There are over 275,000 Teaching Assistants (TAs) working in English schools. As 28% of the education workforce, it is essential that TAs are supported to work alongside teachers to ensure high quality teaching and learning for all pupils, but particularly those with SEND.

Helpfully, the evidence base for maximising the impact of TA practices has developed over the past decade. We know that focusing on task completion or excessive removal from the classroom is likely to be unhelpful. Additionally, we know that TAs can make a real difference when delivering interventions and that effective classroom deployment involves supporting pupils to learn with greater independence.

The EEF’s guidance report highlights five teaching approaches – a ​‘Five-a-day’ – that can support pupils with SEND to make increased academic progress.

Five-a-day and the role of TA

This reflection tool can be used as a starting point for TAs looking to develop their practice. It can help TAs to consider how their own practice can align with the evidence around what supports pupils with SEND to make good academic progress.

Take ​‘metacognitive strategies’, for example. The reflection tool asks TAs to consider:

To what extent do I ask good metacognitive questions that support pupils to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning?

Developing pupils’ metacognitive understanding of how they learn — their knowledge of themselves as a learner, of strategies, and of tasks — can be an effective way of improving pupil outcomes.

Let’s consider what this might look like for a teaching assistant helping a pupil, who has moderate learning difficulties, to approach a written task in which they must compare historical sources.

Planning

If the pupil is struggling to know where to start, a TA can support the child to think metacognitively. They might ask that child:

Have you done a similar task before?

What strategies have you used to solve this problem in the past?

Do you have what you need to begin the task?

Let’s say that same pupil is supported to begin the task, having received some guidance on what strategy to use (such as using a checklist of prompts for comparing sources) – perhaps receiving some clues about what to look for in each source. The teaching assistant may then move away from that child, giving the ​‘least help first’, to promote that pupil’s independence.

Monitoring

When the TA returns to that pupil, they may continue to promote metacognitive thinking by asking:

Are you making progress?

Is XXXX strategy working?

Are you finding this challenging? How are you dealing with that challenge?

The answers to these questions might make it appropriate for the TA to stay with that pupil for a few minutes, supporting them by addressing any misconceptions, or cueing the pupil in to any clues in the text, which might redirect them towards their learning goal.

The pupil should then be better equipped to compare these historical sources, with some accuracy and with the most independence possible for them.

Evaluating

As well as supporting that pupil to plan how they will work and to monitor how effective that plan is working for them, they might also return to that pupil at the end of the task, perhaps asking them to reflect:

Did you accomplish your goal?

Was XXXX strategy useful for you?

Could you do the task without support next time?

By providing TAs with high-quality CPD opportunities that highlight the best available research – along with sharing concrete techniques that emerge from the ​‘Five-a-Day’ model – we can support all colleagues to make evidence-informed decisions about how they will support all learners, including those with SEND, to make increased progress in class.