Making the best use of Teaching Assistants

Since 2009, there has been lots of research in England into making the best use of the skills, talents and abilities of Teaching Assistants, to improve learning outcomes for children and young people. Two significant outcomes have been:

1) The Education Endowment Foundation’s Making the Best use of Teaching Assistants: Guidance Report. This provides tools and resources to enable schools to equip their TAs to deliver effective interventions and enhance communication with teachers.
The Education Endowment Foundation has teamed up with TES to produce an online Leadership development course on making the best use of teaching assistants

2) The advisory Professional Standards for Teaching Assistants, published in 2016 and endorsed by several organisations

Ten reasons to improve the use of Teaching Assistants

The Education Endowment Foundation’s report includes the following ten reasons to improve the use of Teaching Assistants:

The status quo isn’t an option! The evidence is clear: poor TA deployment has a negative impact on attainment; effective TA deployment can have positive impacts The resources are already there. Schools in England employ 380,000+ TAs. The average school spend on TAs is about £200,000 per year Schools that overcome practical barriers to change do so by investing time, attention and effort into making improvements – not by spending lots of money Up-skilling TAs raises their professional profile and status, and makes them feel more valued Research shows that teachers benefit: effective use of TAs can reduce workload and stress, and improve classroom behaviour Dynamic, coordinated partnerships help pupils make progress. Teachers and TAs respond to pupils’ ‘real time’ needs when support is focussed and immediate Improving the use of your current TA workforce is a better investment of Pupil Premium funds than employing more TAs Information about evidence-based interventions, practical guidance and resources are available online to help Making best use of TAs is consistent with schools’ obligations under the SEND Code of Practice… ...and it can contribute to an Ofsted grading. Inspection reports are increasing recognising the added value of effective TA deployment

Teaching Assistant Deployment Review Guide

To help schools improve their use of Teaching Assistants, this guide was published on 30th June 2017 by London Leadership Strategy in partnership with Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants and part-funded by the DfE. It sets out the six-stage process of the review, and includes templates for schools to self-evaluate their current practice. Request a download here.

About the author

Anita Devi is Director of ADL - an Education Consultant & SEND Specialist (www.AnitaDevi.com | Twitter @Butterflycolour)

About the author

Anita Devi is Director of ADL, An Education Consultant & SEND Specialist
www.AnitaDevi.com | Twitter @Butterflycolour