My sister, Jane Longhurst, and her colleague Jo Mead work as a teaching assistants in the South East. Below is an article recently published in the TES as part of the SEND focus. The article explains how through their observations and interventions as teaching assistants, an autistic child has found a way to be accepted and integrated into the class. What the article also highlights is just how important a supportive and knowledgeable teaching assistant can be. Due to the fact they work so closely with individual students, they have a much clearer understanding and appreciation of their needs. They also become the person that provides stability and security for the most vulnerable children.
The crucial role that the teaching assistants play in class, pastoral and play time should be treasured. Such knowledge and care should be increasingly celebrated as a major asset to our education system.
by Peter Thomas
SEND focus: ‘Inclusion is about more than making a space in the classroom’
Zoe was often on her own in the playground or classroom. As an autistic child in a mainstream primary school, she often became anxious and upset. Occasionally, she would run away crying and screaming – and it was not always clear why. When her peers did invite her to join in, she struggled to give an appropriate response.
We needed to better understand Zoe’s interactions with her peers, but we hoped that better integration into the school environment would allow her to benefit and learn from these interactions.
Explaining interactions
Initially we explained autism to the class and asked the children to assist in helping Zoe with some of the things she finds difficult. We had an overwhelming response from her peers; several children began keeping an eye on Zoe and initiating conversations with her.
We also observed her social play and communication, and were shocked by how few interactions there were between Zoe and her peers. Previously, we had genuinely thought she was interacting with her peers in her own way. However, structured observations showed she demonstrated little desire to join in with her peers and seemed to enjoy being on her own. She only really engaged in ‘observer’ and ‘parallel’ play, tending to play alone, and rarely joined in with ‘associative’ or ‘co-operative’ play.
Teaching social learning
Our solution? We developed regular afternoon sessions, which Zoe calls ‘Small World Play’. Every afternoon, Zoe, her teaching assistant and one other child from the class work together for approximately 20 minutes. The sessions focus on specific areas of social learning, deriving ideas from two books – The Social Play Record by Chris White and Theory of Mind by Kristina Ordetx. For example, some sessions called “let’s pretend”, involved imagining that an object is to be used for something other than its original purpose. The sessions now also include more personal skills, for example, “noticing others’ reactions”, to describe peers’ feelings during play.
The benefits have revealed themselves not only in her social behaviour, but also in her literacy work; her ability to write in the first person has remarkably improved. An added benefit is that these afternoon sessions have shown her peers how best to interact with Zoe. The children now often play together with Zoe in the playground, but they also seem to sense when she needs to be on her own; helping her to feel supported without provoking her anxiety by crowding her.
Inclusion is more than about making a space in the classroom. It’s about enabling relationships to grow; learning from peers is as much a part of school life as learning from teachers. Zoe’s inclusion in the class means more than simply allowing her to join her peers in the lessons; it means she is building real relationships with her peers, and they are building relationsips with her.
Jo Mead and Jane Longhurst are teaching assistants at Oak Lodge Primary School.