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The world of the primary school
The world of the primary school

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2.1 Supporting teachers

Jean Ionta works as a pupil support assistant at St Patrick’s Primary School in Glasgow. ‘Pupil support assistant’ has been the preferred name for teaching assistants in Scotland. They often provide both specialist learning support and more general support to teachers. While filming at the school, we focused on Jean as she went about her work with children and staff. We put these aspects of her work together to give a sense of her day and the professional and personal skills she brings to her role.

Activity 3 A day in the life

Timing: Allow about 30 minutes

As you watch the following video, note how Jean goes about her work, how she describes it, and how others portray her contribution. Note in particular how she puts an emphasis on children’s social and personal development and her part in this. Jot down your thoughts in the box below.

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Transcript: Video: Jean

[CHILDREN PLAYING]

JEAN:
What's wrong? What's up?
BOY:
Dominic was following me.
JEAN:
Dominic's following you? And what is he?
BOY:
He was copying me as well.
JEAN:
I think he just wants to play with you and be your friend. Do you want to just be his friend?
SUSAN O'DONNELL:
Jeanne is one of our PACs here. She's in the yard every morning at a quarter to nine. Two mornings a week, she starts at 8:00 clock and picks up all the photocopying before she goes into the yard.
JEAN:
Dominic, I need you to come to me, OK? Thomas wants to be your friend. So what do you do? Shake hands. Shake hands.
DOMINIC:
Sorry.
JEAN:
Sorry? OK. On you go. All right.
The value for the children is they're getting a chance to meet their friends before they come into the school, play with their friends, relax a wee bit. So they're coming into a fun situation in the yard. They come in and meet their friends, play, chat, talk about what they did last night. And they're coming in a good half hour by the time they're going to class. They're nice and chilled out, and in a good frame of mind to start the day.
There's this problem with it.
BOY:
That ball was over there.
JEAN:
They're playing with that ball.
Got to be very calm because there's a lot going on out there, and they do get into all these arguments. But you have to keep the peace because the children have to be able to rely on you and trust you. And they've got to know that you're listening.
TEACHER:
Good.
JEAN:
Wish I had your umbrella this morning, Kaelish. Mrs. [INAUDIBLE] getting soaked this morning.
TEACHER:
We thank God for our morning, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Stand in a nice, prayerful position, please.
SUSAN O'DONNELL:
Her main duty is that Jean is an additional support for learning, PSA. Jean has a nurture qualification, and she works 0.7 in the nurture rooms.
JACQUELINE WHITE:
--this morning is we're going to finish our puppets that we started yesterday. Now Michael, you were off, but we've sorted that for you, OK? So I wonder, Mrs. [INAUDIBLE], could you get the puppets?
JEAN:
Certainly.
JACQUELINE WHITE:
Michael, could you go and get five paper towels? Could you go and get seven glue sticks, please?
Jean takes on an awful lot of the responsibility that I could do, but she's very good and she's very capable. And it's through years of experience in working together and developing that team that we've got to where we are.
BOY:
A double six.
JEAN:
That's a really good-- that's a good friend. You're going to share your play piece with her. I think she's going to be changing from that sad face to a happy face.
JACQUELINE WHITE:
You've got to work very well together. You get to know each other pretty well, each other's strengths. When I'm in the nurture room, it's teamwork.
JEAN:
All right, have a seat. Where we sitting? Right I'll come over here. Oh, it's fair. He doesn't mind having a paper plate, do you, Michael?
We've got a new boy who's just joined us, and is from Chinese background. English is his second language. So he's needing a wee bit extra help because he may not fully understand what the class teacher is explaining. So I'll be there just to sort of explain, just to really help him in any way I can.
SUSAN O'DONNELL:
At lunchtime, Jean also does the toothbrushing in conjunction with our toothbrushing project for primaries one and two. And at the end of the day on a Tuesday, she stays behind and she helps with the drama and dance.
JEAN:
Anything that they wanted to be. I don't know the dance. I think Laura's been doing to dance with them.
TEACHER:
That right, that one.
JEAN:
I think they're getting to know it, though. They were practicing it earlier on. Where do they stand, Mrs. O'Donnell? Are they all to stand just in a group.
I've been chosen to help because, for my recreational time, I do a wee bit of dancing. I'll do line dancing.
You're helping out with the singing. You're helping out with the singing.

[PIANO PLAYING]

Three, four.
SUSAN O'DONNELL:
And!
CHILDREN:
(SINGING) We could have been anything that we wanted to be.
JEAN:
I think it's just a great outlet for them, great way of letting off steam and just feeling good about themselves, because it's a good fun thing to do. I think the difference between myself and a teacher is the children are more relaxed with me. So I may be seeing the child in a different way. And I'm there to just support them.
CHILDREN:
(SINGING) We're the very very best at being grand.
End transcript: Video: Jean
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Discussion

Near the very end of the video, Jean states that she feels ‘the children are relaxed with me’. This is a comment that appears to point to the many relationship-making opportunities that are shown in this video. Learning-support work fosters the making of relationships with children in a way that is perhaps not always possible for qualified teachers. They often need to stand back to adopt more of an ‘overseeing’ and leadership role for large groups of pupils. In their close work with children, teaching assistants can have important and different teaching opportunities. We would argue that, perhaps more than teachers, teaching assistants have openings to develop approaches that are ‘intuitive’ (Houssart, 2011) and ‘nurturing’ (Hancock, 2012).