The 2013 Marie Butterworth Prize has been awarded to Allison Haskayne for her dissertation entitled: How children with special educational needs are best supported: empowering the voice of teaching assistants. Allison summarises her research and its impact as follows. As a recently appointed Special Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) in a setting with above average percentages of children needing additional support, I wanted to explore how we were meeting their needs. My enquiry centred around our Teaching Assistants, how they were being directed by their Class Teacher and what impact they felt their interventions were having on the children they were working with. Using quantitative data gathered across one full academic year and two terms as an outlining structure, two focus groups allowed an in-depth and reflective assessment of how we provide for our most vulnerable children. Giving our support staff the power to change pedagogy, and thereby raise the professional status of their role was key to find out the "real" story behind our children and what works best for them to become independent learners and achieve their full potential.
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Rachel Lofthouse
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published on: 17th July 2013