Image: Calicospanish.com

Teachers are up in arms over the news that school days may become even longer.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, made the announcement during his budget presentation.

Former teaching assistant Jackie Marlow has expressed her concern after being made redundant along with other staff last year because of the government’s plan to phase out teaching assistants altogether.

She said that her school was already now struggling to cope with the number of children that don’t have the extra support, so increasing the length of the school day will increase the strain that’s already put on staff.

The Treasury and Department of Education revealed three years ago their plans to cut teaching assistants as studies at the time showed that children’s results did not improve with their help.

New studies published last week suggested that teaching assistants do help children to get the grades they need and made a positive impact on student learning.

The studies also revealed that students taught in smaller groups by assistants often made better progress when compared to having no help in the classroom.

Students even progressed by an additional three to four months.

Marlow said she was upset as these new studies show that her redundancy and other staff lay-offs could have been prevented.