Home > News > June 2004 > 02-Jun-2004

Miliband welcomes progress on school support staff qualification

School Standards Minister David Miliband has welcomed progress towards a new national qualification for school support staff to demonstrate their competence and professionalism.

The vocational qualification for school support staff is being developed by a partnership led by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency, and a consortium of four awarding bodies. It is expected to come on stream from the late summer, providing a focus for the expanded training opportunities announced in March by the DfES and LSC.

Speaking last week at an LSC conference in Birmingham, David Miliband said: "There are more than a quarter of a million people who do fantastic work in schools, directly or indirectly supporting teachers. They hold a wide range of very responsible jobs, and they are vital to maintaining and raising school standards. Until now many have not had much training, nor been able to achieve qualifications relevant to their work in schools.

"This new, flexible qualification will be tailored to the work which school staff do - whether directly with children, or indirectly in one of many professional back-up roles.

"Training towards the qualification will be mainly delivered in schools, and the assessment will also be school-based. The trials run jointly by local authorities, schools and the LSC have shown this can work well, delivering rigour and consistency without bureaucracy."

The qualification will initially be available at Level 2 (broadly equating to five good GCSEs), but it is planned later to offer it also at higher levels. At Level 2 it will comprise two core units covering (a) care and support of pupils, and (b) team-working with school colleagues, drawn from the Teaching Assistant NVQ. It will also include at least two other units drawn from other vocational qualifications, demonstrating competence in specific professional roles (eg laboratory, IT, midday supervision, caretaking, behaviour, administration, finance, maintenance etc).

The qualification is being developed by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Learning and Skills Council and the Teacher Training Agency working with a consortium of four awarding bodies (CACHE, City and Guilds, Edexcel and OCR). Other partners involved include schools, local authorities and trade unions. The qualification will be delivered by a range of training providers from all sectors. Training will be part-funded by the LSC as set out in its document "LSC school support staff - sector plan for 2004-05" published 29 March 2004 and available for download at www.lsc.gov.uk/National/

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