Evaluating Teacher Support Teams in secondary schools: supporting teachers for SEN and other needs

Abstract

Teacher Support Teams (TSTs) are a way of supporting individual teachers who request support over a teaching concern relating broadly to special educational needs. This paper reports on the development of these teams and the evaluation of their workings and impact in four secondary schools. The training and setting up process were monitored over four terms and the impact assessed at the end of this period using a case study evaluation strategy. This paper provides details from two schools, one that managed to build the TST into the school system, and another that had dif® culties in doing so. It then summarizes several key general lessons that emerge from the four schools. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy context of this teacher support initiative and its relationship to staff development and support as a school priority. The project is also evaluated in the context of ® ndings from a national survey of SEN teacher support. Recommendations are then made for governors and senior managers about implementing support systems in the current school system.

Managing Bereavement in the Classroom: A Conspiracy of Silence?

“…Sadly a lack of support for teachers from the education 28 system generally (Creese, Norwich & Daniels, 2000) may prevent this from being given. Like other duties such as child protection (Webb & Vulliamy, 2001), teachers' pastoral care role appears to be understated and largely unacknowledged; teachers may have to manage both recent bereavement and current reactions to past bereavements during their working day.…”

Using the Staff Sharing Scheme to support school staff in managing challenging behaviour more effectively

“…Many teachers expressed that being aware that other members of staff had behavioural problems in their classes was reassuring and increased their confidence in themselves. This positive view on peer-support is supported by evaluations of other schemes (Creese et al, 2000;Hayes et al, 2007;Stringer et al, 1992). It is then perhaps surprising that only two out of the eight statements in the preand post-training questionnaire relating to perceived benefits of the SSS were found to be significantly different.…”

“…Certainly the problems with time and general school organisational factors have featured in evaluations of other peer-support schemes. For example, when discussing the establishment of Teacher Support Teams (TSTs) in secondary schools, Creese et al (2000) found that in three of the four schools in the study there were problems over time and external pressures. They state that "within this culture of schooling, it is often difficult for a school, struggling to respond to its major external demands, to translate a principled support for a teacher support system like TST into the commitment of time and senior management backing that is needed" (p. 321).…”

“…Hanko's work has influenced other researchers developing teacher support groups in the UK (for example, Bozic & Carter, 2002;Creese, Norwich, & Daniels, 2000;Farouk, 2004;Stringer, Stow, Hibbert, Powell, & Louw, 1992). Through these studies there is evidence, albeit much based on case-study or small-scale research, that establishing teacher support groups in schools can produce benefits for teachers.…”

“…Through these studies there is evidence, albeit much based on case-study or small-scale research, that establishing teacher support groups in schools can produce benefits for teachers. For example, Stringer et al (1992) described how teachers enjoyed being given time to reflect without interruption on problems and found the act of sharing expertise and learning from one another useful, while the study by Creese et al (2000) suggested that teachers appreciated the value of collaboration.…”