**3. Challenges in the deployment of support staff**

A major research project on the use of TAs in schools the *Deployment and Impact of Support Staff* (DISS) was reported in 2009 [16]. The report identified many shortcomings in the ways that TAs were being deployed in schools and the ways in which they were interacting with students in their support roles.

The DISS research team's main areas of focus were around staff preparedness, deployment both in and outside the classroom, the practice of support staff and the impact of support staff.

#### **3.1 Preparedness**


#### **3.2 Deployment of support staff both in and outside the classroom**


### **3.3 The practice of support staff**


#### **3.4 The impact of support staff**

• One positive effect of the involvement of support staff was the effect on teaching staff workloads and their concomitant stress levels and job satisfaction.

Another positive impact of TA involvement in the classroom with the overall level of classroom control and the amount of individual attention available to individual students (though *which* students were receiving individual attention from *which* staff has already been raised as a potential concern).

At the primary school level, access to support from TAs seemed to have little effect on students' positive attitudes to learning; however, at the secondary level, having TA support seemed to help students to be less distractable or disruptive, to help their interactions with peers and to help them work more independently.

Nevertheless, in terms of student progress in English, Maths and Science, there seemed to be a *negative* relationship between the amount of in-class and small group support that students were receiving from TAs and their overall achievement, even controlling for variables such as prior attainment and 'SEN' status.

The DISS report concluded:

*"The picture concerning impact is therefore a mixed one. Though some of the results presented here have identified problems in current deployment and practice we would not want to give the impression that support staff do not have an important role to play. Our general view is that problems may have arisen from assuming that extra support will lead to positive outcomes for pupils without first establishing a clear understanding and view of the role of support staff and how it affects pupils. Classroom based support staff have huge potential in helping teachers and pupils but there are questions raised in this report concerning the way they are currently deployed in schools and this may be one reason why supported pupils may not make as much progress as expected. The findings have wide significance in the context of concern with the lack of progress made by some pupils in school. Given that lower attaining pupils are more likely to be given extra support in schools it is vital that this support is well organised, prepared and effective." [16: 140, my italics]*

The DISS team not only reaffirmed the potential of TAs to be deployed more effectively, but they also made it clear that their conclusions should form the basis for education leaders at all levels to consider support staff in schools in terms of their 'wider pedagogical role' (WPR). That involved taking together TAs' characteristics, conditions of employment, preparedness, deployment, and practice and thinking about these in their wider contexts. The DISS research team's summary report [17] stressed that

"The WPR model can help identify the possible factors and levels that need to be considered when seeking to account for effects of support on academic progress

*It helps show that the effectiveness of support should not be personalised or individualised just to properties of individual pupils or TAs because this would seriously underplay the situational and structural factors within which TAs have to work and which will affect their impact. The practice of support staff therefore needs to be seen in the context of decisions made about their deployment by teachers and headteachers, which are largely outside their [TAs] control, and also in the context of their preparedness and conditions of employment. In reality it is likely that individual characteristics and situational and structural factors will all be important and that there will be a complex interplay of relationships between the various components." [17:9, my italics]*

In fact, in terms of the focus of the rest of this chapter, the importance of context must frame any meaningful and effective consideration of working smarter with teaching assistants to support the inclusion of students with dyslexia. With that

*Perspective Chapter: Learning to Work Smarter with Teaching Assistants to Develop… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107044*

framework in mind, before exploring practical ways forward that support a dyslexiafriendly school, we need to consider how we think about those students who have attracted the label 'dyslexic' in terms of differing models of disability and wider discourses of neurodiversity.
