Role_of_Teaching_Assistant

Teaching assistants make a valuable contribution to pupil achievement within a learning environment. Outline your views on the skills you fill the teaching assistant should have that are useful in this role. Explain how your skills and experience would enable you to fulfil the role of the teaching assistant and another similar role. In modern classrooms not only teachers are playing a vital role in increasing pupils’ achievements, knowledge and skills within the school environment. In many classrooms today there is an individual or group of people delivering the curriculum, assessing children’s progress and working hand to hand with teachers to support them by direct involvement in teaching and learning. The range of roles for teaching assistants depends on the school, but the main role is working across a range of classes with groups or individual children according to particular needs of children in the school. Teaching Assistant’s roles have changed over time; apart from traditional childcare roles such as preparation of a classroom and teaching materials, the teaching assistant also has to meet the needs of the more complex curriculum. One of the main roles of teaching assistants is supporting children with special educational needs; this role may vary between supporting a small group of children with the lower level of literacy through literacy hour to supporting individual children with learning communication and physical disabilities across the curriculum. This support may concentrate on literacy development or use of specialist materials to help children with particular learning difficulties e.g. dyslexia. Another role of the teaching assistant is working with parents and teachers on developing children’s knowledge; here the teaching assistant can establish a good working relationship with the teacher and use their communication skills to reflect on how the lesson went and discuss afterwards with the teacher, and as a result make suggestions and share ideas about the progress of individual pupils. Listening to parents views and opinions about their children can give more information about pupils’ individual needs and how to meet those needs; here teaching assistants need to have ability to build a good working relationship not only with pupils, but also with adults e.g. teachers, parents, and work well as a part of the team. Everybody is responsible for children’s health and safety, but teaching assistants play an important role in planning and organisation of outdoor and indoor activities, and need to be prepared for potential accidents, and be aware about individual pupil’s health problems, to prevent potential risk. Creating a safe environment is crucial; teaching assistants need to be familiar with all the procedures and ensure that pupils are secure inside and outside the school. One of the roles of the teaching assistant will be accompanying pupils with school trips and outings along with teacher. There the good planning and organisational skills are necessary to ensure that pupils are prepared for the trip and plans are ready in case of an accident or emergency. Teaching assistants hold other roles within school such as planning and delivering learning activities, preparing the classroom for lessons e.g. arranging the layout of the classroom, ensuring that all the necessary materials are available, setting up information technology resources and supporting teaching and learning through the use of ICT; here teaching assistants need to be creative and have ability to use their initiative in order to produce interesting teaching and learning materials. They also need to help keep the classroom tidy and provide an attractive and encouraging environment for pupils learning. Teaching assistants’ roles also involve recognising if any individual pupils need extra support in completing a particular task and encouraging younger pupils to learn through various activities e.g. games and through positive feedback, and also providing records about pupils’ individual progress. It is also important to observe pupils and correctly evaluate their performance, and report any concern to the teacher. Here good motivational skills and ability to provide good encouragement are necessary. Teaching assistants play also a key role in supporting the development of pupils’ literacy skills; a wide range of interpersonal skills and knowledge of sounds are necessary in helping children to become confident in reading and writing. Encouraging children to read books and write their own pieces of work can contribute into developing their imaginative and creative skills and boost their self-esteem. Teaching assistants’ roles also include encouraging pupils to speak comfortably in front of others, and giving more support to pupils who are reluctant to contribute in discussions. When helping pupils to develop their numeracy skills, teaching assistants need to work closely with teachers in order to understand pupils’ mathematical ability; here not only good numeracy, but also questioning skills are important, as there are usually many different ways to complete a particular mathematical task. Another important role that teaching assistants need to face is managing behaviour within the school and in the classroom; here the ability to remain patient and calm under pressure, ability to discipline and good communication and listening skills are necessary, e.g. in the situation when there is a case of bullying or physical aggression. Teaching assistants need to be able to stop aggressive verbal or physical behaviour, by communicating with pupils in order to find out the reason, and listening to pupils and accepting their feelings about the situation. I feel that skills that I possess and experience I gained personally can be useful when working as a teaching assistant. As a part of my degree, I studied how to teach English, which prepared me for devising lesson plans and designing reading, writing, listening and speaking activities, which could contribute when working with pupils on these activities in the classroom. I have also knowledge of other languages such as Russian and Polish, which could be useful when working in a school with pupils from Eastern Europe and helping them to communicate with teachers. I also have ability to work as a part of the team, whilst working in retail I needed to complete tasks with other team members, which could be a benefit when working with teachers and other members of staff on increasing pupils’ learning progress or tackling a difficult problem within the school. I enjoy working with, and have an interest in children - whilst living in Jersey, I volunteered for the National Trust for Jersey organising school children’s outdoor learning activities such as visiting nature reserves and learning about wildlife which could be useful when organising and planning school trips and outdoor activities. As a subject in high school I attended health and safety lessons, which could be desirable when dealing with accidents and injuries at school. My past experience and personal qualities can be also useful when preparing for other similar roles, for example my experience in working with children, good organisational and team working skills and calm and friendly attitude could be useful when working as a midday supervisor. Good academic knowledge of English combined with creativity can provide help if I held the literary support position contributing to improving pupils’ reading and writing skills. My experience of working within the food industry and good knowledge of healthy diet and health and safety issues could be useful when working as a breakfast supervisor. Teaching assistants hold many functions within the school environment; in recent years their level of responsibility has increased, so it is important to have all the necessary skills to be able to support pupils’ learning successfully. Teaching Assistants play an important role in supporting children’s learning development, and provide teachers with better work balance, and time to focus on teaching and assessing pupils rather than completing routine tasks.