Learner support teachers play a valuable role at schools and too often, I see their departments being run ineffectively. This mismanagement can lead to a misuse of learner support staff’s time, hindering their impact on student learning. What are some of the problems learner support teams encounter and how can they be resolved? Continue reading on to find out!

​When a learner support team isn’t seen as having authority, they feel like they are powerless to offer suggestions to classroom teachers. This results in a team that merely shows up in classrooms and asks teachers on a daily basis what they need help with. The problem with this is that the teacher may not actually know what students need support with and how it should be offered. And so the learner support teacher either ends up being an extra body in the room, offering assistance to all students and not only the ones that actually are supposed to be receiving support or they offer assistance to designated learner support students but in a generic unplanned fashion – neither of which is the best use of their time.

​Schools that do not provide guidelines also run into problems as a lack of clear directives outlining what teachers and learner support staff are responsible creates room for gray areas. Can a teacher ask learner support staff to come up with differentiated materials or are they to create their own sets for learner support teachers to use? Who is the expert on what is best for the designated learner support students – the teacher or support staff, meaning who follows whose lead? Does the learner support team exist merely to do a teacher’s bidding, or do they exist to inform and educate teachers on the best ways of supporting learners?

​Another common problem that learner support teachers face is the lack of scheduled meeting times with the teachers in classrooms where they offer support. Without this time, they have no way of knowing what upcoming units/lessons they are to be helping students with, and this leads to them not being able to prepare scaffolded/differentiated materials for learners. That said, if the teachers at your school are responsible for creating these materials it’s not as big of a concern; however, if it’s expected  that support staff prepare the materials – this becomes an issue.

While all three problems present challenges for support staff, they can easily be resolved by giving the learner support team the authority to voice their opinions and share their expertise with teachers, also by providing staff with established guidelines outlining the responsibilities of teachers and support staff when it comes to designated students and by enforcing scheduled meeting times so that learner support staff can best help students access the curriculum. With these three solutions in place, the learner support team will be better able to support students and implement the practices they know will work best.