Information on Strand 2

In the 2007-08 school year we will be performing the second wave of Strand 2 of the project, which examines the impact of support stuff on pupil attainment in more detail.

This Strand involves two different aspects:

- data collection

- case studies

We would like to invite schools to participate in one or both of these aspects of the research, which will provide the most thorough information yet on the way schools are making use of support staff and the benefits for pupils and teachers. It is anticipated that this will make a significant contribution to school practice and policy.

If you would like to participate please contact Penelope Brown on 020 7612 6036 or at p.brown@ioe.ac.uk.

More details on each of these two apsects of the research are given below:

1. Data Collection

An aim of this phase of the project is to examine the association between the level of support that pupils recieve and their progress in attainment over the school year. An additional aim to also examine the effect of support upon pupil behaviour.

In order to carry out this work we would require the Summer 07 test results of specific year groups, teacher ratings of pupil behaviour for a small selection of those pupils (carried out in the summer term 08) and the UPNs (England only) of individual pupils.

Information concerning the identity of the schools and pupils involved will all be confidential and all findings will be anonymised.

2. Case Studies

Introduction

The case study visits will involve a visit to the school from one of our researchers, and will take place over three days at an agreed time in either the Autumn term 2007 or Spring term 2008.

Shadowing

The first two days of the visit would be spent ‘shadowing’ class-based support staff: a Teaching Assistant, HLTA, Cover Supervisor or equivalent post holders. Each day would be spent with a different support staff member, making a total of two support staff shadowed per school. These would be whole days, from the time the staff member begins their day in the school (whether this is contracted or non-contracted time), until the time they leave (including any additional time spent working beyond their contracted hours).

The purpose of the shadowing is to build a complete picture of how support staff are deployed by schools and individual teachers. Researchers would record a descriptive account of the tasks carried out by the support staff inside and outside the classroom.

Audio-recordings

At least one lesson during each of the two days would involve an audio-only recording of the teacher’s and support staff’s interactions with pupils. Small digital voice recorders would be attached to the teacher and to the support staff and remain switched on for the duration of the lesson. The purpose of the recordings is to allow a better understanding of the interactions between class-based support staff and pupils. The teacher recording would provide a basis for comparison. We will NOT be making any judgements or assessment of the teaching/support observed. The recordings will be transcribed and analysed only for their content by a separate member of the research team following the visit. It is essential that all participants are clear that no staff or pupil would be identified in the transcriptions or any subsequent reports or papers published about the research.

Interviews

The third and final day would be used to interview the two support staff and the two teachers who had been observed and whose interactions with pupils had been recorded. These would be one-to-one semi-structured interviews, recorded for later transcription, again with complete confidentiality and anonymity. Nothing said in the interviews would be shared with anyone else in the school and this would be clearly explained at the start of each interview.

The interviews would provide the opportunity for the staff to explain what had been seen by the researcher and for points of interest to be explored. Each of the teacher and support staff interviews would last about 35 minutes.

In addition, we would like to interview two different post holders from the administrative support staff, with the focus on workload, hours, contracts, additional posts, tasks transferred from teachers and general issues concerning their roles within the school. No observations would be involved. Confidentiality and anonymity would be preserved as with all data gathered during the visit. These interviews would last for about 20 minutes.

Finally, we would like to interview the headteacher in order to ask some broader questions about school policy and procedures regarding support staff deployment and impact, and to gather essential contextual data about the school and the community it serves.

Documentation

It would help in the analysis process if the teacher(s)/class-based support staff could provide the researcher with a copy of their lesson plans for the ‘shadowing’ day and any associated documents (e.g. pupil support plans) that they are able to share. We do not intend that staff should prepare documents purely for the benefit of the researcher, merely provide a copy of what they would usually produce and/or use.

Consent

Obtaining the permission of all affected parties is essential, particularly where the recording of lessons is involved. Therefore, observations and lesson recordings will only be allowed to take place with the express permission of the support staff and the teacher in whose lesson they would be working.