2.2 Volunteers

When we think of the primary school workforce, it is important to remember that some of the adults who carry out support roles in schools are unpaid volunteers. Smith (2011) reported that, in January 2010, there were 126,300 full-time-equivalent teaching assistants employed in local-authority maintained nursery and primary schools in England. This comprises approximately half of the total number of teachers, but the way in which assistants are employed, often on part-time contracts, means that as ‘bodies’ they can equal the number of teachers in any one school.

Local authorities do not, in general, keep figures for volunteer staff, but a national survey of English primary, special and independent schools, conducted in 2000 (LGNTO, 2000), found that each school had an average of 8.5 (includes part-time) volunteer staff. This was admittedly some time ago, and from our impression of the numbers of volunteers who have studied on the OU’s primary education modules, we think this has increased over time. Clearly, volunteers are an important, if somewhat under acknowledged, resource in many schools.