“Why It Pays To Nurture Your TAs”
Struggling to find the time and resources needed to upskill your teaching assistants? Here’s a 6-point plan to making it happen…
- by Meriel Bull
Giving your teaching assistants additional training can be challenging – but with some careful planning and a firm grasp of your school’s needs, you can develop a strategy that boosts your SEN provision, supports quality first teaching and increases inclusion within the classroom.
Training your TAs effectively will strengthen their motivation, improve their performance and increase their job satisfaction, thus lowering your staff turnover. It will also help to promote a culture of professionalism around the school, boosting the impact that their work has on each pupil.
1. Come up with a plan
First, it’s essential to devise a training plan. Collate some key information from your SEN strategy, school development plan and main feeder pre-schools, and use this to assess your school’s current and future needs.
Then, carry out a team audit, or check your professional development records, to identify any skill gaps among your TAs. You might be able to link this process to strategies already in place for increasing awareness of particular physical or sensory difficulties, or for introducing new interventions. With the existing and anticipated needs of your pupils identified, you can explore your funding options.
2. Is there money available?
You might be one of those lucky SENCos with both a clear understanding of the SEN budget and some influence on how it’s managed. If not, then I’d encourage you to make a cuppa for your school business manager and ask them to give you a full breakdown of what’s available in the current and next financial year, and some help in evaluating how this might be shared between resources and training.
Don’t be put off if you’re told the pot is empty. Your school will likely have some form of training budget, which may overlook training for support staff – but if you can prove that said training is essential for your pupils’ progress with the aid of your training plan, it will help make the case that your school’s staff development policies should apply to your team too. Another potential source of funding is the Pupil Premium, which may be available if your TA training will have a positive effect on disadvantaged children at your school.
3. Present the pitch
Having established what financial sources are available, you need to sell the idea to those holding the purse strings. Share your vision with the SLT and present the information you’ve collated thus far to demonstrate how this training will benefit the pupils and the wider school environment.
You might find a useful ‘hard sell’ partner in the form of the SEN governor, who you may already meet with regularly to discuss the annual SEN report, policy updates and other such matters. If not, get them on side by informing them of the wonderful things your TAs already do, and how they could be further improving the learning of even more pupils. Their support is invaluable, so it’s worth investing time in building a good working relationship with them.
4. Pool your resources
Your school may be lucky enough to work within a cluster of schools. If this is an official arrangement, the cluster lead will be aware of any funds that might be available for training. Other schools in the cluster may have similar training needs to yours, allowing the necessary costs and resources to be shared.
Be it officially or though a more informal arrangement, working with other schools can make your TA training more affordable and ultimately beneficial to more children within the wider community. Schools are increasingly working together; you’ll likely find from collaborating with other SENCos that you share a similar long term vision, and can invest in the skills you need more easily by pooling your resources.
5. Choose the training
Once you’ve secured your funding options, the next part of your training plan will be to decide on the type of training most relevant to your team. External training has the benefit of resulting in recognised qualifications or credentials, which can feel more valuable for your TAs, but it can be costly. Encourage your TAs to gather information about the training available from different providers to help you assess which course will provide the most relevant training at the best cost.
Internal training will be comparatively inexpensive, and can have the added benefit of strengthening relations among your team. Departmental training, in which lead or senior TAs demonstrate and practise the skills they’ve learnt, share good practice and offer job shadowing, can be arranged through careful planning of staff Inset days and meeting times.
6. See if it worked
Monitoring the impact of your training is just as important as monitoring the impact of your interventions and teaching methods. If the training provided had the desired effect, it can be replicated. Training you’ve tried and found wanting can also be learnt from, in that you’ll know what approaches or methods to avoid in future.
Always encourage your TAs to give honest feedback about their training experiences, and use that information to improve your training plan for next year. Build conversations about training into your departmental and professional development meetings, and reflect on these in your department development plan. It might take a while to get the training balance right, or for its impact on your pupils to start showing – but when it does, your TA team will go from strength to strength.
TA training –what are your options?
Internal Training
- Having staff job shadow your own lead TAs or those at another school
- Setting up a private social media group to share ‘What went well today’ stories
- Holding TA-led training sessions that help to teach soft skills
- Having your team contribute to an induction handbook for new staff containing tips, advice and strategies
External training
- Private providers, such as Optimus and Capita
- Distance and online learning providers, such as the Open University
- An independent SEN specialist who may offer a course that upskills all of your team at once in a particular area, such as ASD or sensory support
- Third sector organisations such as British Dyslexia Association
About the author
Meriel Bull is a writer and qualified SENCo with 12 years’ teaching experience in the West Midlands and Norfolk
