What makes an outstanding T.A.?

An outstanding Teaching Assistant can make all the difference to pupils’ progress. But sometimes it’s hard to know how to best assist in an ever-changing classroom environment, as well as how to balance the hundred-and-one tasks that a T.A. is called on to perform.

The role of T.A. is fraught with difficulties: Teachers can be hard to catch up with and liaise with in school, meaning that sometimes a T.A. does not have a clear idea of what pupils are supposed to be doing. Oftentimes, pupils will expect a T.A. to do all the work for them.

This course will provide practical strategies for T.A.s to:

• Assist with in-lesson assessment and feedback
• Assist with differentiation in a lesson
• Support collaborative work
• Run effective intervention sessions with small groups and individuals
• Help struggling learners to access difficult reading or writing tasks
• Motivate reluctant learners
• Deal with challenging behaviour
• Design invaluable resources
• Enhance progress for EAL learners
• Take helpful “in-lesson notes” and keep useful records of intervention
• Communicate effectively with the teacher and support planning
• Help develop pupils’ initiative and self-reliance
• Find the “key” to learning for hard-to-reach pupils
• Use effective questioning

Strategies will be realistic and useable by delegates the very next day in subjects across the curriculum and with the different Key Stages.