Impact of support staff in schools

This DCSF paper is the third report from a five year study (2004-09) providing information on the types, characteristics and deployment of support staff in schools in England and Wales and their impact on teaching and learning.

Key points:
- Support staff spend most of their time on support for the school in two ways:
1. administrative/communicative activities (1.7 hours on average per day),
2. support for the school’s (physical environment (1.4 hours).
Overall, support staff spent more time supporting the school than pupils (3.1 vs.1.7 hours).

- The single most common individual activity was working with one pupil (29%). This was particularly true of secondary schools. Followed by listening to the teacher teach (20%), and then working with different pupils by ‘roving’ around the class (16%) - again most true of secondary schools. The next most common activity was working with a group of pupils (15%) and this was much more common in primary schools. At secondary level, classroom based support staff therefore tended to work with individuals and walk around the classroom, while at primary level support staff worked with groups of pupils.

- Teachers were mostly positive about the impact of support staff on teaching. Support staff helped by bringing specialist help; allowing more teaching overall; affecting the curriculum/tasks/activities offered; and taking on specific pupils.

- The presence of support staff had a beneficial effect on pupils. First, support staff allowed more individualisation of attention. Second, there seemed to be benefits in terms of classroom control as a result of support staff presence.

- The presence of support staff had a beneficial effect on pupils in terms of allowing pupils to have a more active role in interactions with adults. There was also evidence that the presence of support staff increased the amount of classroom engagement. However, this might have resulted in less active interaction with the teacher.

- Teachers were mostly positive about the impact of support staff on pupil behaviour and
learning. They felt that support staff affected learning/behaviour through taking on specific pupils; bringing specialist help to the teacher & classroom; having a positive impact on the pupils’ behaviour, discipline, social skills or behaviour; and by allowing individualisation and differentiation.

- It was noticeable that teachers and headteachers tended not to refer to pupil attainment and learning when addressing the benefits and effects of support staff, even when they were considering classroom based support staff and were specifically asked to consider effects on pupil behaviour and learning. Instead comments were more about effects on teachers and teaching than pupil outcomes.