Education Support Staff Working in Classroom Support Roles

Overview

The purpose of these Guidelines is to help principals and school leadership teams to optimise the work of education support staff working in classroom support roles. It supports education support staff to build on their capabilities to influence the achievement, engagement and wellbeing outcomes of all students, including those with disability and additional needs.

The Guidelines provide practical, evidence-based key improvement strategies, which principals and school leaders can draw on when using the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO) Improvement Cycle to evaluate their school’s current practice and to plan for improvement.

Key improvement strategies

The 4 key improvement strategies (KIS) in the Guidelines have been developed to support schools in considering how they can strengthen and extend their practices around inclusive education and the effective use of education support staff in the classroom.

Under each KIS sits evidence-based actions that principals, teachers, education support staff and other relevant professionals supporting students’ learning, can implement to improve student outcomes.

The KIS can be used to identify and prioritise actions most critical to each school’s specific areas of strength and areas of practice that could be improved.

School improvement planning

Schools plan for continuous improvement in their students’ outcomes using the FISO Improvement Cycle. They complete a four-yearly School Strategic Plan (SSP) and Annual Implementation Plans (AIPs) in the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT).

The FISO Improvement Cycle helps schools to align goals, targets and KIS to annual actions and activities, and monitor progress from term-to-term and year-to-year.

Just as the FISO Improvement Cycle can be used at different levels, from the whole-school to the classroom and over different time periods, from four-week cycles to annual cycles, so too can the KIS in these Guidelines. As well as supporting whole-school planning for the AIP, they can also be used by professional learning teams, or individual teachers and education support staff, to maintain a focus on best practice and evidence.

The KIS in the Guidelines will assist schools to identify the actions that will best support and align with other KIS they have identified as their focus in their SSP and AIP.