Sufficient staffing is the key to children with additional needs thriving in schools. That is one of the main findings of a piece of government research - quietly published online last week and highlighted by Tes Scotland yesterday.
The research - which involved 11 schools and just over 200 participants, including school staff, pupils with complex needs, and parents and carers - draws attention to the huge impact having enough adults providing support in school can make on the lives of children with complex needs.
It highlights that this can prevent behaviour from escalating to crisis point, and can make the difference between schools being able to offer rich experiences that change lives - and not.
That this research should be published just as Scottish school support staff - classroom and nursery staff, as well as janitors, cleaners and canteen workers - are striking in a bid to secure higher pay helps hammer home the message that they themselves are trying to get across: they are critical to quality education delivery in Scotland.
One of the key ways school support workers are demonstrating their importance is, of course, by showing that when they don’t turn up, schools don’t open.
The Unison strike action on 26, 27 and 28 September is impacting 24 of Scotland’s 32 councils - some councils like Edinburgh have closed their schools and in others, it is a mixed picture. In Glasgow, primary and special schools have closed but 29 secondaries are open to senior pupils.
A placard being held up by those manning picket lines outside Edinburgh schools yesterday morning read: “Less pay; less staff; less safe; less education. Less is not always more.”
‘Staff resourcing is a barrier’
That fewer staff make schools less safe and less able to offer a quality experience is echoed by the government-funded research into provision for pupils with complex needs.
It says: “In all settings, a key enabler or barrier was staff resourcing. Sufficient staff ratios supported integration and access to a broad curriculum.”
The research also flagged the importance of training and the kind of facilities pupils had access to - be that school buildings or outdoor spaces - but the primacy of “resourcing, in particular in relation to staffing”, was clear.
Primary headteachers, in particular, often flag the immense pressure they come under because of a lack of support staff - this can lead to them doing everything from supervising the dinner hall to sweeping floors.
But primary heads say the biggest challenge is that pupils with additional needs are increasingly not coping in class because of inadequate support and when behaviour escalates, it falls to school leaders to step in. That stops them from doing other aspects of their jobs.
Even when there is funding, schools can have issues recruiting to classroom support roles - and then keeping people in them when they do - largely because of low pay.
PSAs essential to smooth running of special schools
At the time of the teacher strikes over pay - which began in Scotland in November 2022 - the president of the Association of Headteachers and Deputes in Scotland, Dr Bernadette Casey, a special school head, said it was not just heads and teachers who deserved better pay - she also said it was time pupil support assistants were given the recognition they deserved.
She said that these highly skilled individuals were essential to the smooth running of special schools, in particular, but that was not reflected in their wages.
So paying support staff appropriately is about decency and fairness, and making sure “pupil support assistants (PSAs)” are not “permanently skint adults” - as one placard carried by a striking classroom assistant put it. Or you don’t have an “early years hero” whose “wallet says zero”, as another placard suggested.
It is also about schools being able to recruit - and retain - these staff that they so desperately need if they are going to be places where all children can thrive. We underestimate the contribution of these committed individuals at our peril.
