Support Practitioner Standards

Teaching Assistants support classroom management and assist with general administration. They help manage pupil behaviour and support pupils’ health, safety and emotional/social development. Teaching assistants establish relationships with learners and help pupils to access the curriculum. They support the development and effectiveness of work teams, work with other professionals and liaise effectively with parents.

Schools employ and have teaching assistants, to again, create the best possible learning environment for the pupils. As a teaching assistant I will work as part of a team working to make the pupils learning journey, a successful one. I will attend staff meetings and continue to develop my skills through in-house training and other relevant courses. I will maintain and contribute to school policies and procedures, and work in partnership with parents and carers on behalf of the school.

A teaching assistant plays an important role for the standards of behaviour expected in the classroom.

Although the class teacher is primarily responsible to plan, deliver and review all learning activities for the class, a teaching assistant can work alongside the teacher and make contributions that can improve the teachers plan, alter the delivery to make it more effective for pupil attainment and extend the teachers initial review. “Planning, teaching and evaluation follow a cycle which gives structure to the learning process” (Baker, B., Burnham, L., 2010) and is vital in my role as a teaching assistant. I aim to describe how I aide the teacher to plan and deliver lessons and how I give feedback to the teacher about individual pupils, in order for the teacher make improvements in her planning and to be able to target individual

The class teachers’ main role is to monitor and assess pupils’ achievement. They need to be aware of the progression made by all the children in their class and be able to report back to both the parents and other staff. As a Teaching assistant my main role is to support the class teacher whilst this ongoing assessment of pupils takes place. The teacher can measure the progress of each pupil by carrying out lessons and setting the children clear objectives. At the start of each lesson so that the children are clear about the objectives the class teacher writes

The teaching assistant can offer support to their colleagues by being open and honest with them, this includes being open and honest about their ability to provide support when they either do not have the time or skills to do so. The teaching assistant should also keep their colleagues up to date with their work schedule that may affect the support they can offer. They should address any issues they may have with other work colleagues in a constructive manner and try to resolve these issues by their own actions. Any issues that cannot be resolved should be reported to someone who does have the authority and capability to resolve them. The teaching assistant could either be working with teachers, other teaching assistants, other adults working

Emma thinks that if she had a different role within school she may feel more included, but also added that she does enjoy her work as a 1:1 Support/Teaching Assistant and finds it rewarding. Emma has a lot to offer to children which would beneficial for their learning. She has worked as a Teaching Assistant/Learning Support Assistant for the past 15 years. From this she has a wealth of experience which include working with sight-impaired and hearing impaired children. She has previous experience of running intervention classes in Maths and Literacy and would be keen to provide this

My professional practice setting, during the previous OFSTED inspection dated 2013 was deemed “GOOD” for the behaviour and safety of pupils (appendix 1). During Physical Education lessons I interact with single gender groups across the whole school. Through my interactions with pupils I would consider that pupils come from a good social and moral background, with a high percentage of these students being Muslim. Being Muslin and worshiping at Mosque they are required to be respectful and behave in an appropriate manor when they are being lead in prayer. These traditional values are then evident in the way they conduct themselves in school. During my time at the school I have changed my job role. Firstly I was a teaching assistant for an individual child with BESD and Autism. I then had to make the transition to be the main classroom teacher. This change had implications which I needed to overcome. Aggressive and threatening behaviour isn’t something I have come across in school, without exception. Having had discussions with colleagues from different faculties, this is evident across whole-school. With this in mind my predominant area of focus for behaviour management will be low level disruption and the strategies I have put in place to discourage this particular behaviour. In addition to this I will also analyse the strategies used for the very small number of students that cause further disruption on a consistent basis across whole school and the actions/interventions

I have enjoyed working with Masufa Khatun for the last XX years. She is an enthusiastic, diligent, hard working and totally reliable Academic Support Tutor and Learning Support Assistant (LSA). The students at the Adult and Higher Education division of Peter Symonds College range in age from 16 to 60 plus. Masufa is an excellent communicator and works with students of varying abilities and ages without a problem, providing support to those who can barely read and write to those on our degree programme. She works well both when supporting an individual student from a mainstream class or one from our discrete provision for adults with learning difficulties/disabilities. Flexibility and an ability to see problems in advance are key to supporting these students successfully which Masufa is able to do.

In an Early Years (EY) setting, the role of a TA differs slightly to higher key stages in school, as it is a statutory requirement that each child “must be assigned a key person” (DfE, 2017:22), in which the assigned person must ensure that the learning

I knew at a young age that I wanted to go into the medical field. It was an exhilarating idea that I could dedicate my life to helping others in need. I was debating on becoming a physical therapist, an anesthesiologist, or a nurse throughout middle school and high school. Ultimately, I decided to pick nursing because I felt the most familiar with it with my mother being a nurse and coming from a bloodline of nurses. Then came the first year of college when I realized that maybe I am not so familiar with the occupation after all. For example, I did not realize the magnitude of how stressful the occupation was. Only this year has my mother began to tell me how some days she would go without eating because nurses do not have a designated lunch break. She also told me how some of her female coworkers have been sexually harassed by patients regularly.

During my time as a Teaching Assistant I experienced the highlight that working in a school environment brings and children’s experiences they bring with them to school, from what they have been up to at home and in school. I have

Pupil Information: Child with Down Syndrome will have a teaching assistant working close by to them for support. With the support of a classroom assistant a child with Down’s Syndrome should be able to learn alongside their peers, and should be given every opportunity to form meaningful friendships with peers, free

To start, A is provided with both push-in and pull-out services for academic subject areas such as math, reading, and writing. For each of these subjects he either gets 1:1 support or small group instruction and when he is provided with these services he either remains in his general education classroom or goes to the special education/resource room. Also available to A in the general education classroom, is an auxiliary Special Education Teacher’s Assistant who can step in to assist A with any academic, social, or behavior needs he may have.

Another common misconception, this one from the community as a whole, is that aides and paras have the same responsibilities. Aides take the role of a teacher’s assistant more so than a para. Aides are in the classroom to help keep the chaos to a minimum, organize the classroom, and make copies for a lesson. Paras on the other hand, are trained professionals that modify curriculum, implement behavior management plans, and provide one-on-one instruction for the students with special needs (Role). In fact, the average special education paraprofessional works in five