Supporting our most Challenging Pupils with our Lowest Status Staff: Can Additional Staff in Scottish Schools Offer a Distinctive Kind of Help?

There is increasing use of additional staff (teaching assistants, learning support assistants, behaviour support assistants, special educational needs auxiliaries, classroom assistants) to promote positive discipline and support pupils with behavioural difficulties in school in Scotland. This paper explores some findings from a Scottish Executive funded research project (Munn et al, 2004a), presenting some views of additional staff, pupils, parents and teaching staff on the diverse roles, professional and personal attributes and effectiveness of additional staff. We then discuss the implications of the findings for current policy and practice in relation to additional staff and their place in our classrooms and schools, arguing that they fulfil an important role. Indeed the work of additional staff was argued to play a critical role in maintaining some pupils in mainstream education. However the many different job titles and overlapping remits of these staff may hinder comprehensive understandings of their effectiveness. The marginality of many staff continues to be indicated by short-term contracts, low paid posts, limited access to formal training and 'low status' in the hierarchy of the school. Nevertheless this very marginality may contribute to their often successful relationship with those parents and pupils who most often have hostile and negative interactions with educational professionals.