from the lamb report re TAs

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There is a negative impact on children?s progress from using support staff as
substitutes for teachers.41 There is a clear relationship between support from
teaching assistants (TAs) and lower attainment and slower rates of progress for
pupils with SEN. Further, there is a relationship between the amount of support
received from TAs and pupil attainment: the more support, the lower the
attainment.

Bet your bottom dollar LA's will respond by refusing 1:1 support rather than improving it's quality.

It comes from the Institute of Education report in the summer:

The Guardian

My LA already refuse 100% LSA hours on the basis they have to "hold some hours back" to stop the dependency that develops between the chid and LSA - I asked whether it wouldn't be better to train the LSA staff better to avoid the dependency problem in the first place in that it seemed a failure by the adult to do their job properly ie facilitate play with other children rather than become the playmate! I raised the report Lamb quotes from and was told this couldn't possibly relate to ASD children it must be all those terrible SEBD children in the big cities dragging the results down (you know the ones with the really s**t parents).

I thought LA's refused 100% LA time because it could never be retracted. Full-time is more of an absolute than say, 80%, which looks less bad cutting down to 60% than full-time becoming 80% or whatever.

I'm planning to get 'reduce dependency on TA' written in the IEP this half-term.

TA's role should be 100% facilitator, not siamese twin!

mind theywill use that all the time,but its not like that for all
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ds will approach the other members of staff quite happily but they cant understand him and he cant understand them .

but then his lsa pretty crap to , im more worried if i push and she eventually gets more training so taht she is any good that they might use that exscuse to change lsa each year

I just think they've got it backwards: the lower the attainment (i.e. the less able/ most impaired child), the more support they get. I don't get how they've reversed the cause and effect .

100% 1:1 does exist. J gets about 116% so there's liaison time built in for the TA to work with other agencies like autism support/ SALT.

But then I'm stroppy mum who insisted the 100% happened. Extra bit was a sweetener to persuade junior school to keep him, I think.

Exactly GMS

Our Head has amdeall the non statement provided ta's redundant to save costs. No idea whhat will happen to DS2 and all the other SA /SA+ kids now!

well in our case ie less able /more support is not the case, it might be for main stream but definitely not special school - in our situation in SS i would say more violent /more support, least able to complain/do anything = least support.

Agree with giveme. Of course children with more support have lower attainment. Ds1 had 100% 1:1 at mainstream. He's non verbal with sld's -and frankly his attainment should be measured differently from a mainstream child (it is now thank goodness). What progress would they expect him to make?

missmarple, true - 'challenging' kids also tend to get most support.

And hi, saintlydame, how're things?

Sorry bit confused, the op states there is a relationship between support from TAs and lower attainment. Which I can quite understand and the need to reduce reliance on them for SOME children. For example op said it was to be written into the IEP to 'reduce dependency on TA' but in the last post now wanting 100% 1:1. Is there a happy medium?

In the past i 'nannyied' for a SN child who's TA did everything for her down to writing etc and in 5yrs of school she actually went backwards due to this, she moved schools and the new school promoted 'assistance to do' rather than 'doing for' the child and she started to become more independent and was able to attend college with minimal support.

Depends on the environment julie. In mainstream ds1 required full time 1:1 to keep him safe. In his sld school the environment is safe (locked doors and high fences) so he can have more independence.

Hi giveme- bloody awful - no transport so special schools are shut. How are things with you?

Not bad thanks, though finding the snow is disrupting everything left, right and centre and J is finding the change to routine very very difficult. That's rubbish for you about transport - is school shut purely because of that or have they got other issues?

The Deployment and Impact of Support Staff project (DISS) was a 5 year evaluation hence why it argues the causal relationship between TA support and attainment.

I imagine that no comparison group was used as this is not available in our current educational system (TA support is widespread).

The project was government funded - this makes the results for me even more interesting! Although I am yet to see any government repsonse.

TAs have responded to the authors of DISS with agreement, that they have been set up to do a job that they are not trained to do - teach. They feel they are there to assist.

The project proposes a new model of deployment of support staff that is likely to be helpful to schools and more importantly promote positive outcomes for children and young people who are vulnerable to the failings of the current system

You can google the project to see all reports.
www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/RB776