Summary
Are one-to-one teaching assistants really the best way to support students with SEMH needs?
In this episode of School Behaviour Secrets, we explore the myth of 1:1 support and its unintended consequences for schools and students.
Discover why this topic resonates with teachers and SENCOs working to support pupils with a high level of need and how rethinking your approach could empower independence and resilience in a more sustainable way.
Important links:
CHECK OUT BEHAVIOUR 360 today if you want a joined up approach to SEMH in your school, with instant access to flexible, on-demand training: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/behaviour_360.php
Pop over to our YouTube channel where you can subscribe and keep up to date with any new releases.
Get our FREE SEND Behaviour Handbook: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/send-handbook
Download other FREE behaviour resources for use in school: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources.php
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Show notes / transcription
[00:00:00 - 00:23:41] Simon Currigan
Welcome to the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. I'm your host, Simon Currigan. My co host is Emma Shackleton, and we're obsessed with helping teachers, school leaders, parents, and, of course, students when classroom behaviour gets in the way of success. We're gonna share the tried and tested secrets to classroom management, behavioural special needs, whole school strategy, and more, all with the aim of helping your students reach their true potential. Plus, we'll be letting you eavesdrop on our conversations with thought leaders from around the world. So you'll get to hear the latest evidence based strategies before anyone else. This is the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. Hi there.
Simon Currigan here from Beacon School Support, and welcome to this week's episode of School Behaviour Secrets. I hope you are well. This week, we're gonna be looking at the myth of 1:1 and how that affects our approach to SEMH support in schools. And I've got some really important news about the podcast, so make sure you stay tuned until the end of the episode to find out what that is. By the way, if you're working with kids who present some challenging behaviour in school and you're not sure why you're seeing them act that way, there's no clear reason for it, then I've got a free download that can help and complements this podcast episode really well. It's called the SEND behaviour handbook, and it helps you link the behaviours you're seeing in class with possible underlying needs like trauma or autism or ADHD. And it also gives you a set of key fact sheets to help you understand other conditions including PDA, ODD, developmental language delay, FASD, and more.
Its purpose isn't to help teaching staff to make a diagnosis. We're not qualified to do that. But it's often teachers and teaching assistants who start joining the dots between pupil behaviour and underlying needs. And if we can kick start that process, we can get the right support from other professionals ASAP. And we all know that the earlier an intervention takes place, the better the outcomes for the child. You can get it from beaconschoolsupport.co.uk. There's a link on our homepage, but I'll also put a direct link in the episode description to make it easy for you to tap straight through if you haven't downloaded it for free already.
And if you find this episode useful when it finishes playing, do remember to share it with other colleagues who'd find it helpful. That's a simple, practical, and easy way to help this information get to people who can make the best use of it. So into the meat of today's episode, the myth of the 1:1. It's a bit of a hot button issue for schools across the UK right now. So what do I mean by that, the myth, and what are the implications for schools? This is a topic that resonates with lots of teachers in SENCOs, especially ones that are struggling to support very high needs pupils in class. And the traditional view has often been that having a one to one assistant, a TA, or a learning support assistant, or an integration assistant can solve all problems for students with SEND and SEMH needs.
But is that really the case? Because many people believe that simply assigning a dedicated assistant will improve outcomes for those kids. However, we're finding that this approach can sometimes create more challenges than solutions. So I just wanted to talk about what people believe about one to one support in mainstream schools, what the outcomes actually are, and what effective support looks like. The first misconception is that one to one support throughout the day is always good for the child. This is a myth that is believed in by both teachers and parents actually, but there are some problems with it. Now on the surface, giving a one to one to a pupil with SEMH needs seems like the ultimate support strategy.
But here's the thing. When children are consistently given an adult to guide them through every single task, to solve every single problem, and mediate every challenge, that child can begin to internalize a damaging message. I can't do this on my own. In fact, they learn that I can't do anything on my own, and they become a victim to learned helplessness because they've developed a dependency on the adult, a reliance even for the simplest tasks. So they stop taking risks. They stop trying to problem solve. Why? Well, there's another couple of reasons.
One is often they learn to believe that they don't have the capacity to do the work that's given to them on their own, and that creates an anxiety about working independently. And another is we, the adults, have sent them a message that without an adult, you can't do this. That's why we give you an adult all the time. And this isn't just about academics. It spills over into their confidence and their independence and their resilience. Rather than empowering them, if we're not careful, this setup can inadvertently hold them back. And it becomes a cycle the more they rely on the one to one, the less they develop the skills they need to thrive in school and beyond out in the real world.
I remember having a conversation once with a principal officer at the local authority in Birmingham who was responsible for allocating SEND places and who made a really interesting point in relation to this. She said in her experience, when you look at the children who go into special school at primary age and then watch how they transition and succeed at the beginning of secondary school, the secondary school teachers tell her that those kids do better than the kids who have been in mainstream with a one to one because in primary special school, those kids don't get one to one. What they do get is lots of small group teaching that's focused on building independence and lessening reliance on the adults. When you watch the pupils who were given one to one in mainstream and then watch how they transition into secondary mainstream, they tended to struggle a lot more because in secondary, they aren't gonna get a one to one. But they never developed those independent learning skills, those problem solving skills, that self reliance. They were subject to learned helplessness. So they tended to do worse in an environment where they couldn't get that constant support both academically and emotionally and socially actually.
So what this point boils down to is we want our students to thrive and that often means teaching them to navigate challenges on their own, leaving them with a task with the right structure and scaffolding and pre tutoring for the right amount of time so they can develop these skills. And this results in an interesting tension actually because a good one to one teaching assistant will actually build up that child's independent skills to the point where they appear not to be needed.
They are needed. They're setting up the task and the learning environment in a way that the pupil can succeed and become independent. But they're doing it in a less obvious, a less visible way than sitting next to the child all day. But here's the tension. Right? If they aren't seen in that obvious and visible way to be giving that support, they may feel and school leaders and managers may believe that the support for that child is no longer needed. And a result of that might be that they reduce the TA's hours or cut their job entirely.
So the danger here is if there isn't a shared understanding about what success looks like from the TA and management working together, they have a shared perspective, the result may be behaviours linked to the TA wanting to retain their job and working alongside the child one to one all the time, which is perfectly natural, by the way. None of us wants to lose our job, but they might be doing that rather than engaging in behaviour and support that's actually positive for the child. So now let's talk about another hidden danger of assigning a one to one teaching assistant to pupils with SEMH needs, and that's the risk of the child bonding more closely with the TA than they do with their peers. This isn't just about the child working away from other children with a teaching assistant instead of being fully integrated into group work or the child developing a preference to spend time with the TA during outdoor breaks. This is about the long term impact on the child's ability to build and maintain healthy social relationships.
Here's what happens. When a people spends the majority of their day in close proximity to an adult, that relationship often becomes their primary social connection in the school environment. And while the TA might be warm and caring and emotionally intelligent and nurturing, which is wonderful, they're not a substitute for the peer relationships the child needs to develop. And the danger is that this setup can isolate the child from their classmate unintentionally. And while other children are forming bonds and learning how to solve conflicts and are learning critical social skills and how to give way to other people's opinions, the child with a one to one may miss out on those opportunities. They might struggle to feel like part of the group or develop that, you know, that vital sense of belonging to a child peer group that every child needs. Worse, this can make the child feel different, reinforcing the very challenges we're trying to overcome.
Over time, this lack of social interaction with their peers can undermine their confidence in engaging with their classmates and leave them unprepared for life beyond school where peer relationships and social skills are essential. And let's not forget, no matter how wonderful the one to one is, they're not gonna be there forever. And when that support is removed, the child is left without the social network that they should have been building all along. So how do we break this pattern? By ensuring our support strategies prioritize integration, encouraging the child to engage with their peers, and providing social scaffolding when it's needed. Kind of what I was describing in the way we support the child academically. When we do this, we give pupils the best chance to thrive both socially and emotionally and academically.
Now let's tackle another crucial aspect of the one to one teaching assistant model and that's training. The success of this approach hinges entirely on the TA skill set and understanding. And without the proper training, even the most well intentioned TAs can unintentionally hold back the pupil's development rather than support it. So here's what happens in reality.
Working with pupils with SEMH needs is complex. It requires more than kindness and patience. It demands a deep understanding of the student's complex needs around emotional regulation, social skills, the importance of fostering independence. And often, a TA is needed so rapidly, they just start work with that child without that training and support. And if a TA lacks that expertise, they're likely to fall into the trap of doing too much for the child instead of teaching the child to do things for themselves or won't be able to understand the child's underlying needs at a deep level and put in place the right support strategies or compensating strategies to help them develop the ones that are particularly appropriate to be twinned with those underlying needs. In fact, undertrained TAs may accidentally reinforce dependence or escalate challenges. They might respond inconsistently to behavior or their interventions, and strategies might focus on the wrong thing or unintentionally reward dysregulation.
This doesn't just affect the child they're supporting either. It can also disrupt the wider classroom environment. In contrast, a well trained TA can provide targeted support that empowers the people. They know when to step in and when to step back, which is just as important. They understand how to scaffold tasks, build resilience, promote problem solving. They also recognize their role in gradually fading support to encourage the child's independence. But here's the kicker, training isn't a one and done event.
It's an ongoing process. TAs need regular professional development to stay informed about best practices in SEMH. Without it, the one to one model risks becoming more of a a reactive crutch instead of a proactive tool for growth. So while one to one support can work, it's only effective when TAs are equipped with the right training, resources, and strategies. And do you know right? The same is true of teachers here. I'm gonna go off a tangent quickly.
Because without the right understanding of knowledge and reminders reminders are super important because teachers are drowned in knowledge. Even well intentioned teachers can structure a lesson in a way that is actually disregulating for the child in question or they focus on the wrong areas for development and the pupil gets dysregulated rather than having the support they need. So the key here is to create an inclusive environment that engages all staff members in supporting students. Everyone in the school from teachers to lunchtime supervisors to SENCOs and other school leaders, everyone needs to be equipped to understand and manage SEND and SEMH challenges. Investing in a whole staff training can transform a school's culture around inclusion in SEMH. Imagine every member of the school community being equipped with strategies to support students with diverse needs. It wouldn't only enhance the learning environment, it would create this sense of belonging for every child.
But for that to happen, there needs to be a shift in mindset rather than seeing support as solely the responsibility of 1 or 2 individuals. It would be a collective responsibility. No one person providing all of the meat of the support. Everyone shares the load and truly works together. This collaborative approach can create a ripple effect throughout the school, but it requires knowledge and skill. I've never really spoken about our training support on the show before, but we have an online program for schools called Behaviour 360. Its aim is to get everyone on the same page in your school, pulling in the same direction with SEMH for the good of the kids.
That's your teachers and teaching assistants and your school leaders, but also your lunchtime supervisors and your parents because everyone's got a key role to play. And our aim for that program is for it to feel like you've got an SEMH expert in your school working for you 24/7 who can give you the, in inverted commas, SEMH and behaviour answers on tap whenever you need them without you having to wait. It's a suite of online videos and resources that explain how to support kids with ADHD or PDA or autistic students or how to turn around a tricky class or use the environment to encourage on task behaviour or teach emotional regulation or how to write a behaviour policy that has impact or set up your lunch times for success or helping parents to support their children in developing strong social and emotional skills. Everything you need all in one place to move the needle with SEMH and behaviour in your school. If you're interested in behaviour 360 and hundreds of schools are using it already, it's all evidence based. We even cite our references on the new version of the website that's just gone live. All you need to do to find out more is search the web for Behavior 360 or go to beaconschoolsupport.co.uk and click on the buy now button.
You won't actually buy it, but you'll be directed to a page where you can see all our online training and you can click through and read more aboutBehaviour 360 there. I'll also put a direct link in the show notes so you can click straight through. So went off on a tangent there on the importance of highly skilled staff in general. But having teaching assistants who really, really understand the needs of their kids is super important, and that involves investment in their development so they can do a good job. The last issue I wanna raise around the myth of one to one support being the gold standard is this. It's just in terms of costs. It simply does not scale.
A good teaching assistant with some knowledge of SEND including their on costs, can be 25 to 30 grand because when we employ someone, there are hidden costs like their employer's national insurance contributions and their pensions that no one ever talks about. And that makes, however, one to one support expensive. School budgets may be able to accommodate, say, 1, 2, or 3 adults, but the way the SEND system is set up, at least in England, is if a pupil receives an EHCP and the EHCP says the pupil requires that adult support on an ongoing basis, that support is rarely properly funded. Schools get scraps of what they need to employ that person. So in a world where we have an increasing number of kids with complex SEMH needs, simply employing more and more one to one TAs does not scale. The numbers do not work. Before we know it, following that road will lead to bankruptcy for the school.
And am I saying that people should never have a one to one TA next to them full time? Well, the truth is, right, always gonna depend on the child. There are no blanket answers in SEMH and SEND, We shouldn't have dogma about what's right and wrong. We should look at the individual pupil and their individual needs. But if we're gonna go down that route, that support has to be very carefully planned because we need to avoid the traps of learned helplessness. Because the purpose of the TA needs to be focused on developing the child's confidence and independence. We need to think about how we're actively going to help the child make and maintain social links with the rest of the class.
And it may be that that's through the TA mediating and promoting social integration in a more planned way. We need to think about how we're gonna give our TAs the skills and knowledge they need to do a good job they can take pride in because without it as school leaders, we're setting them up to fail. Actually, we're setting up the adult and the child to fail. We need to help them understand that if the child looks independent, they're not going to lose their job. So there's a lot to get right here, and that support has to be properly and sustainably funded because while we all care about pupil and adult well-being, support decisions in school come down to pounds and pence. People don't work for free. It would be wonderful if they could, but they've got their own bills to pay.
They've got their own mouths to feed. And if you say that money shouldn't matter when it comes to SEND, well, it does. You're probably not the one who's trying to make ends meet a score has a budget just like you or I do in our personal lives. You can't spend money you haven't got, and that puts schools in a tight spot. And that's why the myth of the one to one TA always being a good thing, being the gold standard of SEND support is problematic. And by the way, the implication of all this is in a world of rapidly rising SEMH needs, we really need to be thinking about how we use our TAs effectively, what that support looks like, whether whether our one to one TA is appropriate, could they be better used in a group setting, do they have a proper planned curriculum to support the children in their care, And have we trained them well to deliver it? How can those TA support multiple children at once effectively to gain those independent learning skills, build confidence, and succeed in school?
Anyway, that's my tuppence on the subject. Now I'm gonna shift and share some important news about the podcast. As of today, we've reached episode 245, and the School Behaviour Secrets podcast has been running for over three and a half years now. We've covered, I think, nearly every subject under the sun related to behaviour and SEMH, and we've always tried to do that in a fair evidence based and fun way. But the podcast requires a lot of work, not just to write and record, but to edit together and to publish on the website. In fact, you know, when you look at some of these episodes, they're actually like mini trainings on specialist subjects. However, both Emma and I are so busy now supporting schools.
And because of the time investment involved in putting together episodes that we feel we can be proud of and are properly researched, we're gonna have to put the podcast on pause. I say, Emma and I, in fact, our whole team are busy out there meeting school leaders and teachers, helping people like you support kids with SEMH needs in schools and with training and on-site support and advice and more. So I'd like to say thank you to all the guests that have been on the school behavior secrets podcast over the years. I'd like to thank Paul and Sarah behind the scenes who have been beavering away editing everything together. I'd like to thank Emma for being a brilliant cohost. But most of all, I'd like to thank you, the listener, for enduring years of my rubbish dad jokes, for supporting and sharing the show, leaving reviews, and encouraging us to keep going. I genuinely hope you found the podcast helpful and valuable in your everyday classroom practice and that it's given you practical ideas, insights, and strategies you can use to make the lives of the kids that you work with happier and more successful.
Am I saying we're never coming back? No. I'm not. So stay subscribed, and we are going to be releasing shorter, more focused video content on YouTube and through our social media. So if you don't follow us there already, jump on our YouTube channel now. I'll put a link in the show notes, and you'll keep getting content from us. It'll just be in more bite sized chunks rather than the longer form audio podcast you're used to right now.
And we also run regular monthly webinars for free through our website too. If you sign up for one of our resources or social media, you'll get to find more about them there.
Head to beaconschoolsupport.co.uk. And that's it from me. I hope you have a brilliant week. This is Simon Currigan from Beacon School Support signing off for now from the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. Take care, everyone.
(This automated transcript may not be 100% accurate.)
