[senco-forum] Positive attitude

I think David's advice is way too harsh but he does have a point -

Yes my response 'taken at face value' was probably far too harsh.
Furthermore one must not only comply with current employment
legislation, one must also be aware of the effect a tough approach
might have on other TAs and school staff. However there is no getting
away from the unpleasant fact that ingrained negative attitudes are
often extremely hard to change in the longer term.

Furthermore if the manner in which this TA currently supports students
is at detrimental to their progress overall -- in other words they'd
be better off without her -- then perhaps the best course of action
might be to; (1) have her spend time shadowing and hopefully learning
from a more experienced TA who has a far more positive attitude; or
(2) explore the possibility of redeploying her elsewhere within the
school where she has little or no contact with SEN students.

Two things you can't afford to do are 'nothing' and pussyfooting
around rolling out a group training programme that's inappropriate to
the needs of all the other TAs in the school, simply because you don't
want this one highly negative TA to "feel excluded". If you take
either of these approaches you'll most likely alienate all of your
TA's!

Perhaps you can arrange for a senior school manager, one whom you
trust, to first broach the subject of her negativity with you present
as well -- preferably a manager she doesn't often come into contact
with. If they spell out the problem then you can explore possible
solutions with her ...the "hard and soft" approach. This might
incentivise her to work with you on improving her attitude, rather
than perhaps polarising the situation were you were to broach this
problem with her on your own.

Hope this is helpful.

David Bowles

> I think David's advice is way too harsh but he does have a point -
> If you provide the training for all your TAs, how will you get the
> message home to her specifically? I would expect that they could
> model and reinforce your message (that a positive attitude is
> essential) but she may not realise that she isn't being positive...