The aim of this essay is collaborative professional practice, in exploring the professional role of a Special Educational Needs teaching Assistant (SEN TA) “professional collaboration has been viewed as a beneficial tool, for helping teachers and other professionals support students with disabilities, it has been deemed the best practice in special education” (Hernandez, 2013, pp.481) Throughout the assignment it will explore the challenges and barriers to collaborative professional practice, with research from case studies and articles to support this.
An SEN Teaching Assistant plays a crucial role within any school, this may be a special needs school or mainstream. Statistics that are rising in England is the number of students who require
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The Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy in 2019, released a framework called the ‘Early Career Framework’ this document emphasises “creating a supporting environment where teachers can continually develop their skills and knowledge” (DFE,2019) Working in collaboration, for example a team meeting on a specific area, such as the strategies for supporting a child who has autism school. The teaching assistant should be involved in this to broaden their knowledge and share any strategies they may have. CPD in collaboration is prioritized within the Early career framework “The value of collaboration, encourages teachers to reflect and engage with colleges” (DFE,2019) This allows for diverse approaches to support them in the classroom.
Collaborate CPD has been known to have much more of an impact on both the professionals working together and students within the school, compared to individualised CPD. A review study concluded that “Collaborative CPD allowed for peer observation, support and reflection between the professionals and enthusiasm for working together as professionals” (Cordingley, et al (2005) This eased anxieties about being observed and receiving feedback, opening the lines of
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It is important they push through each of the barriers to work collaboratively together in the classroom, firstly is time. This barrier is restricting the ability for the meeting to happen, it may be if there is no way it can happen in school it could be a zoom meeting. Furthermore, the discussion can be split into 2 meetings after school, as there will be less time.
The second barrier is diversity “diversity brings a broad range of experience, skills and backgrounds which can certainly have a positive impact” (Sands, 2022) Both the professionals having different experiences and ideas is important, these need to be shared and collaborated. The Professional Learning Communities model (PLCs) provide structured framework to collaboration for educators, “To establish a shared goal/vision, to set common goals for both the professionals and student” (Cormier and Olivier,