SEND
Make The Best Use Of Teaching Assistants
Your teaching assistants could be doing far more for the pupils who need it most, and the EEF's guidance shows how to deploy them.
- 31 minutes
- 9 modules
- 0.5 CPD hours
- Certificate
Members
14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.
Have a join code from your school?
Already have an account? Sign in
What you'll learn
- Rewrite the TA job description so it sets out a clear classroom role
- Plan lessons where TAs add to the teacher's work rather than replace it
- Train TAs to give the least help first, so pupils learn to work independently
- Find regular time for teachers and TAs to plan together
- Check that interventions are well chosen, tracked and linked to class learning
About this course
TAs cost schools a great deal, and a good share of your pupil premium probably pays for them. Yet one large study found that the pupils who had the most TA support made the least progress. That usually comes down to how TAs are deployed rather than to the TAs themselves.
Here the Education Endowment Foundation's guidance on teaching assistants becomes a set of decisions you can make as a leader. Sending a TA out of the room with the lowest attaining group has to stop. Instead, TAs can rotate groups with the teacher or work as "teaching triage" around the room. A simple scale of support, from self-scaffolding up to modelling, helps TAs give the least help first so pupils stop leaning on them.
There's also a health check for your interventions, and ways to find planning time when teacher and TA hours don't overlap.
- For governors, middle leaders and senior leaders. All phases.
9 modules
Open in order
- 4 min
Introduction
- 3 min
Wrap up
- 4 min
Informal teaching for LA
- 5 min
Adding value
- 5 min
Developing independence
- 4 min
Being prepared
- 5 min
Structured interventions
- 3 min
Evidence based interventions
- 3 min
Making connections