Teaching assistant

Also called TA, LSA, Learning support assistant, HLTA

Support staff working alongside teachers. Not a substitute for teaching, and often deployed as one.

What it is

A teaching assistant supports teaching and learning in the classroom. A learning support assistant usually describes the same role with a focus on individual pupils. A higher level teaching assistant has additional responsibility and can cover classes.

They are support staff, not qualified teachers, and their pay and training vary enormously.

Where it applies

Most schools. Many pupils with SEND receive most of their additional support from a TA.

How it works

The research here is uncomfortable and worth knowing: the Education Endowment Foundation found that routinely assigning a TA to work one-to-one with a pupil, in place of teacher time, can have a negative effect on progress — because it separates the pupil from the teacher and from their peers.

Well-deployed TAs, delivering structured interventions they are trained in and supporting the teacher's teaching, have a clearly positive effect.

The difference is deployment, not the people.

What you can ask for

Ask how much time the class teacher spends teaching your child directly. "Full-time TA support" can mean a child taught by an unqualified adult all day.

Ask what training the TA has had in the specific intervention they are delivering.

Ask whether one-to-one support is helping independence or replacing it. Velcro support is a recognised problem and schools are usually aware of the term.

Where to get help

The SENCO. The EEF's guidance report "Deployment of Teaching Assistants" is free and is what schools themselves are pointed to.