Do teaching assistants assist students with their learning?

In primary and secondary schools, teaching assistants are important members of the staff who assist classroom teachers and students. However, if they are not properly educated by the school, they will only encourage modest academic development and may even harm learning.

Teaching assistants (TAs) made up more than a fifth of the English school workforce in the 2019-2020 school year. Despite the fact that TAs are hired to assist students in the classroom, they are not always provided the preparation and tools they need to do their jobs well. While there hasn't been much testing, it's thought that they might provide only one month of additional academic development.

This low estimate is due in part to the fact that TAs offer various forms of assistance in different schools, with some methods being more successful than others. The majority of TA activities fall into one of three groups. Whole-class TAs collaborate with teachers to provide assistance to all students in the classroom. Others offer personalized assistance in the classroom, mostly to students who need it. Finally, TAs provide students who need extra assistance with out-of-class interventions.

According to research conducted with 60 primary schools and published in 2019, the most common practice in primary schools is to hire whole-class TAs. Targeted TAs who sponsor individual students in class are most common in secondary schools, and this is the second most common form in primary schools. When we look at what TAs do for students, we find that they are usually informally instructing those who are most in need and concentrating on task completion.

While it will seem logical for TAs to concentrate on those who need the most assistance, the result is that those students spend less time engaging with their instructor. TAs usually (and understandably) want to assist students in completing assigned assignments, but this comes at the cost of the students' comprehension. It can also limit students' autonomy. Many schools are lacking in training and planning, which is at the root of all of this.