In my experience, many teachers make poor use of teaching assistants, regarding them as a sort of junior helper on the same level as a school pupil doing a holiday job. This is unfortunate. The teaching assistant can be a vital component in the quest to raise standards. I’m pretty sure, though I don’t know, that the reason John Hattie’s research indicates that teaching assistants actually have a negative effect (the more help a pupil receives from a TA, the less progress they make) is because they’re not used effectively.
Here are my thoughts about how change in the right direction can be brought about.
Outside of the classroom
The work starts before even setting foot in the classroom. Generally speaking, to be most effective in the classroom, the teaching assistant ought to be involved in all stages of planning, and given the opportunity to have appropriate training. In particular, the teaching assistant should:
Be familiar with the scheme of work being followed. She may even have had a hand in designing it or adapting it to the school's needs.
Understand where the lesson fits into the scheme of work, eg it may be an introduction to internet search techniques, which are to be further developed later in the course -- perhaps next year. Or an introduction to one or more aspects of computational thinking.
Understand where the less fits into the current unit of work, ie what came before, and what follows. In other words, the assistant needs to know that in order to understand the main point of this lesson, the pupils need to understand X, which was covered last week, and that if they master this week's objectives they will be in a strong position to understand the objectives of next week's lesson.
Understand the intended learning outcomes of the lesson.
Understand how to use the technology being used in the lesson.
Be familiar with the software applications involved.
Be familiar with the individual children’s needs.
Have access to the school’s data management system (as it relates to pupils) and be familiar with how to use it.
In the classroom
The teaching assistant given the job of supporting children with special educational needs should:
Set up specialist equipment if any is needed, before the pupils enter the classroom.
Focus only on the children with special educational needs, generally speaking.
Not do the child’s work for her. I found a TA doing this. As I said to her, the aim is not for the pupil’s work to get done, but for the pupil to do it. There’s an important difference there!
Help children, where appropriate, by adjusting the computer environment. For example, use the display options (if you have access to them) to make the contrast better on the screen, or use the accessibility features available.
Have a range of paper-based resources handy, in case the computer system goes down.