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Abstract
This paper reports on an analysis of the impact of a course of school‐based training for primary‐school classroom assistants in ten local education authorities, under the aegis of the Department for Education and Employment Specialist Teacher Assistant programme. Students (n — 155) who successfully completed the course returned a questionnaire in which they provided their assessment of the impact of the course on their personal and professional development, and on their degree of participation in the teaching and learning process in school. It was found that students believed the course had had a significant positive impact on their knowledge and understanding of many aspects of teaching and learning, and on their confidence, adaptability and skills in the classroom. The extent of this impact was largely unrelated to their length of experience in schools. By contrast, students reported that there had been less change in the involvement that teachers provided for them in the teaching and learning process. However, in general, increases in involvement were greatest in those schools in which initial levels of participation had been low. These findings are discussed in the context of a major growth in recent years in the number of primary‐school classroom assistants. We argue that a training programme aimed solely at classroom assistants themselves is unlikely to have a major impact on their roles in the classroom, given the relatively powerless status of this group. On the other hand, more thoroughgoing programmes aimed at changing the professional boundaries between teachers and assistants may meet significant resistance from the teaching profession.
