1. Teaching assistants: optimising impact
Developed in partnership with
Louise Burnham
 Welcome participants to this session, and remind them that this is intended as a summary of the module ‘Teaching assistants: optimising impact’ from CPD Toolkit from The Key.
Teaching assistants: optimising impact
The essentials

2. Session objectives This session aims to help you:
Explore the areas of deployment, preparation and practice of teaching assistants (TAs)
Consider the school’s current RAG system rating to recognise areas for development
Identify good practice and how to overcome barriers
Begin to develop a plan of action for improving the effectiveness of TAs in our school
 To give context, tell participants that the Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS) project, carried out by the Institute of Education, indicated that TAs had a negative rather than positive impact on pupil learning.
Emphasise that it is very important that we do not take away the wrong message from these findings. Rather, they show that we need to be very clear on the role of TAs in our schools and that TAs have previously not been deployed in an optimal way.
The Effective Deployment of Teaching Assistants (EDTA) action research project was carried out to develop ways of working with TAs which would be more effective. In response to this research, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) published recommendations in 2015.
Explain to participants that this summary session considers the three pillars that came out of the EDTA project– deployment, preparedness and practice. It will also look at the RAG rating participants give their school for these pillars, and consider strategies and next steps to help the school improve.
© The Key CPD Toolkit | Louise Burnham
Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 2

3. EDTA project: three pillars
Deployment (how TAs are used)
Preparedness (how ready TAs are - both for their role and for supporting particular subjects, lessons, tasks and pupils)
Practice (what TAs do)
 Schools need to explore the deployment/preparedness/practice of their TAs to work out how impact can be maximised. As we look closer, we will notice overlap between the three pillars.
Deployment: this is the way in which TAs are used and organised in schools. It is the starting point for deciding the most effective way of managing TAs. It includes the TA role and expectations as well as how they fit in as part of the whole-school approach
Preparedness: this refers to the level of preparation TAs need for what they are being asked to do, including time for planning and feedback with teachers
Practice: this may be defined as the way in which TAs carry out their work with pupils. It includes the development of pedagogical skills which TAs are increasingly expected to have
Participants should have watched the video relevant to their school phase in advance of this session. The videos show schools that have changed their practice regarding TAs.
 Briefly ask participants for feedback on what stood out for them in the videos. Ask them to consider:
Good practice demonstrated in the video
If any of the strategies may be applicable in their school
You may like to record responses on a flipchart.
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Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 3

4. Action research
Choose an area of research that you would like to explore in more detail:
Deployment
Preparedness
Practice
If participants have read the handouts in advance of the session, skip ahead to slide 5.
 Introduce participants to the action research tools. Ask them to choose which handout from their participant packs they would like to work on and group them accordingly:  
Handout deployment
Handout preparedness
Handout practice
Ideally there will be a mix of senior managers, teachers and TAs in each group.
 Once participants are in their groups, ask them to read and discuss the action research tool. They should then think about how they could use what they have discussed in the school, discussing logistics and how they could overcome potential barriers.
The action research tools have been created to enable participants to explore the research on TA impact and to start thinking about how they can address these findings in their own school.  Does this need editing now they’re doing this as pre-reading?
 Image source:
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Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 4

5. Action research: results
 Ask the groups to feed back and share what they have found out/planned. It may be useful to use a flipchart to note down the main ideas.
Discuss with participants:
Where do the three ideas come together?
How can our school use what you have found out?
 Take the group back to the fourth session objective ‘Begin to develop a plan of action for improving the effectiveness of TAs in our school’. Discuss what your initial actions could be as a school. You may wish to record the key points on a flipchart to start an action plan.
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Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials:: Slide 5

6. Making best use of TAs Self-assessment What are our strengths?
What could we improve further?
What are some of the key actions we need to undertake as a school?
 The pre-session task was an audit of current practice relating to the deployment, preparedness and practice of TAs in the school. This should have been done using the EEF’s self-assessment guide, which provides a red amber green (RAG) rating system for each of the seven evidence-based recommendations on the effective use of TAs in the EEF’s report. You can see a summary of the recommendations here.
Ideally, it should now be possible to present some of the key findings from the audit. You may wish to insert a slide to illustrate these and a member of the senior leadership team (SLT) may wish to outline the key points.
There is plenty to discuss here but for now focus on recommendations 1, 2 (around the deployment of TAs) and 4 (around teacher/TA preparation and training) of the self-assessment guide.
Recommendations 5, 6 and 7 (around delivering targeted, structured interventions) and recommendation 3 (around TAs’ interactions with pupils) will be looked at later in this session. For full detail, consider delivering the full module.
 Ask participants to discuss in pairs any reflections or ideas they have following the audit.
 Now that we have a sense of the school priorities regarding deployment, preparedness and practice, we will look at each section in more detail.
Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 6
© The Key CPD Toolkit | Louise Burnham

7. Teacher or TA? What do you do? Teachers TAs
 Separate teachers and TAs into different groups and ask them to discuss their main responsibilities in a ‘normal day’. Each group should focus on what they actually do, rather than what they think they should be doing. Any ideas can be recorded on their reflective journals. Participants who are part of the senior leadership may wish to mingle among the groups.
Replicate the Venn diagram on the screen on a flipchart, and take feedback, adding suggestions into the relevant part of the Venn depending on whether participants think a specific responsibility belongs to teachers, TAs or both.
Ask participants to discuss the similarities and differences they notice forming through the Venn diagram and encourage them to consider how teachers/TAs can best complement one another. Some key questions:
Do you think the Venn reflects ideal practice as it currently stands?
What are the limits in terms of teacher/TA responsibility?
What do you think TAs should and shouldn’t do as part of their role? Would you change the placement of anything on the Venn diagram in relation to this?
 There are many layers to both roles and increasing overlap as schools have become so busy. Explain that TAs often support teachers by taking on more and more of the things teachers do and this can happen without clarification or sufficient guidance. Roles best complement one another when both teachers and TAs are clear about their own responsibilities and adequately prepared to undertake them.
 You may wish to record participants’ thoughts and ideas in terms of distribution of responsibility to form a part of the whole-school action plan started for slide 5.
Note: while TAs play a role in supporting pupil progress, ultimately the teacher should be responsible for devising tasks or planning sessions for individuals or groups.
© The Key CPD Toolkit | Louise Burnham
Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 7

8. Be prepared What does ‘preparedness’ mean to you?
What are some of the barriers to preparedness?
 This section will focus on ‘preparedness’. Considering the action research completed in the previous section, ask participants to discuss in groups what they now understand by the term ‘preparedness’. What are the key barriers they face?
 Take feedback on a flipchart. Examples of barriers might include:
Lack of time to speak to one another for planning or feedback purposes
Unclear roles
Poor preparation
Lack of training or professional development
Lack of understanding of concepts taught
Inconsistencies between different members of staff
 Recommendation 4 of the EEF’s self-assessment audit has further suggestions as to issues surrounding preparedness.
One of the action research activities in this session looked at finding time for planning and feedback between teachers and TAs. Although this is crucial and needs to be planned for, there are also other aspects to preparedness which we will explore in the next slide.
© The Key CPD Toolkit | Louise Burnham
Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 8

9. Action research
Whether you are a TA or a teacher, select an area of research in your participant pack to help you with:
Handout 2.1
Preparedness for whole class cover
Handout 2.2
Preparedness for supporting pupils with SEN
Handout 2.3
Preparedness for delivering intervention sessions
 Refer participants to the handouts in their participant packs, and explain that these have been created to enable participants to explore different aspects of what is being discussed and to help develop a school action plan as part of each session.
Ask participants to choose which area to work on. Preparedness for:
Whole-class cover - handout 2.1
Meeting the needs of pupils with SEN - handout 2.2
Delivering interventions - handout 2.3
Group them accordingly. Make sure there are an equal number of participants working on each activity – ideally there will be a mix of senior leaders, teachers and TAs in each group. The SENCO or a member of SLT should be with the groups discussing handouts 2.2 and 2.3.
 Once participants are in their groups, ask them to read and discuss the relevant handout. Encourage them to think about how they could use the discussion outcomes in their school, and to consider logistics and how to overcome potential barriers.
Allow 10 minutes for the groups to feed back following their discussions. Take down points on the flipchart to add to the action plan.
 Allow time for participants to record any standout points on their reflective journals.
© The Key CPD Toolkit | Louise Burnham
Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 9

10. Lesson planning How much information do TAs have before a lesson?
How much detail is on plans and schemes of work?
Are tasks explicit? Do they include exactly what TAs need to do?
How do TAs provide feedback to teachers following a lesson?
 Ask teachers and TAs to think about preparedness in relation to individual lessons.
Research has found that most TAs acquire the knowledge they need for lessons by ‘tuning in’ to the teacher during lesson delivery or by looking at plans just before the session. However, this does not allow the TA to be fully prepared.
One of the EEF recommendations is that TAs should be fully prepared for their role and suggests using assembly time, planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time or extending TA hours
 Ask participants to discuss the information that is essential to include on plans and to think of creative solutions to briefing TAs in advance of lessons. Allow five minutes to discuss as a group and to record key ideas on the reflective journal. Take a few suggestions from across the groups.
 Planning is different in primary and secondary schools so this is reflected in this slide. In secondary schools, teachers are more likely to plan through schemes of work than individual lessons. The former will broadly cover the following:
Learning objectives for the topic or lesson
Key concepts, facts and information to be taught
Skills to be learned, applied, practiced or extended during the lesson or scheme of work
Schemes of work and lesson plans should also show key questions and strategies for TAs to use with individuals or groups, as well as any specific vocabulary they should use and opportunities for assessment.
Finally, TAs should have lesson plans or schemes of work as far in advance as possible so that they can go through and ask teachers any questions before lessons.
 Image source:
© The Key CPD Toolkit | Louise Burnham
Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 10

11. Think about…
Are there any other aspects of your role in which you could be better prepared or supported?
Think about your role as well as specific subjects, lessons, tasks and pupils
 Ask participants to consider any other areas in which they could be more prepared and discuss in groups. This could be additional training for teachers or TAs, opportunities for feedback, or any other areas that they feel are relevant.
In addition, ask them to consider how the school might be able to do this considering the usual constraints of time and money.
 Take feedback and make notes on the flipchart so that thoughts and ideas can be added to the whole-school action plan.
Invite members of the SLT to look at creative ways in which teachers and TAs could be provided with time and support to ensure that they are well prepared for lessons.
 Following this session, you may like to ask teachers and TAs to work together in order to use an existing plan to devise a lesson plan template which includes the points raised in the session. This could possibly be the subject of a whole-staff meeting.
© The Key CPD Toolkit | Louise Burnham
Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 11

12. Research findings Practice: main areas for development
Re-shaping TA interactions with pupils
Scaffolding pupil learning
Developing pupils’ independent learning skills
 ‘Practice’ is the final area of research that was explored by the Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS) project. The main DISS findings for TA practice focused on interaction with pupils and how TAs promote pupil independence.
The third recommendation of the EEF’s guidance report on Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants says that TAs should be used to “help pupils develop independent learning skills and manage their own learning.”
 TAs may need some training and support in the areas identified and these will be explored through the session today. Following the session, TAs may like to choose a particular area to target as part of their performance management.
If time is limited, you may prefer to ask participants to form three groups to each examine one main area of development for practice. Participants may like to choose the area where they feel they can use the most improvement. In this case, you could distribute annotated copies of the slides to participants so they can work on the strategies simultaneously, and feed back to the whole group.
 References:
Blatchford, P., Bassett, P., Brown, P., Martin, C., Russell, A. and Webster, R. (2009). The Deployment and Impact of Support Staff Project. Research brief. [online] Institute of Education, University of London. Available at: [Accessed 4 Apr. 2016].
Sharples, J., Webster, R. and Blatchford, P. (2015). Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants. [online] EEF. Available at: [Accessed 4 Apr. 2016]
© The Key CPD Toolkit | Louise Burnham
Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 12

13. 1. Re-shaping interactions
Through effective questioning
Through the way in which TAs respond to pupils.
 A key area covered by research on interactions with pupils looks at TAs’ questions and responses.
Talk and language play an important role as they are the key to deep learning, and TAs tend to have the most interactions with pupils and for longer periods of time than teachers. Therefore, it is important that TAs are well prepared for this aspect of their role, especially as the busy classroom environment means that sometimes there is little time for reflection before a response is given.
The Effective Deployment of Teaching Assistants (EDTA) project explored how TAs’ talk and responses to pupils can support their independent learning skills, which in turn improves learning outcomes. The next slide looks at examples of effective and ineffective interactions with pupils.
 Webster, R., Blatchford, P. and Russell, A. (2013) Challenging and changing how schools use teaching assistants: Findings from the Effective Deployment of Teaching Assistants project, School Leadership and Management, 33(1): 78–96.
Image source:
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Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 13

14. Interactions with pupils
Ineffective practice
Effective practice
Interactions focus on task completion
Interactions are closely linked to learning objectives
Interactions are reactive
Interactions are proactive- TAs question pupils/ rephrase teaching
Over-prompting leads to ‘spoon-feeding’
TAs support pupil learning through effective questioning skills
TAs mainly ask closed questions
Questions are varied and build on one another to progress learning
Thinking time is limited
Pupils are given time to formulate an answer before responding
The table on the screen presents research findings on ineffective and effective practice in terms of how TAs interact with pupils. Ask participants to look at the table and discuss the findings in groups. What findings stand out to them? Are there any that are unfamiliar? Are there any that TAs find particularly challenging to achieve?
 Teachers and TAs should work together so that teachers can clarify any areas that are not clear.
© The Key CPD Toolkit | Louise Burnham
Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 14

15. Action research tool In small groups: Read the research summary
Respond to the self-reflection task in your reflective journals
Refer to resources/ideas you have brought to the session
Start action planning
 Split attendees into two groups, and ask each group to read handout 1.3 in their participant pack. Participants should focus on one of the two main strategies to help support effective classroom talk: dialogic talk and effective questioning. Each group should read and discuss their strategy and then appoint a speaker, who will feed back about their assigned strategy to the other group.
As part of the action planning, TAs are asked to start developing a question bank. Encourage participants to refer to any resources or ideas they have brought to the session, which should relate to an upcoming lesson or scheme of work. Participants can record any notes or ideas on their reflective journals.
 Give participants 15 minutes to work through the handout and discussion.
You can refer to further guidance on using the effective questioning matrix on the ‘Maximising the impact of teaching assistants’ website:
You will find another training module on ‘Skilful questioning’ in the CPD Toolkit from The Key, at:
© The Key CPD Toolkit | Louise Burnham
Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 15

16. Scaffolding framework
Self-scaffolding
Prompting
Clueing
Pupil works independently
Pupil may need a little intervention from an adult
Adult gives specific prompts
Adult may give step-by-step instructions to pupil
Adult provides the answers
Modelling
 The next area of practice considers scaffolding pupil learning.
This model of scaffolding was developed by Bosanquet, Radford and Webster (2015) as part of their book The Teaching Assistant’s Guide to Effective Interaction to give guidance on how TAs can interact with pupils.
It is designed to show what each level of scaffolding looks like – at the top is a high level of pupil independence and a low level of adult support, whilst at the bottom there is a low level of pupil independence and a high level of adult support.
Talk this through with the participants:
Self-scaffolding: a self-scaffolder is a learner who can work independently and problem-solve during a task
Prompting: learners who needs prompting may just need a little intervention from an adult to encourage them to draw on their own knowledge. It could be a simple as “What do you need to do first?”
Clueing: clueing gives a more specific prompt to a learner, providing a structure to their answer through the question, for example “You have said that it is better to walk to school. Why is it better?”
Modelling: this is helpful to pupils when they are learning a new skill or concept. The TA might give step-by-step instructions in order to support learning. For example, “Let’s go back to what you have been asked to do. What do you think comes next?”
Correcting: correcting provides the lowest level of independence for the learner as the adult simply provides the right answer. It should be avoided where possible.
 Bosanquet, P., Radford, J. and Webster, R. (2015). Teaching Assistant's Guide to Effective Interaction. Florence: Taylor and Francis.
Correcting
Source: Bosanquet, Radford and Webster (2016)
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Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 16

17. Scaffolding: breakdown
Recognise tasks as a series of smaller goals
Carefully observe progress as pupils complete each part
Only intervene if pupils are unable to overcome a difficulty independently
Give specific help or feedback when a pupil needs help
Provide the minimal amount of support that pupils need to achieve
 Review this breakdown of scaffolding so that participants can see the different steps to go through to scaffold effectively.
The adult should avoid simply showing the pupil or telling them what to do. By scaffolding, they are giving clues to help the pupil to think for his or herself. A further strategy is to ask the pupil to seek help from a peer. The adult role is as follows:
To let the pupil attempt each mini-goal independently
To provide the least amount of support when intervening
To withdraw support as soon as possible to allow independence
 Ask participants to work in pairs and consider a learning interaction they have had with a child this week, which could have been improved through scaffolding. Ideally, participants should develop a series of steps to put in place to help pupils in similar situations. Participants can make notes on their reflective journals.
They could also think about additional resources that might support scaffolding, for example, checklists, writing frames, sentence starters, visual prompts, etc.
Allow some time to discuss and take feedback.
 Image source:
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Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 17

18. Responsibility for learning
Keep responsibility for learning with the pupil
Pupils should know that they are doing the learning, not you
Ask them what they need to do first/next
Ask questions based on what they know
Don’t make decisions for them
Talk less and listen more
 There are two main areas in which to develop independent thinking and learning skills. The first is illustrated on this slide, and is about ensuring the pupils feel the responsibility for learning. This can be fostered even in very young children. The slide showcases ways to encourage this responsibility.
 It is recommended that the whole school looks at the idea of developing learning capacities such as resilience and resourcefulness.
The CPD Toolkit from The Key has modules on ‘Developing a growth mindset’ and ‘Metacognition’ which you may want to explore with staff at a later date. The modules are available here: and here:
 Image source:
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Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 18

19. Self-help skills
Develop self-help skills (what should pupils do when they don’t know what to do?)
How can pupils be encouraged to think for themselves?
Develop a list of statements to support this
 The second main area of impact to develop independent thinking and learning is by helping pupils develop self-help skills for when they don’t know what to do. This is an important aspect of the TA role, and can be applied to pupils of any age and in any subject. Pupils need to have the resources and tools to find out how to work through problems when they get stuck.
 Ask participants to work in pairs to come up with two or three statements that pupils could have at their disposal, either on the wall or inside a book, to look at when they don’t know what to do during a task. Teachers and TAs can do this together and can jot down ideas on their reflective journals. Ask for feedback and encourage all participants to work together, either now or after the session, to create a bank of all different statements from across the groups.
 It may be useful to speak to the SLT in advance of the session to confirm whether this can be introduced as a whole-school initiative. It would also be a good exercise to complete this task in class with the pupils themselves to encourage them to think along these lines. In some schools this has been called a ‘self-help charter’.
The kinds of statements they devise may include:
Re-read the question
Look around the room for a resource that may help
Ask a friend for help (but not the answer)
Finally, ask an adult
 Image source:
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Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 19

20. Module review
Reflect on this session and the module as a whole in order to create a list of prioritised actions, in terms of:
Things you can put into place as an individual
Things that can continued to be discussed and worked on across the whole school
 To close the session, ask participants to consider the actions that can be put in place as individuals and as a whole school to address the points raised through the session. Encourage participants to think about logistics and potential barriers and how these might be overcome. They can make notes on their reflective journals.
You may want to refer back to the whole-school action plan that has been added to throughout the session.
You may also like to set a date as a group to look back at the EEF self-assessment together (completed following session 1) to see what progress has been made and to identify the key areas that still need to be addressed.
 Depending on time constraints, participants may be asked to go and think of their own priorities and to feed back at a future staff meeting.
Outcomes of this session could be linked to TA appraisal/performance management targets, either individually or as a ‘whole-school’ target for TAs.
© The Key CPD Toolkit | Louise Burnham
Teaching assistants: optimising impact | The essentials: Slide 20