Monitoring the effectiveness of teaching assistants

Have a transparent monitoring system in place

Regular observation of TAs is very useful for monitoring their effectiveness, which will also involve looking at how teachers are using TAs' time.

Your monitoring system should make clear:

• How you'll highlight, record and follow up any issues
• How you'll report the results of monitoring and timescales for any improvements to TAs 
• How monitoring links to performance management
• Whether monitoring will be ongoing, weekly, monthly, or termly

Use pupil voice

Finding out about pupil experience is an important part of monitoring TAs’ effectiveness. You could ask pupils:

• Who they ask for help and who helps them most
• Whether the TA has helped their learning
• How the TA has helped them

Read more about pupil voice in our other article.

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