Teaching assistants
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On 15 January 2003 ministers signed a national agreement with key partners including the local authority employers and school workforce unions. Key features of the agreement include contractual changes for teachers to bring about a progressive reduction in teachers' overall hours, a concerted attack on unnecessary paperwork and bureaucratic processes, additional resources and a national change management programme, and reform of support staff roles.
Full details of the current position, including information on the transfer of administrative and clerical tasks from teachers to support staff, can be found in TeacherNet's Remodelling and Cutting burdens areas.
Teaching assistants have an important role to play in helping schools to run smoothly and efficiently and in helping to raise educational standards, uphold school policies and provide support for teachers so that they can better concentrate on teaching. There is a wide variety of terminology used to describe adults who work in classrooms alongside teachers in schools. The term teaching assistant is an umbrella term the DCSF uses to include classroom assistants, learning support assistants and others whose primary role is to assist the teacher in the classroom. It also covers those nursery nurses employed in such jobs.
As part of its work to remodel the school workforce, the Government has proposed changes to teachers' contracts and the appropriate extensions in both the number and roles of support staff in the classroom, including the introduction of the Higher Level Teaching Assistant' (HLTA) role.
National standards for HLTAs were published in September 2003 and a training programme will be available from April 2004. The HLTA role will involve providing a more substantial contribution to teaching and learning within the classroom, under the direction and supervision of teachers. A copy of the HLTA standards and a range of other information on the HLTA programme can be found on the HLTA website.
Pay and contractual arrangements for teaching assistants are matters for local determination. See further information under legislation below.
There are no national requirements for qualifications, although some local authorities and schools do require them.
The former Local Government National Training Organisation (LGNTO) developed a suite of National occupational standards for teaching assistants. The standards can be viewed on their website. These may be useful for job descriptions and other purposes as well as training. NVQ qualifications at levels 2 and 3 based on these new standards are available from CACHE, OCR, EdExcel and City & Guilds. Guidance on the new NVQs is also available on that website and on the TeacherNet's Teaching assistants area.
Specialist teaching assistant courses (mostly related to primary school teaching assistant roles) are available in conjunction with some LAs linked with HE establishments. These provide an advanced one-year course, which may help a teaching HE institutions now run foundation degree courses aimed at providing teaching assistants with the equivalent of a two year vocational degree.
Through the Standards Fund the DCSF is contributing funds to the recruitment and induction training and professional development of teaching assistants.
Further information on teaching assistants can be found on TeacherNet's Teaching assistants area. Here you will be able to view and download the induction training materials which the DCSF have developed for new and recently recruited teaching assistants working in schools. The site includes case studies and the document Working with teaching assistants, a good practice guide, which provides information for heads and teachers on management of teaching assistants, including a school self-audit questionnaire.
Review of current position
As outlined in the Developing the role of school support staff consultation document, a systematic mapping exercise has now been carried out to show how existing qualifications fit with the proposed career progression framework. The aims of the mapping exercise were:
- to fill significant gaps in knowledge relating to the levels, types and
general availability of qualifications for support staff of all types
- to map how existing qualifications fit with the proposed career progression framework.
A full report and a summary, known as a research brief, for this exercise were published on 26 February. They can both be accessed on the DCSF's Research pages.
The role of support staff in schools
The Department produced a booklet, Developing the role of school of support staff — what the National Agreement means for you, which is aimed at telling school support staff about the outcome of the Developing the role of school support staff consultation and the Raising standards and tackling workload: a national agreement document. The booklet contains a summary of the agreed reforms, concentrating specifically on the benefits to support staff.
Last updated: 15 July 2007
Main text
Legislation
Key documents
Best practice
Further information
