MOBILISE PROJECTMobilise Case Study: Bluecoat School

Ben Bloor, Deputy Head at the Bluecoat School in Stamford has an important mantra: “Everyone

working in this school is here to enable children to learn.” It’s a simple message, but one that reflects

the school’s and its leadership team’s commitment to making the very best use of all its staff -

including teaching assistants – so that they are always contributing to high quality learning.

Sometime before the Mobilise project began, Bluecoat – which is a small one-form entry primary

school - had already recognised how important it was to make the very best use of teaching assistants.

The work formed part of a wider commitment to improving the quality of teaching and learning

and moving the school from requires improvement to outstanding (which it did following an Ofsted

inspection in December 2015). “We had already engaged with some of the research-evidence on the

use of teaching assistants” says Ben “and had been quite self-challenging about how we were using

our TAs so that their skills were very carefully mapped to curriculum delivery and the needs of all our

pupils. The mantra – everyone contributing to children’s learning - was very much the starting point

for us.”

The school’s work to ensure the better use of TAs began – as with a number of other schools involved in

the Mobilise project – with a review of the particular strengths and the expertise of teaching assistants

themselves, in order to better inform how they were deployed within and beyond classrooms. “We

have teaching assistants, who are very skilled in supporting children’s progress in maths and literacy.

We also have teaching assistants, who are more pastorally focused and play an absolutely key role

in ensuring that some of our children are ready to learn. So we decided to move away from TAs

being assigned to specific classes and instead our TAs now rotate across the school and are deployed

according to the timetable and curriculum delivery. It was a big step!”

Indeed, this shift in approach represented a major change for the school and its staff, both in terms

of the changes it had on TAs’ ways of working, but also in terms of timetable and how learning

was delivered across the board. “There was actually little resistance to the change because it was

communicated by our Head in a way that was clearly connected to our vision for everyone enabling

better learning. Our TAs knew their skills had to be maximised across classrooms (indeed, they were

very keen that this was the case). The main questions we received from our staff were all related to the

practicalities of making it happen – and those questions were absolutely the right ones to be asking.”

The impact on timetabling has led to a lot more work in terms of planning and co-ordination, as well

as some practical steps such as moving lessons to avoid clashes. “`There’s no question that we threw

the timetable up into the air” says Ben “otherwise it would have proved to be a barrier for making

this work. My view was that although it was challenging and time-consuming at first, this was not a

sufficient justification for not making the changes – difficult to implement as they were to begin with.”

The changes have been quite fundamental, for example, some key stage 2 classes now have maths

lessons after lunch (once they are rested and refuelled as Ben puts it!), so as to allow particular TAs,

who are strong on developing numeracy skills, to be supporting maths learning in key stage 1 in the

morning. Meanwhile, those TAs with strengths in literacy can be supporting key stage 2 in the morning

and move through to key stage 1 in the afternoon. Ben is keen to point out that this has all been done

with careful consideration of when and how children learn best – and that, ultimately, the impact of

having the most appropriate TAs in every classroom has made the hard work worthwhile.

The school has moved away from a generic job description for TA recruitment, to instead looking

at the school’s needs on a case by case basis and then ensuring the job description and interview

process reflects the skills and expertise required. For example, if the school is short of TAs with literacy

expertise, there will be an emphasis on recruiting TAs with those skills – and the interview process

will be very much focused on identifying these skills. “In the past we would have recruited a TA for

a classroom” says Ben, “but now it is very much a case of asking how will this TA be used within the

school and across the timetable, and therefore what skills it is essential that they demonstrate.”

So when it came to embarking on Mobilise, the school came to the project with plenty of ideas and

reflections on the deployment of TAs. It also came with a deep enthusiasm for another aspect of

the work – independent learning. “We are very passionate at our school about enabling children to

be independent learners.” Says Ben, “it’s fundamental to our vision because we believe that it is so

essential to children’s success both at secondary school, in further education and in later life. We’re

very clear that those habits begin here at primary school. So we saw a particular opportunity for

Mobilise to contribute to our school’s vision and development through the implementation of the

Scaffolding Framework.”

Ben is quick to point out that one of the big attractions of the Scaffolding Framework is its potential

application to the work of all staff: “The framework provides us all with a guide and encourages us to

really reflect on the interactions we have with children. It is important that it highlights the TAs’ role

in that, and they are certainly the starting point, but there should not be a limitation on other staff’s

involvement. Our approach is to work with all staff and, indeed, the children on its implementation.”

This has led to the school taking a very careful and considered approach to implementation, spending

much of this year really clarifying what the journey towards self-scaffolding looks like in practice and

ensuring that everyone understands it: “I felt that the introduction and application of the framework

needed more work than was perhaps envisaged by the project and that we had to do some work

exemplifying its use for both children and adults. Ultimately, adults need to be well-trained and

supported in delivery, and our children need to appreciate the process because – ideally – they need

to be able to recognise what those independent learning skills are. We’ve introduced the Framework to

some of our staff and trialled it in some classrooms to gather some feedback and to understand the

nature of support needed. We’re also working hard on developing visual displays for the classrooms

and resources – based on the Scaffolding Triangle and applied to different learning scenarios - so

that both staff and children can refer to them as a guide. We are looking to be as explicit and clear as

possible about what independent learning looks like.”

Indeed, Ben has been more than happy to share some of the examples he has in development for

learning around spelling and punctuation, which we have included in the appendix. The visuals clearly

set out what learning looks like at each stage of the journey towards independence – from modelling

and clueing through to prompting and self-scaffolding. It is this exemplification that Ben feels is so

important for children and adults being able to reflect on the learning journey. “There is nothing more

disempowering for children than adults knowing the process they are taking those children on but not

sharing it with them. The process of moving through the Scaffolding Framework is a learning outcome

in itself – and children should be able to understand that and reflect on it.” The school will introduce

the Scaffolding Framework from September, monitoring children’s understanding and engagement

with the process across all subjects and the feedback of teaching assistants and teachers. The early

signs are encouraging, but Ben is clear that careful implementation takes time.

For Ben, the Mobilise project has also had

another indirect benefit. “As a school, we

have really valued the ability to enter into

professional dialogue through the Mobilise

cluster. The quality of the pre-reading and

the research has helped, but it has been

very useful to share ideas with other local

schools and to test our own strategies

with colleagues. I think what Mobilise has

done is to give us the confidence to try

new things because we are able to share

the outcomes, to give feedback, and to

support one another to refine our practices.

Making key changes as a single school can

sometimes feel risky but when you make

those changes as a group of schools – and

from a sound evidence-base – it can be

very empowering and exciting.”

Key learning points:

- It is important that changes are couched in a wider vision for the school and connect TAs’ work

(and that of other members of staff) and the changes being explored with that vision.

- Timetabling and ‘the way things have always been done’ can sometimes present a significant

barrier to deploying TAs within and beyond the classroom. Such fundamental changes often

require direct and significant investment of leaders’ and teachers’ time. It is important to remain

focused on the outcomes and whether change is justified by the potential improvements to the

quality of learning. The ‘system’ – be it timetabling or curriculum delivery - should always

serve better learning.

- Carefully consider the outcomes of skills’ and expertise audits to consider what you may need

to look for in future recruitment rounds. Many schools publish a generic job description for TA

recruitment, without considering how recruitment can fill gaps and add value to the wider life

and work of the school.

- The journey towards being a confident and independent learner is a learning outcome in itself.

Children should therefore not be merely recipients of the Scaffolding Framework, but be

supported to understand the application of the Framework within their learning, through clear

use of language, examples and ongoing dialogue with teachers and TAs. Are children sufficiently

supported to understand the journey towards achieving independent learning skills?

Using the triangle for marking for Spelling and Punctuation