Teachers welcome assistants' support

The majority of teachers welcome the back-up role that teaching assistants play in the classroom but reject their use as substitute teachers, a survey for the National Union of Teachers (NUT) has found. The survey of just under 4,000 teachers in England and Wales on the availability and deployment of teaching assistants found that 80.5 per cent of teachers saw benefits in teaching assistants giving support to pupils. But just under nine in ten (89.1 per cent) said they did not want classroom assistants to cover for teacher absences and shortages, as has been envisaged by the Government, although one...