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Teaching Assistants on the Frontline of Learning
- To explore our understanding of children’s learning.
- To develop our knowledge and use of questioning skills.
- To know how to support and develop pupils’ independent learning skills.
This course is a very helpful introduction to the fundamentals of learning for new teaching assistants, whilst also being a very thought-provoking reflection for those more experienced. It is not subject-specific, but addresses the more rooted questions around how children learn and how they fail. It addresses how we can use skilful questioning to lift the lid on children’s learning, and how we can use practical strategies to encourage independent learners. This is about exploring the role of teaching assistants at the point of interaction with children.
There are now around 250,000 teaching assistants in English schools. This represents around treble the number that existed in 2000 (EEF, 2016). In primary schools, there are more teaching assistants than teachers. Unlike teachers, however, the roles, responsibilities and preparatory training for this are extremely wide and varied. Unlike teachers, there is no common qualification or body of study that all teaching assistants must have before they can embark on their role. Yet despite training for teaching assistants being very patchy and varied, schools across England expect them to be firmly on the frontline of learning and teaching. Yet research from the Education Endowment Foundation (2016) has highlighted that without strong and effective training and deployment, teaching assistants can have very little positive impact on pupil progress – a bitter pill to swallow for any hard-working teaching assistant. However, the researchers do not point any blame at teaching assistants for this situation, but identify conditions of employment, preparedness and deployment as the ingredients that either help or hinder them from achieving good practice.
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