assistants. But I just love the job for what it is."

Ms Bailey works six hours a week as a dinner lady and 26 hours as a classroom assistant. "I have encouraged other people to become involved and to think about classroom support. It used to just be about helping out and washing paint pots - but it is now much more involved.

"There are other jobs in the classroom, including putting up displays and helping with fundraising."

In the mornings, she provides extra literacy support. In the afternoons, she listens to children reading.

"Ever since I have worked in the classroom I realised teachers have such a lot of work to do. Some can cope but many need assistance.

"Obviously, I am not qualified to plan lessons and I am just following what teachers have planned for me, but I can also add my own ideas as I have been working closely with the children.

"I think my life experience has helped. I worked as a girls' brigade leader for 30 years and that has stood me in good stead. I just love the kids and I think I have found my niche in life. The children I work with are so eager to learn and the school has been helpful and supportive and I always feel welcome in the classroom."

Michelle Lee, the deputy headteacher at Burnley Brow, said: "Classroom assistants are paid a pittance - about £11,000 a year - but they are worth their weight in gold and teachers could not do their jobs without them."
 

Report by Helen Carter
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Classroom assistants to gain enhanced role

Ministers yesterday rejected accusations that they are seeking to address the teacher recruitment crisis "on the cheap" as they unveiled radical reforms which will see teaching assistants given a much greater role in the classroom.

The package of measures, billed as banishing the one-size-fits-all model of teaching, attempts to reconcile the twin pressures of teacher demands for reduced workload and the need for more individual attention and support for pupils.

The changes, announced yesterday by the education and skills secretary, Estelle Morris, as she faced pressure to resign over missed standards targets, were given a cautious welcome by headteachers but met criticism from some teaching unions.

The National Union of Teachers said that moves to cut teacher workload, which stop short of setting an overall limit on hours but include guaranteed marking and preparation time, were "too little and too late".

NUT general secretary Doug McAvoy also criticised measures to expand and enhance the role of teaching assistants, who could even lead some classes under supervision, as "asking the theatre sister to take over the brain surgery".

But the National Association of Head Teachers called the package "the best, indeed the only, chance of cutting the excessive workload besetting the teaching profession".

General secretary David Hart said the "groundbreaking" plan to give guaranteed professional time for classroom teachers and heads, together with a increase in support staff, bursars, technical assistants and others would "revolutionise schools".

Support for Ms Morris will be particularly welcome amid Tory demands for her resignation over revelations that she promised in the Commons in 1999, when she was schools standards minister, to step down if government targets on primary school national test results were not met.

Yesterday she admitted she had made the forgotten promise, but said that the pledge had been superseded following her promotion in June 2001.

However, the Conservatives are seeking to capitalise on what they see as Ms Morris's weakened position in the wake of the A-level results debacle. Downing Street yesterday came to Ms Morris's defence. The prime minister's spokesman said: "The prime minister believes she is an excellent secretary of state and somebody who has seen a change in primary school education, in respect of numeracy and literacy hours."

The government sets teacher workload alongside pupil standards as the key challenges in education. It acknowledges as excessive term-time teacher hours averaging 52 hours a week, and states that the 20% of time spent on non-teaching tasks is too high.

Instead of a massive expansion in teacher numbers, schools will be able to use teachers' time differently, with more use of support staff. Teacher contracts will be changed to free teachers from 25 mainly administrative tasks such as photocopying. Guaranteed time will be available for marking and preparation during the school day equivalent to about 10% of the hours they spend teaching.

To allow those changes, ministers forecast a support staff increase of at least 50,000 during this parliament, with the current total of 216,000 full-time equivalents already exceeding manifesto promises.

More training will be available for those seeking more responsibility, ministers said.

Report by Lucy Ward, political correspondent
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Ministers draw on example of school with a glowing report

MINISTERS drew up the reforms after studying a school in Nottinghamshire where assistants have been given their own career structure.

At Newark Orchard School, the 20 helpers outnumber full-time teachers by nearly two to one: personal care assistants, on the lowest rung of the ladder, aspire to become junior and then senior teaching assistants.

Linda McCarthy, 48, takes overall charge of the team, mixing management responsibilities with hands-on work in the classroom. “It is very important to me that I am still a practitioner, otherwise I would have no credibility with the rest of the team,” she said.

Like all assistants, she has to perform a delicate balancing act in the classrooms: helping teachers to carry out their duties without challenging their status.

The unions have compared the extension of their role with “allowing the theatre sister to take over the brain surgery” in an operating room.

Ms McCarthy said: “The assistants know that they are not teachers, and they are not trying to be. They are professionals in their own right, but in a different and distinct way.”

The approach adopted by Newark, which has 95 special needs pupils aged between three and 19, is quoted glowingly in the consultation framework published yesterday.

Describing it as an exemplar, it praises the fact that “teaching assistants have high-level skills with which they support pupils’ learning and sometimes lead lessons if they have relevant skills”.

The unions are highly sensitive about the latter point, but Ms McCarthy says that all help in the classroom, such as guiding small groups in reading practice, is subject to lesson plans drawn up by teachers.

A typical working day for Ms McCarthy starts at 8am at the school, as she checks her post and messages and discusses the placement of staff with heads of departments. After a morning teaching, with an hour for lunch, the rest of the day is spent monitoring or training her staff, and holding information-sharing meetings with staff in other schools in the area. Her day ends at about 6.30pm. More junior assistants spend their time putting up displays, watering plants or tidying cupboards.

Sharon Jeffries, the head teacher, said that, contrary to union fears, many assistants were happy to have limited responsibilities. Of the 20 staff on her books, only two are men, reflecting the fact that the job suits women who want to return to work part-time after having children.

“This is about increasing opportunities for children, not challenging anyone’s profession,” she said.

By Glen Owen Education Correspondent
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A new way for schools : Teachers should welcome a support army

A quiet revolution has been going on in schools. Like earlier low-profile evolutions, it could make a more dramatic breakthrough than noisier reformations. Teaching assistants in schools have grown by 80,000 since 1997, a 50% rise, lifting the number of full-time equivalents to 216,000. That is equivalent to one-third of the total school staff, or one assistant for every two teachers. Far from decrying this trend, teachers should be embracing it. Many are, including some far-sighted union leaders, but this has not stopped the oldest classroom dinosaur, the National Union of Teachers, harrumphing away.

The reasons for welcoming this trend are straightforward enough: it will help teachers achieve their main wish, to spend more time in the classroom. Currently only 36% of teachers' time is spent in face-to-face work with children; 32% goes on preparation, planning and assessment (marking school and home work); but a further 32% goes on pas toral, administrative, or managerial duties. This pattern emerged from research released by ministers yesterday. They should be congratulated on their investigation: how teachers spent their time was a secret garden that needed exploring. The results reinforce just how apposite is the list, drawn up by education officials, of 25 administrative tasks from which teachers should be excused. The 16 different categories of assistants currently working illustrate how widespread support has become. Just to take one: the learning mentors in inner-city schools, who help pupils deal with problems in their families or communities that are hindering their work in schools. If ministers were seeking a cheap option, then it ought to be opposed, but teaching numbers have increased and a record extra £12bn is being invested over the next three years. Research by Ofsted and others has shown assistants do improve the quality of teaching, as well as reduce teachers' workload. Let teachers rejoice.
 

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