The TA from hell

Getting your increasingly troublesome teaching assistant to change his negative behaviour will be tricky. Should you let him know your misgivings? Paul Dix considers the options...

Caleb is a regular on the tutting chair outside the staffroom (tradition demands that any adult who passes must tut, lower their gaze and gently shake their head). Yet before you have to beg for additional support, his behaviour escalates dramatically. Caleb decides the tutting chair is not satisfying his need for attention and goes to play chase with the caretaker. By the end of lunchtime he is being tracked by two midday supervisors, a very angry man in a boiler suit and most of Year 5. The chaos was eventually halted when he was found, in the head’s toilet, chewing on the school improvement plan. The need for Caleb to have more support was well made… by Caleb. After years of denial, Mum finally allows an assessment.

The arrival of a new TA, Mike, means everyone can breathe a huge sigh of relief. He is confident and polite. The children like him; Caleb even smiles at him – for a while, at least. But as Mike’s interventions become gradually more negative, Caleb turns on the new TA and you find yourself in the role of mediator. Mike’s voice is also becoming more dominant in the classroom. He regularly talks over you when you are speaking to the whole class. His botched attempt to keep the whole class behind “until they can learn to behave” is the final signal that you need to take the situation in hand.

How do you respond?

A Send him on a course

This is clearly an issue with training. You find a course to send him on and let him get the message from someone else first.

B Action research

What about some paired professional development wrapped into a bit of action research with both the teacher and TA involved?

C Out in the open

You try being honest about how things are going without getting blood on the carpet.

If you chose…

A Send him on a course

You find just the course on a flyer in the staffroom: The Perfect TA. Job done. The description is ideal - “subtle interventions”, “professional roles” even “TA voice in the classroom”. How do they do that? After the regular tussle with the budget holder over money, the course is booked and you bounce up to Mike with the good news. He seems less than impressed, mutters something about having already done these units and moans about travelling for the day. You keep upbeat and are convinced that his initial scepticism will be drowned in excellent practice.

On his return to school, Mike demands a formal meeting. He is cagey about what happened on the course but clearly has something to share. After an exhausting day with Caleb where nothing has fundamentally changed, you sit down with Mike to listen to his news. It seems that the course has inspired him. He talks about ‘partnership in the classroom’ and has prepared a formal agreement to share out responsibilities between you. He explains that the course leader said that TAs must have an equal voice so he would be taking over responsibility for behaviour. Your sinking feeling has given way to anger and you call the meeting to an abrupt halt. It seems that the course has prompted the wrong sort of reflection. You have created a monster and Caleb is back on the tutting chair.

Talking behaviour

• How are day courses best used for CPD?
• Can you share responsibility immediately with a TA you don’t know well?
• Should the teacher’s voice be dominant?

B Action research

There are many ways to approach a problem in someone’s behaviour and it is rarely head on. You decide to involve Mike in part of your own professional development and suggest he does a bit of action research on the positive use of language. The plan is to secretly tally each time the other person makes a negative or positive comment to adjust children’s behaviour.

To begin with you will just tally up and compare totals before trying to reduce the negative comments gradually over the course of 30 days. As you cannot spend your whole time tallying (rather than teaching), you focus on the first hour of each day. It doesn’t begin well, with Mike again bellowing as the children hang up their coats and get ready for the day. In the first week it is clear that his comments are disproportionally negative. Realising that he is losing the game, Mike decides to shift his language and, in the next two weeks, outstrips you for positive comments. You are happy to lose. Not only have you got some great data to pick apart together, but Caleb had decided that he likes Mike again. Although his voice is still too dominant, at least it is positive. You know that there is work to be done, but it is a great first step.

Talking behaviour

• Is there a golden ratio of positive comments to negative?
• For what might negative reinforcement usefully be reserved?
• What can you do when the voice of the TA drowns yours out?

C Out in the open

The meeting with Mike is not easy. You try hard not to criticise him but there is so much wrong with what has been happening. You impress on him that Caleb needs a positive approach, that pure punishment doesn’t change but entrenches his behaviour, that having a positive relationship with him is essential. He listens and clearly finds it difficult to take in. He hadn’t realised any of this and can only respond with a dejected, “I thought it was going really well’. You have taken the stuffing out of him. The next morning Mike is a shadow of his former self. You now have a broken man drifting around and refusing to take any initiative. If you weren’t in a professional environment you might call it sulking. Meanwhile Caleb, who is quick to exploit any weakness or vulnerability, has decided that he is not working “with that grumpy idiot”. You can see his point. By lunchtime, Caleb is poking him repeatedly with his pencil like a dead sheep. Mike has given up and you are now going to have to ask for help again.

Talking behaviour

• Can it ever be right to ram home the hard lessons?
• How do you deal with Mike from this point?
• How do you deal with the inconsistency that Caleb now senses?

WHICH APPROACH DID YOU USE?

A Your behaviour style: dodgy delegation

This is not a time for delegation. Courses can be great (and truly awful in the same measure) but you can’t expect anyone else to provide the targeted training that is needed. You need to take responsibility, make a plan and deal with the difficult issues. If you need extra training, do it together. Delegation does not mean casting others adrift.

B Your behaviour style: research wrapper

Your subtle and positive manipulation reflects a more patient and planned approach. Asking others for help is always more likely to engage them in ideas than telling them what to do. Your style will be rewarded by more focused conversations around adult behaviour and its impact on the children.

C Your behaviour style: route 1

Your frustration will not help. Neither will a confrontational meeting. You wouldn’t dream of trying to change Caleb’s behaviour in the same way. Not only do you risk losing your support, but you also risk creating a difficult working relationship. Deal with the issues in bite-size chunks rather than putting the TA on your very own tutting chair.