ABSTRACT
Staff development is one of the ways in which the process of change can be supported. Reviewing practice, the identification of areas for development, and collaborative planning of how to go about it, are all components of staff development. The idea that the adults, teachers and assistants, should learn together in the context which actually creates their staff development needs is linked to and should grow from policies for overall staff development. The most powerful form of staff development, which has an optimum impact on classroom practice, happens in those classrooms where two people consider classroom processes together. The fact that teachers and assistants have to work together in classrooms anyway, because of resource allocation, may be turned to great advantage. That is because looking at that existing partnership as an opportunity for staff development, while rethinking the task of sharing the classroom, is an opportunity to be capitalised on.
