Well, another school year is drawing to an end, accompanied by all the usual tears and trauma. Year six will soon become small fish in a much bigger pond. End of year assemblies will leave us all feeling like wrung out wash cloths and we’re definitely looking forward to that chilled glass of something special at the end of the final day.

OK, I know that many of us will be in school at some point over the holidays, sweeping, sorting and generally preparing for next term, but we will still feel mentally liberated.

So, what will you do next year? Will you be working with the same year group? Or are you moving on to pastures new? I expect there will be mixed feelings here. Many of us embrace change, but some people find the prospect of unfamiliarity quite daunting. Even a bit scary.

Whatever your role is to be next term, enjoy it.
I’ve decided to change the blog slightly next term to focus on TA training and development needs.
I intend to take a good look at the courses on offer and choose different topics that match the course criteria.
That way, I hope, the blog will be of some use.

I know that, for some people, formal training courses aren’t an option. Whether due to time constraints, lack of cash, resources, accessible venue…whatever…sometimes it just isn’t going to happen for some TAs. So, in a small way, I’ll be able to help.

Next term, look out for the headings. These will link to units of the Supporting Teaching and Learning in Schools qualifications. I’ll try to explain the units in a straightforward way.

I hope you will let me know if there are specific units you’re finding tricky. I’ll do my best to explain them clearly and to point you in the direction of training books and websites that you may find useful.

Together, we can decode the gobbledegook and clarify exactly what some of the standards mean.

It’s difficult to cope with bereavement as an adult. Life as we’ve known it ceases to be the same and we struggle to understand why someone close to us has been taken away. Sometimes we feel anger…at outsiders who don’t understand how we feel, at friends and family, often we feel anger at the person who has passed away, who has abandoned us.

If it’s so hard for us adults to cope, to understand and deal with loss, then how can we expect children to understand death?

I’d noticed M quietly digging alone when I was observing a TA running the gardening club. The other children would occasionally glance across. One or two approached him, offered him the watering can, some seeds, that kind of thing. Mostly people just left him alone, digging quietly. I did briefly wonder about him but concentrated on the TA leading the group.

At the end of the club, when all the parents and carers had picked up the children, M walked slowly to where his brother was waiting. I heard the TA remind them both to go straight to Gran’s house, and I waited for her to rejoin me. She explained that M’s Mum had died the day before but he had wanted to come to school – to carry on as normal – as if anything ever could be normal again for a child of 8 who’d lost his mother.

The following month I was back in the school and chatting with the TA about the merits of gardening. I’ve always thought it a great idea to involve the kids as much as possible. The TA explained that the children had drawn up a seasonal plan for the growing areas. They decided what was to be grown and, in addition to this, they had mapped out different parts of the garden for different uses. Onions, potatoes, runner beans and such in a particular area, flowers for cutting in another. What surprised me was the area they had marked out for use as a remembrance garden. They wanted a quiet area where any child could go to reflect, an area where bereaved children could sit and remember in peace. When a child felt stressed, lost, sad, they could go to the remembrance garden.

To see these youngsters considering the feelings of their classmates in this way brought a huge lump to my throat.

It’s there now.

How are your powers of observation? If someone asks you what happened five minutes ago could you tell them accurately? How about one minute ago? In fact, tell me what’s happening right now.

We sometimes have to observe pupils and complete formal records outlining what we have noticed about them. Sounds easy doesn’t it? But it can be trickier than it seems.

For instance, think of a disagreement during playtime. Now try to describe what happened from the point of view of someone taking part in the disagreement. The accounts will vary from person to person, depending upon their involvement. Witnesses may only see a part of the whole picture, or they may make assumptions about what actually happened based upon the little bit they did see. There is a temptation to elaborate and give our own reasons why people act in the way that they do.

Some of us will be be asked to formally observe children as part of our TA role and it’s important to be completely objective when we do so. TAs who work with very young children carry out observations all the time. They understand the importance of making clear comments that clearly state the facts. For instance, “J stands on one leg for five seconds. P catches ball with two hands.”

For some of us though, it’s a difficult area. We may see our role primarily as giving support for day to day learning and it can be difficult to take a step back sometimes and just watch.

Why not try a bit of people watching now? Sit quietly and observe. In school, see how the one child takes in new information or how another child interacts with their peers. Put your objective head on and think about what is actually happening, what the children are actually doing.

To be able to make an objective observation is a valuable skill. It helps us to assess children’s knowledge, their motor skills, vocabulary and a host of other things, just by watching, listening and recording exactly what they do and what they say – in their exact words.

How good are you at identifying your strengths? Go on then, list five things that make you a fantastic TA. Done it?

Now think about the areas you need to develop. Not so easy is it?

It’s important to be constantly updating our knowledge and skills but if we are blind to our own development needs then how are we to make a start? Some schools don’t even carry out appraisals on support staff. It’s easy to feel dejected. Why bother?

I believe training is important. It’s vital for our development but it doesn’t have to be formal. Training courses are great if you are lucky enough to get on one, but informal CPD is good too. Reading a magazine article can be just as useful as sitting in a classroom and being taught. There are some fantastic resources on-line just waiting to be discovered by us and used in our work with the children.

Learning Support Magazine is a prime example of how on-line materials can be used for CPD. It’s really easy to browse through the magazine to find the information you need. Past issues have covered just about every subject you can think of, from how to support children with communication difficulties to how to produce stunning displays. Just check the index and go to the relevant issue. Click on the cover to read the magazine. It couldn’t be easier.

Websites can be useful. Try typing Primary resources in your address bar and see what pops up. One of my old favourites is Woodlands Junior School which has great links to games and activities.

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/

But there are dozens of great sites to look at. Don’t take my word for it. Have a google for yourself and see how much you can learn.

In a few days time the kids will all be back at school for the start of the summer term This is my favourite term of all. The children are settled into their routines and the teachers and support staff are now very aware of each child’s particular needs. We have had the chance to observe the children at work and we are well aware of each child’s strengths and their preferred style of learning.

Most people agree that active learning is the best way to learn. Gone are the days of learning facts by rote. Recall of facts may once have been needed in order to pass tests, but they aren’t much use in daily life. After all, when will I actually need to recite the names of the rivers of Yorkshire?

Thinking skills, the ability to solve problems and to reason, and the ability to analyse facts, are now seen as far more useful for children in this day and age. One great way to do this is to constantly ask questions. ‘Why did that happen?’  ’How can we prevent…?’  ’What if…?’

In the eighties, an Australian called Tony Ryan developed this even further by creating different ways to encourage critical thinking. In his book ‘Thinkers Keys For Kids’ he explains how to encourage children to become thinkers. He recommends activities that can be used to get children into the habit of analysing information, solving problems and interacting with information to form conclusions.

I used to regularly use ‘Thinkers Keys’ as starter activities. When children came into class at the start of the day or after lunch, there would be a thinking activity written on the board for them to complete. My favourite one was to give them an answer, for example – The Rain Forest. They would have to think of five different questions that could only have the rain forest as the answer. Another popular activity was to find different uses for an object, for example – Find ten different uses for egg boxes.

There are loads of other ideas on his website. Well worth a look.

I’ve pasted a link below, but you could just type ‘Tony Ryan Thinkers Keys’ into the address bar.

http://www.kurwongbss.eq.edu.au/thinking/Think%20Keys/keys.htm

The last few weeks have seen me revisiting places I haven’t seen for years. My old secondary school seems a lot smaller now than it did when I was there. The corner shop still stands, albeit with a new face behind the counter. The proprietor  in my hey day was a frosty old man who used to admit pupils in ones and twos. It used to be a favourite stopping off point for all of us on the way to school. I remember his younger assistant would sell the more daring amongst us two cigarettes and a match in a paper bag. The off-licence was gone; a sign of the times I suppose. I recall cider used to be the tipple of choice, especially before the Friday night disco at the Cricket Club.

I know you’re thinking, ‘she’s lost the plot’ but I just wanted to share a few thoughts. You see, I’ve been reflecting a lot lately, remembering the scrapes I got into and the dodgy characters I hung around with, and I realise that I am the way I am because of those scrapes and those characters. If I’d had a totally sheltered, restricted upbringing, I wouldn’t be who I am.

When I walk through secondary schools these days I can see so many similarities between the kids today and those of my generation. Puberty, teenage angst, friendships, romances; so much is going on it’s a wonder they can focus on lessons at all. The TAs I see spend a lot of time supporting the children emotionally. They are able to see the bigger picture, and they understand the importance of settled friendships and emotional stability in children. They  are impartial, yet the fact that they listen and understand helps to remove some of the worry from the shoulders of the young people.

Leaving them to focus on learning.

I’ve just followed a van for a few miles down the motorway. I could have overtaken it but I was mesmerised by the writing on the rear window. Apostrophes were scattered randomly throughout the message on the van and I just had to keep reading.

Maybe I was wrong? Maybe there really should be an apostrophe in plurals. Or maybe the sign writers had a bit too much paint and thought they would use it up by sticking commas and apostrophes in odd places. It certainly entertained me on an otherwise boring journey.

Except, well to be honest, it brought home a sad truth. A lot of us just aren’t comfortable with apostrophes, plurals, spellings and the like. And that’s ok. I’m not knocking anyone. It just made me think that’s all. It made me question…why? Why are so many adults left wondering how to punctuate a simple sentence? Have we grown so used to texting each other that we have forgotten how to write properly? Do we, as TAs, struggle to formulate a proper sentence? And if so, how does that affect the children we support?

The common mistakes children seem to make are with ‘there’ ‘their’ and ‘they’re’ and with knowing when to use apostrophes for possession or omission. When adults have difficulty remembering which spelling to use they often rely on prompt sheets, but I think it would be better to make up rhymes or songs to help remember.

One song we use with the children is:

There, their, they’re,

Three ways to spell,

T H E R E (spell it out) is over there (point into the distance)

T H E I R their house, their dog, their car,

T H E Y apostrophe R E, they are dancing on the streets, they are going crazy.

Yes, it’s daft. I know. But it DOES help them to remember.

To me reading is a magical process. I’ve always loved books, simple as that. As a child I was a member of the book worm club and devoured books at a great pace. I looked forward to my weekly comic. As soon as I heard the sound of Bunty landing on the mat I was there, like a shot. I was over the moon whenever I received a book as a prize or a gift. I still have my little Ladybird books from junior school, a bit bruised and tattered, but still cracking good little books.

And so it saddens me when I see children who find the thought of reading terrifying. I just wonder what has happened to turn them off books so completely.

It’s not hard to work out though is it. It’s so easy to rob a child of confidence. A thoughtless comment from an adult, a callous remark from a sibling. Worst of all is the child’s own knowledge that they aren’t progressing as quickly as their classmates. They stumble over words and then the fear begins.

How can we help?

Just a few minutes each day can make a huge difference.A teacher I know used to say ‘Drip, drip, drip,’ meaning you don’t notice a dripping tap until the sink is full. He set up paired reading in our class. Every day, straight after lunch, for five minutes…no more…the children would read to each other. It was a routine they enjoyed and looked forward to.

At home, some children never see their parents or carers read. There may be a lack of books, comics, newspapers in their homes. We have to be their role models. We have to show them that reading is great fun. So how do we do that?

Well, for a start, we can talk about things we have read and enjoyed. We can have interesting looking books and comic books around the classroom. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover but children do just that. Books have to look the part. They must appear to be age appropriate. Sometimes, when children’s reading is falling behind, the books available appear babyish. Not great for a cool nine year old.

Information books can be an excellent choice. With their small chunks of information and plenty of illustrations they can be more appealing for some readers.

Introduce some of the key words first by talking about the book. If readers hear the word before trying to read it, they stand a better chance of working it out in context. Encourage them to look at the initial phoneme, the middle phoneme, the final phoneme. Break up the word into chunks. Sound it out. Look for smaller words inside long words. Look for patterns in words. You know all the technical stuff.

When listening to children read stories we should show a real interest in what’s going on. Focus on the storyline and characters rather than on word recognition and punctuation. Pick a random character and throw in an open question about them. Have a bit of fun trying to work out what’s going to happen next. If a child struggles to read fluently they can find it hard to understand the meaning of the sentences. It can be useful to read alternate pages, to share a book to keep the momentum going. Encourage the child to follow the text. By using intonation and noticing punctuation you are modelling good reading practice.

Try standing up to read. Act out the parts. Make it fun.

Little and often. Drip, drip, drip.

Before you know it the sink will be full.

I am part way through reading a book that has disturbed me greatly. In it the writer tells of his experiences as a child in and out of care homes during the seventies. It makes for disturbing reading but is difficult to put down.

This man, this small child, was so affected by the break up of his parents’ relationship that he started to ‘kick off’. Mum found another partner who the child struggled to relate to. Relationships grew strained. The child was in trouble constantly and he and the stepfather were constantly at loggerheads. Sound familiar?

I guess this is a common enough story up to this point. We all see the results of relationship meltdowns in every classroom daily. But circumstances were about to get even worse for this little chap. He was raped by his stepbrother. He was threatened, told exactly what would happen to his brothers and his mother if he breathed a word to anyone. Needless to say he told no-one. His life, never a simple one, grew even more difficult from that point. He felt ashamed. He felt as if he was to blame for all the bad things that were happening.

He volunteered to go into a care home for ‘maladjusted boys’ and from then on he seems to have tried his hardest to live up to all the labels given to him.

I won’t go into the details. I won’t catalogue the different homes he ran away from. Or the different types of abuse he faced from people who were in a position of trust. I won’t detail the way he was medicated to try to keep him under control. Let’s just say that life wasn’t a doddle for him.

I wanted to share this story just to remind us that we often have no idea what is happening in the lives of the children with whom we work. When they gaze vacantly into space, what are they thinking? Is it just that they are off on some imaginary adventure, that school is the most boring place in the world? Or is it that something horrendous is going on in their life at that moment.

We are at the front line and we should be vigilant. We should notice signs. What is going on with this happy go lucky child who suddenly grows pensive. Why has that placid child suddenly become aggressive?

As well as behavioural and emotional changes there are physical signs that we can watch out for, bruising, burns, ligature marks, maybe cuts where a child has self-harmed.

I know that injuries are part of growing up. Children fall over and skin their knees regularly, but alarm bells should ring if a child has injuries in areas that normally aren’t points of contact, like the insides of thighs for instance.

Schools provide Child Protection training and I think it’s essential that all TAs attend. More than that though, we should be actively watching out for the tell tale signs and reporting any concerns that we may have directly to the Child Protection Officer.

If you don’t know who that is yet…you know what to do.

Find out!