Support Staff Discuss National Standards

While we were discussing National Standards' impact on support staff, some other issues came up, eg:

Should children with serious intellectual disabilities be taught in "special" schools, so that our teacher aides can assist less severely affected children to meet the standards?
Should there be two kinds of teacher aides?
How will the National Standards affect the type of resources needed, say, in the school library? Or maybe they won't (that, of course, is one of the problems with the shoddy process of introducing the standards - we don't know!!!). Children should be measured on "individual" standards, ie on value-added over a period of time.

Comment by Linda Jordan on March 17, 2010 at 23:16: While I see where your thoughts about children with serious intellectual disabilites comes from Jane, we must also remember that the same Government that is trying to force National Standards on us is also reviewing Special Ed and Special Schools are feeling rather vunerable at the moment.

We also need to be aware that some of the children in 'the tail' that Nataional are talking about may never reach the Standard they are asking them to reach due to learning disabilites so putting in more resources; ie more Teacher Aide time is not productive use of our time hence going against the Workforce Strategy.

These are great discussion points Jane.

Comment by Jane Huggins on March 18, 2010 at 9:35: Thanks, Linda. We did also discuss how national standards would fit with those children who we know cannot reach them. It would be wrong if resources were concentrated on those who could reach them and the others were just ignored. Just another reason to use a value-added assessment system.

Comment by Giarne Clarke Harrison on March 26, 2010 at 10:08: Good post Jane! I agree with your comments on assessing progress from the child's abilities and the progress they make over time, compared with their previous progress.
The Spec Ed review could be very dangerous, especially with Group Spec Ed workers haven't been designated as "frontline" staff!