The study of 31 schools, entitled Workforce reform in schools: has it made a difference?, found that the quality of the support offered by the wider schools workforce, which includes roles such as teaching assistants and welfare staff, depended on teachers' ability to manage them properly.
Inspectors visited 16 primary schools, 14 secondary schools and one nursery school.
Only three of the schools knew about the Training and Development Agency's (TDA) career development framework for the wider workforce. This was said to have delayed the development of school support staff as a fully-trained professional body.
When looking at the role of teaching assistants, Ofsted concluded that support was most effective when teaching assistants were well-trained, knew what was expected of them, were aware of pupils' targets and were confident about assessing pupils' progress.
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