celebrated. Our parents
notice and like it.”
She paused with a look of remembered
resignation. “But
when we surveyed our support staff - the classroom
assistants, the integration workers, the mid-day
supervisors - they hadn’t a good word to say about
either the display or any other aspect of school life
for that matter.”
In the second school the Head was
telling me of the influence of the secretary. “Well it’s
the same anywhere” she confided. “The secretary
is the key to the whole school. She receives all the confidences of the school
community - the staff, the pupils and the parents.” I immediately
agreed, reflecting that I had already seen one secretary
ruin a school because she would meddle by relaying
messages she should have kept to herself. In the school
where I was talking to the Head Teacher, the secretary
was the hub of its success. She interpreted
moods, received confidences, radiated warmth, humour and
a sheer love of living which was contagious. The children saw
her as the person to whom they gave news each morning
and whose good opinion they sought. Discretion was
her second name; wisdom her first.
At a third school - also a primary
school on an outer-ring estate, I was introduced to “number
three”. I
never quite discovered why she was called ‘number
three”. She
had been there for twelve years or so. They still pay
her as a classroom assistant. She’s more
than that - she’s simply a remarkable human being. She plays the piano, she creates the costumes for
the school play; she organises and takes part in the
annual school trip.
It’s her job (because she would have it no
other way) to organise displays throughout the school
and as the head confides, “I always put her with our
newly qualified teachers. She is such a good role model.”
That set me thinking, as had the
experience in the first school where the support staff
were not involved as the Head’s survey had shown. The Head soon
put matters to rights.
A survey had shown not merely their poor view of
a place where they worked but also below the surface
that they didn’t feel valued. So called ‘non-teaching’
staff had unsurprisingly felt ‘non-persons’. The Head
explained how she had devised a new strategy which had
begun to work and she backed her words with appropriate
action. Money
through LMS was devoted to staff development for all
staff, not simply teachers: the inclusion of support
staff was now a matter of course on curriculum and other
committees. There
was parity of esteem in staff meetings and membership of
the staffroom committee.
Attendance was automatic at in-service days and
there were opportunities to take part in all school
activities, including the selection of all new staff. All this had
occurred within the last three years.
It illustrates how approaches to staff
development have moved on in our more participative and
less hierarchical age.
It’s a good job things have moved on because
the number of support staff in schools has risen, and so
it should. In
so many successful primary classrooms now there are two
paid adults - a teacher and a support worker, variously
called a classroom assistant, learning resources
assistant, sometimes teacher assistant. In a few
classrooms there are paid workers in support of
integration for children with special educational needs.
Recently at the workshops on school
improvement for Heads there was lively debate about the
qualities and characteristics required of good teachers. It’s
relatively easy to describe the competencies expected of
teaching but even more important perhaps to examine the
qualities, characteristics and attitudes. We examine the
published list of a dozen as follows -
