PROFESSOR Gavin McCrone’s vision of classrooms where teachers teach and support staff relieve them of the chores has taken a step closer in Angus with agreement to create 36 extra assistants in the council’s eight secondaries.
In evidence to the original McCrone inquiry into the status of the profession, 87 per cent of class teachers reported that they were swamped by administration and clerical tasks.
Now teachers are to be partly relieved of photocopying, playground supervision and taping of television programmes as a new breed of paraprofessional takes shape, advancing the status of the current school auxiliaries. Their posts, and those of general assistants, will be phased out as the new cadre of assistants takes over.
Angus, one of the first authorities to grasp the support staff issue, is combining funds for introducing the McCrone programme and the national initiative on improving discipline to establish the posts.
The move comes ahead of the review of promoted posts which is due to be implemented by next August.
Assistants will work 25 hours a week and will be expected to be on duty through the lunch break.
“A large number of very high quality applicants have applied for primary school assistant posts and this suggests that the post itself, together with the conditions of service attaching to it, has been attractive to many people of high calibre who are keen to work within our education service,” officials state.
Assistants in secondary schools will be expected to work with teachers on practical classroom activities, and to help with “troubled and troublesome behaviour” and supervise pupils who are working semi-independently.
Their role in improving behaviour picks up the recommendations of the Scottish Executive’s discipline task group which emphasised that lack of supervision during lesson change-overs, intervals and breaks can cause difficulties, as it can on school buses.
South of the border, ministers are promising to recruit an army of support staff. In the past 10 years, the number in England and Wales has trebled to 156,000. A formal career structure is likely to be developed for classroom assistants, who will be able to progress to qualified teacher status.
English teacher unions remain to be convinced that experienced support staff can take some lessons under the eye of the teacher and have threatened action if the assistants’ role is not to their liking.
HOW THEY CAN HELP
Preparing and collating materials, including photocopying.
Cataloguing, storing and retrieving resources.
Assisting with audio-visual equipment.
Inputting data.
Updating wall displays.
Looking after the school minibus.
Supervising on school trips.
Watching during breaks.
Assisting with first aid and administration of medicine for pupils.
Dealing with routine phone calls.
