Research Question

What is the Role of the Primary School Teaching Assistant Amidst the Implications of Identity, Status and Professionalism in the Hierarchy of the School Workforce?

This research is an offshoot of a pilot study titled ‘The Role of the Teaching Assistant in Reflection of Experience, Qualifications and Status’, that I conducted in 2022.

Since the Plowden Report (1967), the Warnock Report (1978) and the Time for standards: reforming the school workforce report (2002), there has been a breadth of variation in both the roles and responsibilities of the teaching assistant in England’s schools (Adamson, 1999; Cajkler et al., 2007; Hancock et al., 2001). Barber (1996) characterised the employment of the teaching assistant as an ‘incipient quiet revolution’ as they began to adapt to more pedagogical roles (Butt and lance, 2009). Many teaching assistants were not specifically trained for this (Blatchford et al, 2004). Although teaching assistants began playing a major role in the teaching of children, they were not credited for this as the teacher was still viewed as being core to a lesson whilst the teaching assistant was seen as being periphery (Hancock and Eyres, 2004). With regards to positioning in the workforce, this view created a hierarchy between the teacher and the teaching assistant and what could be deemed as a watering down of a profession by funnelling traditional aspects of a professional job to an assistant. Friedson (2001) argued that the intertwining roles of professional and paraprofessional were designed to reduce the cost and the independence of the professions. Butt and Lance (2005) advised the need for sensitivity in the approach used by teachers towards teaching assistants. Difficulties and benefits associated with the remodelling of the workforce strategy continue to emerge since 2006 (Collins and Simco, 2006) but are seen as dependent upon the way in which teaching assistants are conceptualised, trained, and deployed by a school.

Professional learning required for successful large-scale reform depends on a commitment to experimentation and innovation at the local level (Leithwood et al, 2006). Since 2006, the role of the teaching assistant has undergone a period of experimentation and innovation and as there is currently no definitive job description that sets out the job role of the teaching assistant, it can be assumed that the drawn-out period of experimentation and innovation continues to be on-going. In the current climate, more than five decades after The Plowden report (1967), there are several options by which they are able to simultaneously work as a teaching assistant and upgrade their qualifications to enter the teaching profession (CooperGibson, 2019), albeit this being an expensive and time-consuming process.

This research aims to find out firstly if there is a definitive employment role for the teaching assistant in the primary school, to close the gap nationally in research literature on the actual role of the teaching assistant. This is timely because the whole picture of teaching assistant employment is and has been on a pendulum of continual change and whilst government research initiatives and updated government policies manipulate the pendulum, there remains a gap in research that identifies specifically, the current state of play in schools. Secondly, this research aims to explore how the implications of identity, status, and professionalism within the workforce, affect both the perceptions and the work role of the teaching assistant. There is currently a trending dichotomy in that the role of the teaching assistant is becoming professionalised whilst the role of the teacher is becoming de-professionalised.

Interviews (via Teams) are also being undertaken internationally, to provide a comparative overview on a global basis for this research.

This is a qualitative study. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is being used as a framework for methodology. In-depth, semi-structured interviews are being used as a method of data collection. In line with the framework of IPA, semi-structured interviews allow for the researcher’s interpretation of the participant’s interpretation of their social reality. Semi-structured interviews are engaged with the exploration of the everyday lived world of the participants and how they make sense of it all (Kvale, 1996). The reader of my research analysis and conclusion will form the third hermeneutic. Individual interviews, in opposition to group interviews, have been chosen and for sample size, 15 participants are being used in conducting the interviews. This sample size should be large enough to be able to analyse and form accurate results. Whilst group interviews offer an advantage in cost-efficiency and time-efficiency (Cohen et al, 2018), I am looking to hear and analyse the individual perceptions and aspirations of the teaching assistant. The interviews are taking place outside of the participant’s school so that they feel free to speak outside of their work area. As a framework for methodology, I chose IPA. As introduced by Jonathan Smith et al (2009), IPA is cognitivist in operation and is used for meaning making on the part of both the participant and the researcher. It examines people’s perceptions of experiences that happen to them, and a participant is asked to reflect on events, circumstances and situations that have been a part of their life or work experience. During the stage of data analysis, I am attempting to make sense out of the meanings and interpretations of their perceptions. IPA is an approach to qualitative research that has an idiographic focus, and it aims to give insights into how a given person (the teaching assistant), in each context (the school), makes sense of a phenomenon (teaching assistants and the current state of play). Grounded in phenomenology, it is distinct because of its combination of psychological, interpretive, and idiographic components. IPA usually draws on the accounts of a small number of people who have certain experiences in common. In the field of this research, the data collection taken from 15 participants, each working in a different school, relates to the analysis of a small group of people. IPA is an ideal framework for the aims and intentions of this study.

There are currently no thoroughly analysed findings as this research is actively underway. In accordance with background literature, there is no definitive role set out for the teaching assistant. As it stands, it is possible to suggest that they are expected to undertake any given duties and tasks, and that they are leaning towards a continually developing pedagogical role in the delivery of lessons to whole classes. Their roles are complex and fragmented (Hancock et al, 2002) and there is an overlap in teaching assistants doing work that was traditionally done by teachers (Hancock et al, 2002). Teaching assistants are reinforcing and delivering teaching points making their role predominantly pedagogical and they are not always trained for this (Blatchford et al, 2004). Changes in schools during the Covid Pandemic led to some teaching assistants delivering lessons on a full-time basis. The introduction of teaching by technology, via video links and formatted schemes of work has already begun and is developing further. It is emerging that many teaching assistants are replacing teachers by being able to lead a preprepared lesson, an online video lesson or a downloaded PowerPoint lesson. The use of artificial intelligence as an online tool for information can assist a teaching assistant in searching for subject knowledge. In my research, I am waiting to find out if technology and AI sites are assisting and affecting the role of the teaching assistant. It is emerging that there is a link between teaching assistants being more economically viable to a school budget and that in some cases, they are filling a gap in teacher shortage areas. I am simultaneously undertaking interviews on an international basis (via video link on Teams) to gain an international perspective on school support staff. Where such interviews cannot be undertaken, I am liaising by email.

Adamson, S. (1999) Review of published literature on teaching assistants, Report for the DfEE teaching Assistants Project, DfEE, London Barber, M (1996) The Learning Game: arguments for an education revolution, Victor Gollancz, London Blatchford P, Russell A, Bassett P, Brown P & Martin C, 2004. The Role and Effects of teaching Assistants in English Primary Schools [Years 4 to 6] 2000 – 2003: Results from the Class Size and Pupil Adult Ratios [CSPAR] KS2 Project: DFES Butt G and Lance A, 2005. Modernising the roles of support staff in primary schools: changing focus, changing function, Educational Review, 57:2, 139-149, DOI: 10.1080/0013191042000308323 Butt G and Lance A, 2009. I am not the teacher!: some effects of remodelling the roles of teaching assistants in English primary schools, Education 3-13, 37:3, 219-231, DOI: 10.1080/0300427080234930 Cajkler, W., Tennant, G., Tiknaz, Y., Sage, R., Taylor, C., Tucker, S., Cooper, P (2007) A systematic literature review on the perceptions of ways in which teaching assistants work to support pupils’ social and academic engagement in secondary classrooms. London: EPPI Centre Central Advisory Council for Education, 1967. The Plowden Report, Children and their Primary Schools. London: HMSO Collins J and Simco N, 2006. Teaching assistants reflect: the way forward?, Reflective Practice, 7:2, 197-214, DOI: 10.1080/14623940600688589 CooperGibson Research (2019) Exploring Teaching Assistants’ appetite to become teachers DfE: London (Ref: RR935) Friedson E, 2001. Professionalism: The third Logic. Cambridge Polity Hancock R & Eyres I, 2004. Implementing a required curriculum reform: teachers at the core, teaching assistants on the periphery? : Westminster Studies in Education, 27:2, 223-235, DOI: 1080/0140672040270210 Hancock, R., Swann, W., Marr, A., Turner, J (2001) Classroom Assistants in the Primary School: Employment and Deployment. ESRC funded project: R000237803 Leithwood, K., Aitken, R., Jantzi, D (2006) Making Schools Smarter: Leading with Evidence Corwin Press