Ian Eyres

Implementing a required curriculum reform: teachers at the core, teaching assistants on the periphery?

This paper considers the part played by teaching assistants in the implementation of the National Literacy and National Numeracy Strategies, two widespread UK government reforms. Evidence from two sources of evaluation (the Ontario Institute in Canada and OfSTED, the school inspectorate for England) indicates that assistants are providing ‘remedial’ support for up to 25% of children in English primary schools. However, although the evaluators note this, they fail to truly acknowledge the important contribution of assistants to the functioning of the Strategies. The paper argues that the lack of acknowledgement arises from the evaluators’ view of teaching assistants as ‘peripheral’ and teachers as ‘core’. This does assistants a great disservice, but also masks the shortcomings of the Strategies, particularly with regard to the way in which a required pedagogy, linked to targets and tests, has created an exclusionary pressure leading to the separation of teaching by teachers and assistants, respectively.

‘Whoops, I forgot David’: children's perceptions of the adults who work in their classrooms

This article reports on the findings of a small‐scale study into the perceptions of 78 primary school children regarding the adults in their classrooms. The data show that children easily differentiate between their own class teacher and other adults, but report a substantial overlap between the activities of teachers and teaching assistants. Some express the difference in terms of status rather than role. Accounts call into question the notion that teaching assistants ‘help’ rather than teach and that there is a clear division of labour between them and teachers. Teachers and assistants are seen as working in an interdependent way, with each making a significant contribution to childrens learning. The difficulties of using childrens language as evidence are considered and it is concluded that the notion of a ‘remodelled’ primary school workforce needs to take into account the ways in which teachers and assistants maintain fluid working relationships.

They Call Me Wonder Woman: The Job Jurisdictions and Work-Related Learning of Higher Level Teaching Assistants.

This paper reports on an in‐depth interview study of the roles, job jurisdictions and associated learning of higher level teaching assistants (HLTAs). This role has the core purpose of covering classes to enable teacher release for planning, preparation and assessment. HLTAs’ individual job jurisdictions are described and discussed as are implications for their knowledge and practice. The HLTAs are found to have wide‐ranging job domains and, sometimes, unexpected involvements which mean they have to improvise practice. The study acknowledges that these HLTAs are being creatively managed and deployed by head teachers for the sake of teachers and schools. However, they are, at times, required to take on planning and cover duties which are beyond their knowledge and training with a likely impact on children’s learning. Given their training and experience it is asked if covering classes to release teachers is the most effective use of their abilities and time.

Language learning at Key Stage 2: findings from a longitudinal study

This paper discusses some of the findings from a 3-year longitudinal study of language learning in the upper stage of English primary schools, i.e. at Key Stage 2. This largely qualitative study (commissioned by the then Department for Children, Schools and Families) was designed to explore and document developing provision and practice in a sample of primary schools that had chosen to introduce language teaching ahead of the proposal that it should become part of statutory requirements. The research team examined the approaches and mechanisms these schools were using to develop and maintain language learning and teaching, teachers’ and childrens attitudes towards language learning and childrens achievement in oracy and literacy, as well as considering the possible broader cross-curricular impact of language learning. This paper goes on to consider some of the implications for embedding language learning and teaching in English primary schools.

Conceptualising writing and identity

This chapter uses relevant recent literature and, where appropriate, interview data giving the reflections of writers and teachers to explore the relationship between writing, writing pedagogy and identity. It begins by exploring the ways in which personal identities are constructed and enacted by individuals acting in social and cultural contexts. The complementary phenomena of subjectivity, the personal sense of self and personal agency, and situated performance and the accumulation of social relations and personal narratives are considered in order to illuminate the ways in which individuals arrive at identities which are fluid and multiple. The role of narrative, language and personal agency in this process is explored. This account provides a basis for a review of the place of identity in life. The chapter moves on to consider what it means to assume a literate identity. Here literacy is seen not simply as a cognitive task to be mastered, but rather as an activity which is always rooted in social and cultural interactions, which in turn are played out in a wider ideological context. Literacy events and literacy practices, which both draw on and help form literate identities will be shown to be central to the understanding of literacy itself. The positive and negative impacts of literacy on personal identity will be considered, as well as the especially strong link between writing and identity.Finally, the ways in which writers may assume and enact identities related to the practice of writing are examined in detail.

Assessing English within the Arts

About the book: This book provides a distillation of knowledge in the various disciplines of arts education. These include dance, drama, music, literature, poetry and visual arts. The handbook synthesizes existing research literature, helps define the past, and contributes to shaping the substantive and methodological future of the respective and integrated disciplines of arts education. While research can at times seem distant from practice, the Handbook aims to maintain connection with the lived practice of art and of education, capturing the vibrancy and best thinking in the field of theory and practice.

Primary Teaching Assistants Curriculum in Context

Teaching assistants are uniquely placed to support childrens involvement with learning through the curriculum. This book explores those issues that are central to that process. Specifically it examines: strategies for supporting learning and assessment in English, maths and science; inclusive and imaginative practices in all areas of learning; home and community contexts for learning; and working practices which support professional development. This book is written primarily for learning support staff, their teaching colleagues and those responsible for professional development and training.