Rationale

In-house observations and a 2016 Redcar & Cleveland College Ofsted report support published research (Sharples, Webster and Blatchford, 2015; Sanders, 2017) which indicated that learning support provision was often both neglected and ineffectively utilised in classrooms and workshops. This project was identified as an opportunity to give sustained attention to the valuable potential of SSAs that are too often taken-for-granted and not fully exploited within College teaching and learning relationships.

The project aimed at:

1. Enabling teachers to implement strategies to help learners requiring support to take increased responsibility for their learning.
2. Providing a forum for teachers and Student Support assistants to develop collaborative strategies that would challenge learners.

Project Activities and Outputs

Approach and Methdology

The Project Leader used her role as a college-wide Teaching and Learning Practitioner (TLP) to select a team of six tutors, six SSAs and three TLPs to promote more effective partnerships between tutors and SSAs in implementing strategies to aid learners’ self-assessment. The team engaged in a regular programme of professional development activities to ensure that the learning support experience was rigorously investigated.  Both SSAs and teachers were supported to engage in action research.  This support paid special attention to ensuring that all participants could attend, and when possible, occasional events were held in local hotels with a meal provided to create protected time so that established working arrangements could be made more professionally focused.  This approach helped create commitment to the project and to the other participants.  It enabled a re-evaluation of existing relationships, and created a motivating ethos of respect and purpose between teachers and SSAs, who expressed pride in the newly-formed professional learning community.

The initial action research activities included comparing the SSAs’ and teachers’ experiences of student support with findings and guidance from published literature.  The team held fortnightly meetings and planned paired experimental approaches in classes, which increased both team cohesion and participants’ professional learning about what SSAs and teachers could achieve through working together.  Information about the role and challenges for SSAs was collected from focus group discussion; questionnaires; observations of practice; artefacts produced by learners; and teachers’ and SSAs’ reflective diaries.

What Changes Were Made? What Did the Project Produce?

The project team identified that much existing advice about successful teacher and assistant relationships focused on providing protected joint planning time.  The practitioners realised that this might seem a good idea, but attempts at joint planning were often frustrated by practical realities, so they began to concentrate on producing resources that would stimulate attention to learners’ needs within the lesson, when teachers and SSAs could effectively intervene and respond to immediate needs.  The SSAs began working with teachers and introduced a range of practical activities (e.g. review tickets) to help learners recognise and record their progress and “sticking points”.  These “Interim Review tickets” were based upon “Exit tickets”, but in this project, instead of waiting until the learning session had finished, they were introduced midway through the session, so that meaningful discussions about the session could be held, and any barriers could be addressed.  (These can be found in Appendix1).    These classroom experiments by teacher and SSA pairings led to a variety of stimuli, including mind maps, learning mats and “question stem” cards (also in Appendix 3) being used and evaluated.  These practical resources prompted better in-class communication between learner, SSA and teacher during sessions when the teacher and SSA could take immediate action.

The results of these sessions were recorded by both the SSAs and the teachers in their individual diaries (which had been purchased through the project) and the diary reflections were shared at a series of breakfast meetings and awaydays for the project team. (See Appendix 4 for examples of the diaries.)

Professional Learning

Evidence of changes in teaching, learning and assessment practices.

Towards the end of the project team members were asked to evaluate their participation and identify any changes to their teaching, learning and assessment practices.  The enclosed Padlets provide an overview of their findings and indicate that the whole process has been extremely beneficial to all participants as learners’ progress has been made more “visible”, and staff have been better placed to respond.  Staff feedback in the Padlets also provide further evidence of improved collaboration between tutors and SSAs and clearly relate to addressing the Professional Standards. The organisation has supported the project and it is hoped the good work carried out to date will be developed further in the coming academic year.

Evidence of improved collaboration and changes in organisational practices

The project lead organised dedicated in-house and external CPD opportunities for SSAs and teachers which provided an excellent basis for practice development, as responsive strategies were introduced by classroom partnerships who were enjoying a new level of research-informed professional relationship.  Tutors and SSAs reported more effective working relationships. SSAs stated that during the project, their contributions, skills and knowledge have been more widely acknowledged, and teachers acknowledge a new recognition of the potential of SSAs contributions. Teachers and SSAs were both using and contributing to educational theory.  The practical resources and strategies from the project were rolled out to all 73 teaching staff in the Autumn term as part of an organisational CPD event.

Further in-house sessions were organised following the project extension including a training session exploring more effective use of formative assessment and feedback.  The project team focused on Hattie’s model of feedback levels and how these could be applied in practice.  They also considered the use of Directed Improvement and Reflection Time (DIRT) for learners.  During this session the team agreed on new approaches to supporting learners which were implemented and regularly reviewed at fortnightly team meetings before final evaluation at the end of the project.

“The changes when the SSA isn’t in the classroom are significant”

– Teacher

“We have learned that it is possible to introduce change and that even small changes can make a huge difference to how people work together to promote learning.”

– SSA