Time well spent: How to support effective Teacher and Teaching Assistant partnerships

The degree of impact that a Teaching Assistant (TA) can have on pupils depends on a number of variables. It may depend on a TA’s training, experience, knowledge of a pupils and the curriculum or their understanding of behaviours. There are other factors that are beyond their immediate control, such as, how their role is understood by staff, how much professional autonomy they have, and how much information is shared with them.

TheEEF’s Deployment of Teaching Assistants guidance report highlights the importance of day-to-day preparedness. To enable greater impact, leaders need to think not only about what TAs do, but also about the wider conditions that make it possible. And it makes sense to start by zooming out.

Strategic deployment of TAs

School leaders are skilled at ​“zooming out”: asking if the right conditions are in place before focusing on the detail. Zooming out may require us to ask several questions about culture, deployment decisions and practices. 

School culture

Do the conditions exist for teacher – TA partnerships to thrive? Leaders might reflect on questions such as:

• Are all staff genuinely responsible for supporting pupils with SEND?
• Are the views of all staff professionally respected?
• Do colleagues have the autonomy to make decisions about pupil needs and adjust provision where required?

Creating the right culture might mean:

• Reminding all staff of their shared responsibility towards pupils with SEND.
• Showing what effective teacher – TA partnerships look like in practice. 
  
  
• Encouraging reflective professional dialogue with prompts like ​“What did you notice?” ​“What did you try?”, ​“What was the impact?”.

Deployment decisions

Even when the culture is right, systems must support teacher – TA liaison. Leaders may need to ask: 

• Do the timings of the school day allow for teachers and TAs to meet? 
  
  
• Do TA contracts, especially start and end times, enable TAs and teachers to meet?
• Is teacher-TA liaison prioritised as an important activity within teachers’ directed time, i.e. through the meetings cycle of the school?

Small structural changes, such as aligning timetables or building in brief formal opportunities for dialogue, can make a big difference.

Day-to-day practices

Finally, leaders can focus on specific habits that promote preparedness:

• Are teachers sharing information proactively with TA’s, e.g. curriculum and learning goals for specific pupils (where appropriate)?
• Are expectations for supporting individual pupils clear? For example, how a pupil’s needs might be met within a given learning task through the support of the teacher, TA, or both?
• Do teachers and TAs carve out quick moments to share updates on successes, barriers, and progress towards the intended learning goals?

Resources to help put this into practice

This tool from the EEF may provide astarting point for discussion between a teacher and TA to develop greater clarity around deployment.

The EEF’sDeployment of Teaching Assistants guidance reports highlights the multi-faceted nature of successful TA deployment. Leaders will be aware that it’s the variables outside of TAs’ control, as well as those within their control, that together support successful deployment and lead to greater impact for pupils.