How are primary school teaching assistants being managed, motivated and led since the implementation of the National Workforce Agreement in 2003?
Please do not quote without the author’s permission – working paper.
Jim Pugh, Education Department, Staffordshire University
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Institute of Education, University of London, 5-8 September 2007
Address for Correspondence: Jim Pugh -
Education has a long tradition of utilising support staff. Variety and breath of these roles has increased and now encompasses a range of staff from administrators, midday assistants, and those who support teaching and learning within the classroom. For the purpose of this paper it is this latter group that is of interest. Widely labelled Teaching Assistants (TA) the role, the tasks and the nomenclature of people performing this service have been subject to question. For the purposes of this paper I will use the more commonly adopted term of TA whilst exploring some of the complexity involved in the reality of the this role. Furthermore, in revealing these TA roles and duties implications for school leadership and management are also examined. This paper addresses key issues about: the changing role of the TA; how has the Workforce Agreement impacted upon the role of the TA; and what techniques school leaders and managers are employing to manage, motivate and lead TAs.
Literature Review
The Workforce Agreement 2003 is the policy behind the government’s drive for remodelling in schools (Gunter et al 2005), and largely responsible for the dramatic changes in the role of the TA. Increase of TAs’ duties to distribute workload, in order to relieve pressure from teachers, has been crucial in many schools. Butt and Gunter (2005) refer to this as a three part approach; firstly, the Agreement is concerned with reducing teachers’ workload such as cutting out bureaucratic tasks, secondly, utilisation of support staff, and third, breaking down the cultural norms of traditional roles and ways of working to ‘embrace’ the whole workforce through ‘participation in change management’. This was led by the National Remodelling Team (NRT) which was created to support schools in organisational changes, an acknowledgement, of Butt and Gunter’s (2005) third part of the Agreement approach, that the traditional paradigm of school management and staffing structure required remodelling to best fit the school’s needs (Hammersley-Fletcher and Lowe 2005).
Its full title – “Raising standards and tackling workload: a national agreement” (although much referred to as the Workforce Agreement) includes the strategy, amongst others, to directly use TA’s to reduce the workload of teachers in schools (Howes 2003). Due to this direct impact on TAs this study concentrates upon the Agreement and the time since its implementation. Butt and Lance (2005) note:
“This re-definition of jobs [support staff] is rapidly becoming a cornerstone to the modernization and remodelling of the teaching profession.”
(Butt and Lance, 2005, p.139)
As part of the Agreement, The 25 Tasks, often known as the 24 Tasks (number 14 was not implemented until September 2005), implemented in 2003 to lower teachers’ workloads, clearly illustrated 25 tasks/duties which teachers were no longer required to undertake (National Remodelling Team 2005). The agreement does not force TAs to carry out these duties; however, it can be seen how many of the tasks fall into the remit of the TA.
As the Workforce Agreement impacts upon the role and the duties of the TA, in turn the TA themselves are changing. Within schools the role is seen as a paraprofessional, often with TAs holding NVQs, childcare qualifications, Higher Level Teaching Status and Foundation Degrees. Large numbers of TAs start these qualifications in attempts to work towards becoming a teacher. Progression within schools for the TA is often limited by school budget, however more than ever exists clear academic progression.
As change has taken place, there has been debate on the use of the role title ‘Teaching Assistant’. Many authors and practitioners use a variety of terms for role, in fact this very typology has a large background of discussion within literature (Kerry 2005, Woolfson and Truswell 2005). Most literature will refer to those working in education as ‘teachers’ or ‘support staff’. ‘Support staff’ is the generic title given to those who work to support learners. This includes secretaries, midday assistants, site managers, caretakers and those who work to support teaching and learning. It is to those who support teaching and learning that the somewhat universal term of Teaching Assistant (TA) applies (DfES 2000, Butt and Lance 2005), in English schools at least – in Scotland the term Classroom Assistant (CA) is more common (Wilson et al 2003).
The confusion in the TA label derives from the role itself being so diverse (Kerry 2005). Role title can be clearly seen as an indicator of job description (Seifert 1996) therefore leading role titles to be arbitrarily fixed within local contexts. It is because of localised (and possibly quasi) implemented hierarchical systems and the confusing array of titles that have been bestowed upon TA’s (learning support assistants (LSAs); classroom assistants (CAs); non-teaching adult (NTAs)); to name but a few, that has caused confusion. This manifests itself as uncertainty over the title of the role; the role description; career progression and identity of the profession itself (Kerry 2005).
Lee’s research in 2002 shows not only the diversity in the generic role, but also that of the individual TA:
Types of support / Percentages (%) providing supportProviding support to the teachers by teaching or working with small group within a class / 77
Supporting a number of pupils in lessons / 49
Supporting an individual pupil in some or most lessons / 43
Teaching or counselling outside the classroom / 38
Providing support to a whole class / 33
Providing support to the teacher by preparing or contributing to the production of additional materials / 31
Providing support to the teacher through providing information on the content of IEPs [individual education plans] and the need of individual pupils / 22
No response / >1
Based on survey of 767 classroom assistants in primary schools. Percentages do not sum to 100 as respondents could provide more than one type of support.
(Lee, 2002, p.7) Fig. 1
Lee’s (2002) research is testament of how diverse the TA role has become, even prior to the Workforce Agreement. It demonstrates that TAs are not limited to one task, showing difference to earlier research which appeared to show TAs mainly in one-to-one, or small group support (Nolan and Gersch, 1996). Lee’s work also shows how, as indicated by the DfES (2000) and within the HLTA standards, the TA is spread (and overlaps) between supporting the: pupil, teacher, curriculum and the school.
Not only has the TA role increase, but so have the numbers of TAs being employed within schools. Between 1997 and 2002 a 50 per cent increase in the numbers of TAs was recorded (Johnston and Vaughan, 2002), in 2004 the figures indicated there were 132,600 full time equivalent TAs in schools (Foulkes, 2005). This figure does seem generous, however between 1999 and 2002 £350 million was made available for TAs, followed by, from March 2001 approximately £200 million a year available to sustain recruitment and training until 2004 (HMI 2002). HMI (2002) evidence indicated that the ratio of full time equivalent (FTE) teacher to FTE TA is between two and three; furthermore in a 2001 study, in 41% of lessons in primary schools a TA was present. Bedford et al (2006a) note that since 1992, TA numbers have risen by 110%, now making them 25% of the workforce. With such an influx of TA practitioners in schools, there is no doubt that the TA role needs to be defined and monitored (Watkinson 2003).
The role of TA line management and leadership, alike the TA role, is also unclear. Under a distributed leadership paradigm, and by the nature of primary schools, TAs are managed by a number of practitioners, class teacher, head, deputy and SENCO, to name a few (Hammersley-Fletcher et al 2006, Bedford et al 2006b). Obvious problems in TAs being unaware of line-management exist in this approach. Even official guidance suggests TAs are managed by more than one professional (WAMG 2005). This ‘line manager’ role might not strategically enforce the initial changes to TAs duties, but they will manage them, and thus they have to be accountable for several employment parameters; possibly including job description, appraisals, training, communication and job prospects. Within distributed leadership, it is acknowledged that leadership can be distributed amongst other staff. Important in this case is the acknowledgement that TA’s are not necessarily led or line managed by the headteacher. The distributed leadership model promotes that within an organisation the leadership is ‘dispersed amongst some, many or even all of its members’. (Gronn 2003).
Sinclair et al (1996) express how the relationship of managers within schools needs to be flexible to response to such changes, to become more “efficient in the deployment of the school workforce” (Sinclair et al, 1996, p.651). Ironside and Seifert (2004) in relation to remodelling express how without managers getting employees to embrace such reforms then the reforms are likely to fail. Riley (1998) indicates how these types of changes are more likely to happen successfully if the school leadership and management operate in an open and collaborative climate.
Current trends indicate expanding duties and roles of the TA (Foulkes, 2005). Given the confusion over role titles and changing duties, calls for clarity of job descriptions can be justified (Watkinson, 2003). Wilson et al (2003) found that many TAs had no job description. Mistry et al (2004) draw upon work of Mortimore et al (1994), highlighting the need for clear definitions of the TA role to be set out, “but there should be a system of monitoring and evaluating how well it is, or is not, working in each situation” (Mistry et al, 2004, p.129). Mistry et al (2004) continue to discuss how in the past, TAs have had job descriptions which pay no relevance to their working role, therefore have been issued without consultation or thought of the particular job or person it applies to, showing poor management from school staff, but also poor guidance from LAs.
Job descriptions can be seen as giving some consistency to workers. Rayner and Gunter (2005) discuss, how in distributed leadership models workers need to be aware of their roles, and the roles of others to ‘contribute to the process they are working within’ (p.158). As discussed earlier, Mistry et al (2004) explain how a clear job description for TAs not only motivates their work, but is also essential for the organisation. In organisation terms, this clarifies the role and duties not only to the TA but also to the rest of the school staff, therefore teachers knowing what responsibilities can be bestowed upon differing TAs. For these reasons the job description must be reviewed regularly:
“It can be argued that if LSAs are not going through this review process, then the danger is that they may become less effective in their work through no fault of their own.”
(Mistry et al, 2004, p.130)
Hammett and Burton (2006) found in their studies 73% of TAs saw the availability of a job description as a motivator. Therefore if managers allow job descriptions not to be created, encouraged or reviewed then the TAs performance may suffer. Hammett and Burton (2006) provide further discussion for poor TA morale to exist:
“Low morale and low perceived status has been attributed to lack of appropriate induction, training and poor prospects of progression”
(Hammett and Burton, 2006, p.303)
Considering lack of induction and training reduces motivation depicts the initial intrinsic motivation of TAs and their work in the first place. A workforce without intrinsic motivation would not be as critical to the ability to do their job better, but rather criticises factors such as vacation allowance or pay. Hammett and Burton (2006) do not make this link as explicitly, however do acknowledge that the majority of TAs can be categorised and conform to McGregor’s Theory Y.
Bedford et al (2006b) found that TAs gaining HLTA increased in both confidence and esteem, and recognition by other professionals, the increase in these areas is reported to be 82%. Although the study also indicates that these increases are personal benefits rather than professional. Respondents, in areas, were despondent about the HLTA training process – only 59% (75% within the primary sector) gave a positive response to advice for future applicants. Even with a training scheme, which from this data shows, that does not fully meet the TAs’ professional needs, personal motivation has still been enhanced. If this increase can be seen as a training model for more experienced TAs, coupled with Hammett and Burton (2006) findings on the lack of initial training; it can be assumed that part of TAs motivation is derived from the acknowledgments of their training needs, and the opportunity to complete such training. Smith et al (2004) found that TAs are invited to school-based INSET and some courses specifically designed for TAs, however heads did give several reasons for TAs not ‘fully’ accessing CPD, including cover payment and the TAs family commitments.
Discretion of leader and managers control over staffs’ employment issues does not stop at their appointment. Remodelling and LMS allow TAs’ contracts and duties to be engineered to meet the needs of the school. Such discretion however, can lead to tensions within staffing relationships. Where management is central, staff may accept decisions bestowed upon them in a subordinate and follower fashion.