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Making a MeaningfulDifference: The
Effective TeachingAssistant
Objectives:• Our perceptions of childhood• The role of the Teaching Assistant• The qualities of the Effective
Teaching Assistant• Classroom interventions of the
Effective Teaching Assistant• What next?
What are our
perceptions about
childhood? What
should childhood be
like?
What should childhood be like?
1. As a child, how far from your front door were
you allowed to play?
2. As a child, at what age were you allowed to
go to school on your own?
3. As a child, at what age were you allowed to
visit the shops or a friend unaccompanied?
4. In your opinion, at what age does childhood
end?
“A child’s emotional health
is far more important to
their satisfaction levels as
an adult than any other
factors.”
What Predicts a Successful Life, Economic Journal,
November 2014
The behaviours of effective learners:• 1. Good working memory• 2. Inhibitory control• 3. Cognitive flexibility
“The ability to delay immediate
gratification for the sake of future
consequences is an acquirable cognitive
skill… This skill set is visible and
measurable early in life and has profound
long‐term consequences for people’s
welfare and mental and physical health
over the life span”
Mischel, The Marshmallow Test, 2014
Marshmallow Test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7LN96jEXHc
“Children in the past have been
assumed to have capabilities that
we now rarely think they have… So
fixated are we on a long and
happy childhood that we
downplay their abilities and
resilience ”
Cunningham, The Invention of Childhood, 2006
The worth of parental talk
Analysis reveals that parents education, social status, race, or wealth are not as important to IQ levels as how much they talked to their children and interacted with them in other ways.
Parents who talk to their children the most tend to praise the children's accomplishments, respond to their questions, provide guidance rather than commands, and use many different words in a variety of combinations. This type of interaction can… “accurately predict the vocabulary growth, vocabulary use, and IQ scores of children.“
Hart and Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American
Children, 1995, Paul H Brookes, Baltimore
What is the role of the Effective
Teaching Assistant?
Effective Teaching Assistants
statements activity• 1. All children can learn, they just learn in different ways
and at different speeds• 2. The majority of Teaching Assistants in our schools are
glorified babyminders• 3. The least helpful thing a Teaching Assistant can do is
to do the work for the pupil• 4. The true skill of the Teaching Assistant is to ask really
great questions• 5. The job of the Teaching Assistant is to help the child
keep up ‐ not help the child catch up• 6. The child a Teaching Assistant supports should make
as much progress as any other child in the same school
Own your own story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n4DyFh9iWA
Killer phrases to avoid
• He/She can’t do it …’• ‘Don’t push him/her too hard …’• ‘It won’t work …’• ‘It won’t work with these children…’• ‘We tried that…’• ‘We already do that…’• ‘I’d love to do that but…’• ‘What can you expect?’• ‘I agree but…’
What does your image say about how your children
learn?
What does your image say about
how you help your children learn?
Which students do you think you have
had the most impact upon in the last year?
Which activity or resource has had the most impact
upon on your pupils’ learning in the last year?
What are the personal qualities of the
Effective Teaching Assistant?
What would be on your classroom learning
checklist of the Effective Teaching Assistant?
Learning checklist for Teaching Assistants – you:• Help your pupils understand the purpose of the lesson• Encourage your pupils to stay positive throughout• You work with the pupils to help them stay focused on task• Know where your pupils are at and where they need to be• Link previous learning and check what the learners already know• Review learning as you go• Ask really good extending questions• Give lots of timely useful feedback to help improve their learning• Know, or find out about, the topic being taught• Ask your pupils about their progress and what may help or hinder
their learning• Share responsibility for their success• Role‐model good learning habits
Five Practical Interventions for
Effective Teaching Assistants
Five Practical Interventions for Effective
Teaching Assistants
1. BASICS First:• Belonging• Aspiration• Safety• Identity• Challenge• Success
Five Practical Interventions for Effective
Teaching Assistants
2. Oracy Precedes Literacy:• Talk it through before beginning• Insist on the proper words being used in
context• Use mini‐whiteboards or other visual tools
which encourage drafting• Rehearse using laminated Key Vocabulary
cards and Learning Mats• Test for Reading Age
Five Practical Interventions for Effective
Teaching Assistants
3. Make Connections Explicit:• Review and Preview• Summarise and Speculate• Insist on quality, keep all work and
regularly review it to show progress• Take photographs of successes• Use hexagons, exit cards, memory maps,
jenga or similar props to make connections
Five Practical Interventions for Effective
Teaching Assistants
4. Ask Great Questions:• Scaffold your questions• At the beginning discuss what would be the best
questions to ask, then collect them• Become the pupil: ask the child to teach or
explain to you• Add numbers to define the challenge: what are
the three most important things?• Rehearse possible future difficulties and plan in
solutions: what will we do if…
Five Practical Interventions for Effective
Teaching Assistants
5. Feedback which Works:• Praise for things which are in their control• Model school practice on written marking• Practice Self and Peer evaluation against
Success• Criteria: encourage Peer evaluation which is
positive, specific and helpful• Avoid, or limit, the use of raw scores, levels or
grades• Provide Response Time for any written feedback
Making a Meaningful Difference: The
Effective Teaching Assistant
