HC Deb 14 February 2003 vol 400 cc162-3W
Mr. Gibb

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the effectiveness of support staff in National Curriculum teaching. [97153]

Mr Miliband

The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) published an evaluation report in April 2002 on the quality and impact of the work of teaching assistants in primary schools. The report reinforced the Government's view that well-trained and well-managed teaching assistants have the potential to help schools raise standards by showing that the quality of teaching in lessons with teaching assistants is better than in lessons without them.

In a survey of headteachers (July 2002) relating to the implementation of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies, 89 per cent. said that teaching assistants made a positive contribution to the quality of literacy teaching and the same percentage said that teaching assistants contributed to improving the teaching of mathematics.