Once again, the RAG self-assessment guide provides a useful starting point when considering the use of TA-led interventions in your school, in line with the research. The final page of the document covers recommendations five, six and seven.
You may also want to use an Interventions health check to analyse the current use of TA-led interventions in your school. It is important to think about which intervention is being used and how it is being delivered. As with the self-assessment guide, you may choose to complete the Interventions health check on your own, in collaboration with colleagues, or you might decide to give it to all teaching and teaching assistant staff.
By this point in the course you will notice that a joined-up approach to self-assessment is essential. If you decide to put together a TA Development Team and ask them to assess the school in light of Recommendations One to Four, then it makes sense to ask them to do the same with Recommendations Five to Seven as well. Getting teaching and TA deployment right in the classroom will determine the extent to which pupils require structured interventions, and crucially, which programmes will best supplement the class teaching and fill the gaps in learning.
In the video, Maureen Andrews, the headteacher at Pye Bank CE School, describes how she stopped running interventions for six months in order to work on practice in the classroom. Doing this meant that she and her staff were in a more informed position to work on Recommendations Five to Seven when the time came.