Case Study – Delivering effective in-class support for learning

Brief

  • To improve the quality and effectiveness of support delivered in-class
  • To identify ways of embedding in-class support for learners on mainstream programmes

Organisation

  • Large Further Education College outside London

Scope

  • Working with additional learning support team, learning support assistants, curriculum managers and  teachers across the college’s sites

Background

  • Ineffective in-class support with 30% of observed sessions satisfactory and none good or better
  • Less than 30%  of identified learners receiving sufficient support
  • Model of additional learning support too removed from learners’ experience in class
  • Little communication between additional  learning support team and subject teachers about strategies to support learners in class and improve their skills
  • Little differentiation in classroom teaching to accommodate the range of  learners’ skills and abilities

Methodology

  • Recruitment of learning support assistants with relevant experience of supporting learners in class
  • Development and delivery of an in-house training programme for learning support assistants delivering support in class focussing on developing learners’ literacy/language and numeracy skills
  • Link in-class support to outcomes of initial assessment, involving subject teachers in developing individual learning plans and lesson plans to be shared with LSAs
  • Delivery of dyslexia awareness training to vocational teachers

Outcomes

  • Timely delivery of in-class support – from start date of targeted programmes
  • In-class additional support set up on programmes with high numbers of learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities eg dyslexia, dyspraxia, Asperger’s syndrome
  • Improvement in the quality of in-class support from learning support assistants  – 96% of observed support sessions satisfactory or better
  • Most learning support assistants receiving lesson plans in advance of taught sessions
  • Improvement in the college’s capacity to support learners with dyslexia assessed by Ofsted to be significant

Delivered by

Lindiwe Mokoena