Staff have been told the students are not allowed to have their usual classroom assistant with them as this is not ‘best practice’. As a QToD, how can I challenge this decision professionally?

Question: Lower secondary pupils are due to start their internal school exams soon.  Staff have been told the students are not allowed to have their usual classroom assistant with them as this is not ‘best practice’.  The replacement staff will never worked with them. As a QToD, how can I challenge this decision professionally?

BATOD response:

BATOD advises the QToD investigates what specific access arrangements purpose would the staff be doing? How does it correspond with what would happen in real GCSEs in the future?

If the support staff are supporting in the capacity as communication professionals eg CSWs etc or Language Modifiers, these arrangements would be requested for the actual exams and should be the – ‘normal way of working’.