ii.Research on Teaching Assistants (DISS)
Staff on the DISS project
Researchers
Clare Martin, Tony Russell, Penelope Barton (nee Brown), Paul Bassett, Rob Webster, Naomi Hayward, Selma Babayigit, Maria Koutsoubou
Many thanks to Julie Radford who introduced the team to Conversation Analysis and also conducted the brilliant analyses drawn on in many publications. Julie sadly died in 2025.
Christine Rubie-Davis contributed great work on the DISS (and SPRinG) project, while she was on sabbatical leave from the University of Auckland.
There were also a lot of people who helped with data-entry, transcription and coding. We can’t list you all but are really grateful for your input.
The Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS) study (2003–9) – funded by the English and Welsh governments – was based at the UCL Institute of Education. It remains the largest study worldwide of the deployment and impact of Teaching Assistants (TAs).
The Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS) project was a large scale project that had a brief to provide much needed information on characteristics of support staff, what they did in schools and, in the case of classroom based support staff, what impact they had, especially on pupils. Much of the early part of research (Strand 1) involved a set of national questionnaires for schools, teachers and support staff to obtain basic information on, for example, contracts, biographical details and a categorisation of tasks to build up a profile of what people actually did and time spent in different activities. One of the main later forms of data collection was systematic classroom observations of pupils, including interactions with teaching assistants (TAs) and teachers. Another component (Strand 2) was designed to address impact by examining associations between support each pupil received from TAs and their academic progress over the school year.
DISS Strand 2 had a similar design to the CSPAR study in that it involved a longitudinal study of pupil progress, and was also naturalistic and sought to capture support received by pupils under normal circumstances. It was again a multi-method study involving national questionnaire surveys, a systematic observations component and in-depth case studies. There were seven different age groups, across the primary and secondary school stages. ‘Wave 1’ took place in 2005/6 and focused on pupils in 76 schools in Y1 (age 5–6), Y3 (age 7–8), Y7 (age 11–12) and Y10 (age 14–15), and ‘ Wave 2’ took place in 2007/8 and involved an increased sample of pupils in 77 schools in Y2 (age 6–7), Y6 (age 10–11) and Y9 (age 13–14). In total there were nearly 5,000 pupils across the seven age groups. Schools were nationally representative.
Key findings from DISS:
Over the past decades Teaching Assistants have become an established part of everyday school life, and are often used in classrooms to help low-attaining pupils and those with special educational needs.
Careful systematic observations showed that TAs tended to take on a one-to-one remedial role with pupils, either in-class or out of class, and often replace rather than supplement teachers.
A study of over 8000 pupils across seven age levels showed that the more support they received from TAs the less academic progress they made, even controlling for reasons why pupils received support such as prior attainment and special educational needs.
A conceptually and empirically strong framework, The Wider Pedagogical Role (WPR) Model – with three components ‘Deployment’, ‘Preparedness’ and ‘Practice’ – was designed to explain the results on academic progress.
Ways of rethinking the management and deployment of TAs to make them more effective have been published in a handbook for schools, now in its second edition (Webster, Russell and Blatchford 2016). In short, we should use additional adults in the classroom to strengthen, not replace, teaching, ensuring all students retain access to the teacher, peers, and curriculum. Student’s learning should not be outsourced or isolated.
We had some unexpected results from a project into the Deployment and Impact of Support Staff – it found that the more support pupils had from Teaching Assistants, the less progress they made. I was pleased with the way the team and I worked through all the observation, interview and questionnaire data to develop what has become an influential explanation for why Teaching Assistants can have a negative effect – and what we can then do about it.’
‘After a talk I gave at the University of Melbourne the discussant praised us for the bravery shown. This is an unusual way of looking at research but in the early days it really felt we were challenging established ways of doing things, and there was a lot of initial resistance from policy makers, government and some in schools. But we were confident in the research and stood our ground. The important thing is what’s best for children.
Key reference: Blatchford, P., Russell, A. and Webster, R. (2012) Reassessing the impact of teaching assistants: How research challenges practice and policy, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-68763-8 (hbk);978-0-415-68764-5 (pbk); 978-0-203-15196-9 (ebk)
The guidance for schools:
Webster, R., Russell, A., and Blatchford, P. (2016) Maximising the impact of teaching assistants: guidance for school leaders and teachers. 2nd Edition. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge
Sharples, J., Webster, R & Blatchford, P. (2015) Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants. Guidance Report. Educational Endowment Foundation
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/sites/ioe/files/TA_Guidance_Report_MakingBestUseOfTeachingAssisstants.pdf
More on the DISS research findings:
Blatchford, P., Bassett, P., Brown, P., Martin, C., Russell, A. and Webster, P. (2011) The impact of support staff on pupils’ ‘positive approaches to learning’ and their academic progress. British Educational Research Journal, 37 (3), 443-464
Also: Blatchford, P. (2027) Inside Classrooms: How contexts and relationships shape learning and teaching. London: Routledge, Chapter 7.