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From kitchen to classroom

In the West Midlands, schools are finding novel solutions to teaching shortages. Headteachers are encouraging lunch-time supervisors and teaching assistants to train as teachers. Nicholas Pyke reports

Thursday 06 June 2002 00:00 BST
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No one has yet completed the long journey from wiping noses at dinner time to running a school, but hundreds of support staff in towns such as Walsall and Wolverhampton have al-ready taken the first steps on the way.

Headteachers in the West Midlands are attempting to fight the persistent shortage of teachers by drumming up interest closer to home – targeting lunch-time supervisors and classroom assistants in an innovative recruitment drive. Across the Black Country and Birmingham, schools have been persuaded to release their support staff for one afternoon a week so they can study to become fully fledged professionals.

Sharon Boster has spent the past 16 years as a classroom assistant at Tividale Hall Junior and Infant School in the Black Country borough of Sandwell, which includes West Bromwich. Next Tuesday, as per normal, she will set up and supervise activities for the 36 three and four year olds in the school's nursery. But when lunchtime arrives, Mrs Boster becomes the pupil, driving to the Walsall campus of Wolverhampton University for a part-time degree course in early years studies.

"It's something I have thought about for a long time," says Sharon. "I spent two years without a teacher in the class running the nursery on my own, and that really spurred me on to taking the course." She is used to studying the hard way, having taken her A-levels at night school before getting her NNEB nursery nursing qualification. "Even so, it's been hard work, I must admit – maybe more difficult than I thought. It's a lot to cram in on top of work."

Once she gets a degree, she will take a postgraduate PGCE, or start training on the job through the registered teacher initiative. Mrs Boster is one of 50 classroom assistants and support staff on the scheme, a collaboration between the four Black Country authorities of Sandwell, Dudley, Wolverhampton and Walsall.

The West Midlands certainly needs all the help it can get attracting teachers. There is no particular shortage of housing, but even so the region is the fourth worst shortage area after London, the south east and the east of England. The bulk of the problems are, predictably, in the cities rather than in rural Staffordshire, Warwickshire or Worcestershire.

For example, Wolverhampton still only has 200 of the 400 new staff it needs for next autumn – partly because a number of trainees have already signed up to teaching agencies. Schools in the area also suspect that trainees are delaying their applications until July, when the vacancies are known in full.

The largest metropolitan authority in Britain, Birmingham, has taken a similar approach to that of its Black Country neighbours in attempting to tap its 8,000-strong pool of support staff. In particular the city hopes it can increase the proportion of teachers from ethnic minority groups. While just over 12 per cent of new recruits are black and Asian in the authority, above the targets set by the Teacher Training Agency, this is nowhere near the proportion of black and Asian children who make up half the pupils in the city's classrooms. At present, only 9 per cent of Birmingham's teachers are from minority groups.

At Montgomery Primary School in Sparkbrook, Nasrin Akhtar has moved up from lunch-time supervisor to classroom assistant after attending Birmingham College of Food, Tourism and Creative Studies for an afternoon a week. After 10 years at the school, she is one of dozens of assistants encouraged by the headteachers to consider going back to the college for a foundation degree and a career in teaching.

Across the city, Lea Bank Junior and Infants School in Edgbaston has already made a substantial contribution to the cause of recruitment by encouraging three classroom assistants, all of them black, to become teachers. Edgbaston is mostly thought of as Birmingham's posh suburb. But the Lea Bank estate is one of the most deprived in the country, and the local primary often relies on agency staff.

"The majority of our pupils are Afro-Caribbean so we try to get teachers and staff from the same background," says Jenny Taylor, the headteacher. We've had some excellent teaching assistants from the Caribbean community in particular. Very often they're people who missed out on their earlier schooling and didn't actually feel that they were good enough."

The College of Food and Tourism seems like an unlikely route to professional status. But it now has about 130 of the city's support staff on its books for courses in early years education at NVQ levels II and III. From September, a further 70 will begin a new early years degree course. "They're fabulous students," says Joan Hendy, the director of early years and certificate programmes. "They're really enthusiastic and they're going to make really good teachers."

Birmingham even runs a scheme to train up classroom interpreters as teachers in an attempt to increase its minority representation. "We get out to schools and communities," says Cathy Waddington, the acting assistant director of personnel and equalities in the city. "We particularly target schools where there are pupils from black and ethnic minority groups. We'll go and talk to them about teaching as a career." Between a quarter and a third of the support staff who have enrolled for further training are from ethnic minority groups.

Now the city is considering how to adapt the scheme for secondary schools, where the worst shortages lie. This will not be easy. The students, many of whom start with no qualifications at all, will be obliged to study a national curriculum subject up to a high level. But the city is optimistic.

"We haven't had any great difficulties so far," says Cathy Waddington, who expects to see the first cohort of homegrown teachers in three years' time.

"The only problem we've had is where schools have been happy to release one person but they've had to say sorry to someone else in the same school who also wanted to study. We should be able to make a significant contribution to the West Midland's teaching force."

education@independent.co.uk

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