Teacher Assistant

To work under the direct instruction/guidance of teaching/senior staff to undertake work/care/support programs, to enable access to learning for Children and to assist the teacher in the management of Children and the classroom.

Work may be carried out in the classroom or outside the main teaching area.

Working one-to-one or with small groups of Children

Teaching assistants will often be assigned to individual Children who are in need of additional help, this may be because English is not their first language or because they have learning difficulties and require additional help understanding or completing tasks. You may also be asked to help individual Children who do not require additional support, but where one to one teaching is necessary – for example listening to Children reading aloud. Teaching assistants are also often asked to support learning more generally, either by ‘floating’ and acting as additional support during class activities or by working with specific groups of Children. Teaching assistants usually quickly become very adept at identifying where in the class additional support is needed and once they are settled into their role there is often some degree of flexibility as the teaching assistant and teacher work together to ensure that their time and energy is best spent in a way that optimizes learning for the class.

Supporting Children with learning difficulties or disabilities:

Children who have been observed with learning difficulties will sometimes require a teaching assistant to provide support daily and care assigned to their duties for either all or part of the academic year to support the child’s learning.

This support may be necessary because a Child is physically disabled, hearing or visually impaired and needs additional support accessing the curriculum and environment.

Teaching assistants offer invaluable support to these Children, helping the child keep up with their peers and can often be the difference between children accessing a mainstream curriculum or attending a special school.

Supporting Children with English as a second language:

Children whose first language is not English often need some additional support accessing the curriculum, especially at first.

It is quite common in schools with a high ESL (English as a Second Language) intake for specialized teaching assistants who speak the first language of groups of Children to be employed to help Children to understand their lessons and help to overcome any social or cultural divide.

Preparing the classroom for lessons:

A key role of teaching assistants is to prepare the classroom for lessons ahead of time.

This may involve a variety of activities such as setting up art equipment, weighing out ingredients, rearranging furniture for a particular activity and so on.

In short, the teaching assistant is responsible for organizing all of the peripheral items that are essential to the smooth running of the lesson in order to ensure that when the children arrive they can get on with learning as quickly as possible.

Tidying up and keeping the classroom in good order:

It’s vital that classrooms are kept in good order to ensure an optimal teaching and learning environment.

This means that teachers and Children can find items that they need when they need them, and that the general environment is pleasant without the distraction of mess and disorder.

Children think this orderly and organized environment is created by magic, but in fact it is the teaching assistants who are usually responsible for ensuring things are correct and in order.

Teaching assistants often take great pride in maintaining the classroom environment.

Creating displays of Children’ work:

In addition to keeping things in good order, teaching assistants are also responsible for creating displays of Children’ work.

This is a real opportunity to get your creative juices flowing and is a great way to brighten up the classroom and celebrate the achievements of Children.

Seeing their work beautifully displayed can be a fantastic ego boost to Children so this is an important role.

As well as displaying Children’ work you may also be responsible for creating other displays for example about class rules, or Child targets.

You will work with the class teacher to decide how best to use the four walls of your classroom and your input with is invaluable and hugely appreciated by staff, Children and visiting parents.

Helping on school outings or at school events:

You may sometimes be asked to help support Children beyond the classroom.

This may be during lessons outside the classroom, which may be within the school grounds, or it might be during official school trips or at school events such as school concerts or plays.

In this circumstance, your role is likely to become more supervisory as you ensure that children are all safe and accounted for, though you will soon become adept at finding ways to inspire learning in any situation so you are likely to continue Children’ education no matter where you are working with them.