ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways in which the schools and services investigated in the Manchester research were facilitating the development of assistant teams and the reasons for and purposes of this. It also considers how the schools and services had addressed the development of effective induction strategies, supported ongoing professional development and the creation of career structures. The schools had also recognised the need for teachers to be supported in their staff development with respect to working effectively with assistants in the classroom and had started to address this. This latter was in the absence of any national and, in most cases, LEA initiatives in this direction at that time.
