Classroom Assistants and Their Role

Each year the number of students in schools increases which rises workload of teachers accordingly. A major cause of concern is also the deficit in the number of qualified teachers, which has been estimated as high as 40,000 teachers by the year 2006. On average a teacher during term time spends 52 hours working, including 20% or roughly ten hours a week on tasks not directly involved with their teaching role, such as photocopying and preparing worksheets for classes. It is widely accepted that if there are going to be improvements within the education system, this problem needs to be addressed, reducing the amount of non-teaching work for teachers and encouraging more people into the teaching career. A recently proposed method of modifying the education system in order to help achieve this is to increase the responsibilities and levels of work carried out by classroom assistants.

Classroom assistants are members of the school staff who support fully -qualified teachers, doing non-teaching tasks within the classroom such as preparing materials, photocopying or listening to children read. They undergo the same vetting procedures as all staff working with children, and generally earn between 9,531 and 12,444 a year based on a working week of 32.5 hours, however they generally do not get paid for the school holidays so wages average at only 8000 a year once this is taken into account. The existence of classroom assistants is not a new idea; they have been involved in classrooms for many years, especially when considering the role played by volunteer parents.

A traditional role of the classroom support assistants is also to work closely with children in mainstream schools who have special educational needs (SEN). This is often done on a one to one basis within the class. This provides SEN children the additional individual support that they need, whilst not affecting the education of non-SEN children within the class as far as is possible.

The proposal made by the Government concerning classroom assistants, was that their role should be expanded. That not only would they do basic administration such as photocopying and work with individual pupils (e.g. reading), but that they would take on many of the non-teaching roles of the qualified teaching staff, such as registration. They are to be used more in the assessment of pupil’s literacy and numeracy skills, working with individual pupils that may be struggling. It has also been perceived that classroom assistants will be available to assist qualified teachers in lessons such as physical education and ICT. Although these proposals have been largely met with approval, there is another side to the proposal that has not been so widely accepted as a possibility. This is that classroom assistants would be used to supervise classes involved in project work set by a teacher, and also to teach lessons according to teacher’s lesson plans. This is largely seen as undermining the role of the professionally qualified teachers.

There are obviously advantages of having a more effective level of support in the classroom, though the use of assistants. New proposals could enable new qualified teaching contracts to be drawn up eliminating 25 administrative tasks such as photocopying and the collection of dinner monies. This would enable a guaranteed time of 10% of the school day, for qualified teachers to be involved in the preparation and marking of work. It will also involve the introduction of a level of training steps for classroom assistants depending upon the tasks that they will be undertaking, and possibly lead up to the classroom assistants reaching qualified teaching status (QTS) and becoming teachers themselves.

The Government foresees the need for 50,000 additional classroom support staff in order for the new proposals to be implemented. Considering that the anticipated shortfall of teachers is expected to be 40,000 over the next 4 years, and to gain QTS, it is necessary to be a graduate of University. The idea of introducing classroom support on a larger scale seems to be a more economically viable proposal, freeing more money for the schools themselves. This however has also been viewed, (and such accusations have been made by several teachers unions), as the Government trying to solve the problem “on the cheap”.

Using classroom support staff as cover for absent, sick or holidaying teachers would seem to be an economically viable step. In many cases it would solve the problem of having to use expensive supply teachers when qualified teachers are absent from schools. However, if a classroom support assistant familiar with the school, was able to teach a class based on the notes of the regular qualified teacher, then this too would be a method of saving money from a school’s budget.

There are also considered to be distinct disadvantages of having assistants working with such a high level of involvement in schools. They are not qualified teachers, and regardless of the amount of in-house training they may receive, it is argued that it will not compensate upon the level of training that a teacher has gained through University. They would not have the same amount of knowledge with regards to subject matter as teachers who have studied to degree level have. To gain QTS, a student teacher undergoes all manner of different units of study, including psychology and understanding children’s personalities, as well as the obvious teaching skills. Consider the idea that a classroom assistant be able to teach a class, based upon a teacher’s notes. It is very rare that a teacher can complete a lesson, where there are not several questions from their pupils about the subject matter. A teacher has the relevant information to be able to answer those questions due to their studies. A classroom assistant may not be able to answer such questions and it may lead to pupils being confused and demotivated, they may be put off the subject and not learn anything. The idea of classroom assistants teaching has also been seen as undermining the role of the qualified teacher and their level of responsibility within the school.

Another problem that may be encountered, should classroom assistants be supervising a class whilst a teacher is absent is the level of respect, especially with the older children. The difference in authority of a teacher, and that of a classroom support assistant, although it should not be an issue, will pose problems on the ground of discipline where there are unruly children in a class who acknowledge that the person teaching them is not directly qualified to do so.

The problems of the lack of teachers in the education system and the workload they have, does have to be addressed. Teachers in the current system are regularly stretched beyond their professional capabilities and many are reluctantly leaving. A recent study showed that of all the occupations, teachers had the third highest incidence of stress related sick leave. Utilizing classroom assistants to alleviate some of the problems would be a positive step through the profession. However, when it comes to teaching the students, whether through teaching plans or not, it could be argued that this should be left to the qualified teachers. Absorbing the administration and leaving the teaching to the teachers, is likely to be the best way forward for the teaching profession at the moment, without further damaging the standard of education. Allowing classroom assistants to have a role within the school which involves more than providing support and assistance to the qualified teachers and moving towards teaching, may in the short term provide a certain amount of relief, but it seems to be a short term measure based more on saving money than addressing the real problem.

In conclusion, many people within Education argue that one way to address the problems permanently is to encourage more people to study and train to become qualified teachers. Using classroom assistants to reduce the problem with the lack of qualified teachers in the teaching profession, and the problems of pressure associated with this, is maybe not the answer