How to Use Teaching Assistants to Improve SEND Provision

Teaching assistants (TAs) play a vital role in making our classrooms more inclusive. In a recent Teacher Tapp survey 88% of teachers said they need more help to support learners with SEND. When asked what would help them the most, the number one answer was more TA support.

Yet many TAs don’t receive a lot of formal training and some schools effectively ‘default’ to outdated models of deployment, capping the impact they can have. This has perpetuated a cycle of TAs being under-recognised for the work that they do. In a recent survey by NCFE (Northern Advisory Council for Further Education) only 11% of TAs said they felt that their role was highly respected and valued. The report’s conclusion noted that while there is “clear commitment” from teaching assistants to continue in the role and develop professionally, “relying on passion alone is not sustainable.”

In this blog we’ll explore how schools can make better use of TA support to improve outcomes for pupils with SEND, referencing evidence-based approaches as well as providing some practical tips.

Build up scaffolding skills to support adaptive teaching

One way to enhance TA support would be to provide more extensive training in techniques such as scaffolding. In the classroom, this means providing just enough support so that pupils can successfully complete tasks that they cannot yet do independently. 

An important feature of adaptive teaching is adapting lessons while maintaining high expectations for all, so that every pupil has the opportunity to meet expectations. TAs can play an important role in this by providing targeted support to pupils who struggle, so that they can experience success. 

The type of scaffolding that is needed during a lesson will depend on knowing pupils’ needs and the barriers that tasks present to them.

For example: In a maths lesson, for a pupil who struggles with writing, it might be helpful to provide a printed graph, rather than asking the pupil to draw the graph themselves, if the lesson objective is about interpreting information on a graph rather than constructing it.

The EEF report Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants suggests a scaffolding framework for TA-pupil interactions. Effective scaffolding starts with the TA providing the minimum amount of support each pupil needs. The initial expectation is that pupils “self-scaffold”, that is, are given time to process, think and try tasks independently while the TA observes their performance. TAs should then intervene appropriately if and when pupils demonstrate they are unable to proceed. Once a pupil begins to master what is required for the task, the amount of scaffolding needed can be withdrawn gradually, until the pupil is able to perform the task independently.

Promote independence

While one-to-one or small group support is an important feature of adaptive teaching there are pitfalls to be aware of. 

The danger of over-prompting and spoon-feeding pupils was first identified in the five-year longitudinal study (2003-09) Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS). This found that, in many cases, TA support had a negative impact on pupil progress. Whereas teachers used strategies to encourage learning, TAs were often focused on task completion, rather than giving pupils space to come up with ideas, with some TAs writing pupils’ answers in for them under pressure to get things done before break times. 

This study demonstrates, not that TAs were inherently ineffective, but that the way schools were directing them was impeding progress. More recently, the MITA (Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants) programme has demonstrated that when TAs are trained to help pupils develop independent learning skills, classroom engagement greatly increases. Effective strategies include:

• Encouraging pupils to feel comfortable to take risks with their learning
• Providing the right amount of support at the right time, and, as discussed above, giving the least amount of support first to support pupils’ ownership of a task.
• Using open-ended questions to promote discussion, and 
• Making sure that pupils have enough time to think and respond, before jumping in.

Rob Webster, who spearheaded the MITA project emphasises that TAs need to let children sit with the problem. Speaking on a recent Special Needs Jungle podcast he emphasises; 

“Thinking time is really important. One of the hardest things is just to live with a bit of
uncomfortable silence for five or six seconds while the child tries to work things out.”

Be flexible

However good support from a TA is, on some occasions, what pupils with SEND need more than anything else is more time with the teacher. Rob Webster, writing in the TES emphasises the importance of flipping roles so pupils with SEND being taught by the teacher while the TA “roves the room and uses their scaffolding skills to help [other] pupils help themselves”.

Sara Alston, speaking on a recent Sec-Ed podcast agrees, emphasising that teachers and TA should work together flexibly, as part of a team around the child. In her opinion, training should enable “anybody in the room to work with any child in the room”, as appropriate.

Be prepared

The EEF highlights the importance of good communication between teachers and TAs.

It is difficult for teachers and TAs to work in the complementary way described above if there is no time to communicate. Schools are busy places and it is often difficult to find the time for TAs to be prepared for their role in a lesson, and to feed back to the teacher about pupils’ progress afterwards. Creative solutions often need to be found. 

Some schools, such as Billesley Research School, have adjusted TA working hours so they can have daily 15-minute briefings with teachers before lessons start. Other solutions include using assembly time or inviting TAs to join teachers for part of their Planning, Preparation and Assessment (PPA) time. 

These meetings need not be long. Essentially, TAs need to know:

• The intended learning outcomes – what pupils are expected to produce by the end of the lesson and any flexibility for particular pupils to use other ways to demonstrate their learning.
• What is being taught and why – the concepts, facts, information being taught and the skills to be learned, applied, practised or extended.
• Key vocabulary
• What they need to do in the lesson – the strategies and approaches the teacher is going to use or wants the TA to use to support the whole class or individuals.
• Who they will support – if a TA is not familiar with the pupil(s) they support, understanding their needs and barriers to learning, but also their strengths and what motivates them will be useful.
• How and what they need to feed back to the teacher after the lesson – this is important for assessment and for planning next steps.

It’s worth revisiting Sara Alston’s framework for teachers that provides guidance on how to distil meetings into the learning intention, key vocabulary and outcome in order to maximise limited time. A useful tip is for teachers to annotate their slides with the main learning intentions so that these can be shared with TAs in advance.

Bring TAs into the continuous learning cycle

Some schools already set aside dedicated development time for TAs as part of whole-school teaching and learning sessions. This allows the SENCO to provide SEN CPD to everyone, and one-to-one support when TAs need this. 

In secondary schools, a ten-minute departmental briefing at the beginning of the day might also provide an opportunity for TAs to ask questions when teachers recap strategies and can provide a bit of a confidence boost. Management and reporting structures for TAs can be particularly complex in secondary schools so it’s important that TAs have clear channels of communication and feel that their feedback is valued.

Specialist Teaching Assistants (STAs)

Increasingly, ‘specialist’ TAs are being used to support children within a particular area of SEND. This might include leading interventions both inside and outside of the classroom as well as developing a toolkit of strategies while taking into account individual needs.

The EEF report that the impact of TAs delivering targeted interventions in one-to-one or small group settings shows “a consistent impact on attainment of approximately three to four additional months’ progress”. However, these positive effects are only observed when TAs work in structured settings with high-quality support and training. If TAs who deliver interventions are untrained and unsupported, this can have a negative effect on learning outcomes for pupils.

In September, the new Level 5 Specialist Teaching Assistant (STA) Apprenticeship was approved by the Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education (iFATE). This is a watershed moment as it will provide higher-level training for TAs that can be funded using the Government’s apprenticeship levy. Until this announcement, no funding was available for higher-level TA qualifications – leaving many TAs to pay for training out of their own pocket or make the case for using limited school funds.

Now, SEND experts and educational psychologists from Real Training have collaborated with Ofsted-outstanding apprenticeship provider, Educational and Sporting Futures (ESF) to offer the Level 5 apprenticeship, starting in December. 

Participants will have the option to specialise in SEND, literacy, and social and emotional wellbeing, reflecting the diverse roles and responsibilities of TAs. The hope is that it will raise standards of support and help with staff retention.

Leaders need to show support

If TAs are to undertake a more strategic role in the classroom (as many of them are already being asked to do) this needs to be supported with more in-depth specialist training around pedagogy, SEND and SEMH.

Regardless of whether schools plan to increase or decrease the number of TAs on their books – the staff they retain must be well-trained and well-supported. TAs play a vital role in the journey towards becoming a more inclusive school, and now more than ever they need a strong show of support from teachers and senior leadership teams.

Training may only be one part of the solution when it comes to retaining highly skilled TAs, but arguably it is the most important.