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Chapter 1
Appointing, inducting and developing teaching assistants
The job of teaching assistant is central to the work in primary schools to support teaching in order to improve outcomes for learners. This vital role needs to be supported by a professional appointment system to ensure your school finds the right person with the skills and qualities you need.
Sometimes schools need to appoint a teaching assistant quickly to meet the needs of a particular pupil or group of pupils. However, a permanent appointment is too important to rush and should only be confirmed following the process outlined below.
As with the process of appointing teachers, the process of appointing support staff needs to be carefully thought through before it is started. The questions below will give you some guidance on matters to be resolved before advertising for teaching assistants.
What do you want your teaching assistant to do?
- Support literacy and/or numeracy or the whole curriculum?
- Support pupils with special educational needs?
- Provide behaviour guidance and support?
- Give individual support to a pupil with a statement of special educational need?
- Provide cover for whole classes when teachers have time for planning, preparation and assessment (PPA)?
What level post will it be?
- Check job descriptions and qualifications with NJC.
- Check different levels of responsibility for Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4 Higher Level Teaching Assistants.
- Check different levels of responsibility for cover purposes between Level 3 and Level 4 TAs.
What are the current pay scales?
- Check with LA personnel department.
Is the post to be temporary or permanent? Full time or part time? Term time only or all year round?
- Set a start date for the post.
- Allow period of time for notice, usually four weeks.
What hours will be worked?
Where does the teaching assistant role sit in the whole-school staffing structure? Who will the line manager be?
- The class teacher, the key stage coordinator or subject coordinator.
Advertising, interviewing and appointing
- Advertise locally (in the local press, the LA website, or school website).
- When advertising, set a closing date for applications and date for interviews.
- Request a letter of support with the application form for additional information on interests and experiences; this also gives indicators to support qualifications, especially standards of written English.
- Decide if you want to encourage candidates to visit the school before the interview and allow time for this.
- After the closing date and short-listing, invite candidates for interview.
- Request that candidates provide proof of qualifications and identity for Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check at the interview. This reduces time after appointing.
- Plan the interview date and a programme for the day.
- Inform and involve Inclusion/SEN governor in arrangements for the interviews.
- Plan interview questions. (See list below.)
- Following the interview, confirm pay and start date.
- Inform LA personnel of the appointment.
- Organise a CRB check and ensure the teaching assistantās name is added to the school single list.
- Check the new teaching assistantās Child Protection/Safeguarding training needs.
Interview questions for teaching assistants
- Describe an activity that you have carried out with a child and what effect you think it has had on their social or academic development.
- How would you intervene between two pupils having a verbal argument?
- What planning would you do to ensure that higher standards are achieved?
- What information would you need about a child before beginning work with them?
- When taking responsibility for a group of pupils, what are the most important professional standards you have to display?
- What do you see yourself doing in three years time?
- Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is increasingly important in everyday life. What experience do you have of using ICT, and how would you use ICT to improve learning?
- What in-service training (INSET) requirements do you think this post will need you to pursue?
- What particular strengths or interests are you going to bring to this post?
- Describe a child with special educational needs who you have worked with and a resource that you have used with that child.
- The national aim is to increase inclusion; what are your personal views on this?
- Contributing to and implementing Individual Education Plans (IEPs) are part of the work of support staff. What makes a good IEP?
- Some the pupils may have challenging behaviour. What experience have you had of pupils with difficult behaviour, and what strategies would you use to help them moderate their behaviour?
- How might you involve parents with their childrenās education?
- In what ways have you been able to contribute to the life of a school, other than in your support work?
Induction: shadowing, whole-school information and class information
Spending some time planning an induction programme for a new teaching assistant will save time in the future. Using the school induction programme for teachers could be a good starting point as teaching assistants will need to know the general whole-school systems and procedures.
Planning some time for a new teaching assistant to shadow and be mentored by a more experienced teaching assistant can be very successful, particularly if the line manager has many other responsibilities. This shadowing has a number of benefits, enabling the new teaching assistant quickly to understand the schoolās expectations of the role and to pick up the systems and processes that will enable her to do her job effectively. Mentoring is an efficient way of passing on skills to new members of staff and of making them feel part of the staff team.
There will be some specific training related to the post that will need to be planned. This training might be related to the teaching assistantās work with an individual learner, such as the particular needs of a child with a specific learning difficulty; or to the teaching assistantās work in a particular area of the curriculum, such as mathematics, where approaches to teaching the subject have changed considerably in recent years. Or the training might focus on whole-school issues, such as promoting positive behaviour.
Induction needs to be carefully planned and should be part of the usual school practice for all staff. Induction should then be followed up by continuing professional development, agreed on as part of the performance management process. Most local authorities now offer the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) induction course for teaching assistants. This course gives teaching assistants a basic understanding of the role and context of their work and short courses in promoting positive behaviour, understanding how children learn and providing support in literacy, numeracy and ICT. More information on this course can be found at www.tda.gov.uk.
Much general information can be provided as a pack for reading at the teaching assistantās leisure, but there are some issues that are better explained during a more formal meeting, for example the school dress code or arrangements for absence.
Induction pack
The following pages can be photocopied and used by schools to create their own induction packs for new teaching assistants. The pack includes:
- A list of documents to be made available
- A teaching assistant induction checklist
- Doās for teaching assistants
- Checklist of training requirements for new teaching assistants
- Format for the introduction of new teaching assistants
- Document āRoles and responsibilities of teaching assistantsā to share with staff.
Documents and other information to make available to new teaching assistants
- School policies
- behaviour and attendance
- special educational needs and inclusion
- child protection/safeguarding children
- name of designated senior person (DSP)
- assessment
- health and safety
- hygiene and food
- ICT
- security
- Individual Education Plans (IEPs) of children in own class
- schemes of work for class and/or year group
- National Curriculum levels and data
- individual pupil data
- school and class timetables
- playground and lunchtime duty rotas
- staff lists and staff structures
- list of other professionals working in the school and their roles
- recording and reporting incidents
- Off-site responsibilities, including school trips
- Emergency plans including fire, accident and severe weather
- Names of First Aiders
- Guidance on confidentiality.
Table 1.1 Teaching assistant induction checklist
| Date issued/discussed | Follow-up date |
| Useful Information | | |
| Map of school | | |
| School prospectus | | |
| Staff list | | |
| Timings of the day | | |
| Staffing meetings and briefings details | | |
| Health & Safety arrangements | | |
| Behaviour and attendance policy | | |
| Special educational needs policy | | |
| Introduction to use of ICT | | |
| School calendar of events | | |
| General Arrangements | | |
| Storage of personal belongings | | |
| Tea/coffee arrangements | | |
| Play and lunchtime rotas | | |
| Car parking | | |
| Pay | | |
| Absence | | |
| Security arrangements | | |
| Union membership | | |
| Role Specific Information | | |
| Meeting to talk through the role | | |
| Role of teaching assistants | | |
| Daily timetable | | |
| Pupil information | | |
| Record keeping | | |
| Professional development revi... |
