Teaching Assistant Assignment

Words: 1518
Pages: 7

This assignment will look at the role of a teaching assistant supporting pupils in lessons, specifically mathematics. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw says mathematics is essential for everyday life and understanding of our world (Ofsted 2012). This assignment will include barriers towards learning and the strategies that are used to overcome them, as well as the evaluation of these strategies.
There are mixed views on what the role of a teaching assistant is, as the role is constantly evolving (Balshaw and Farrell 2002). Teaching assistants work in the classroom to support teachers and work with children who need extra support in order to reach their full potential. When teaching assistants were first introduced into primary
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One barrier to learning is the increasing class sizes which can cause issues when trying to engage the pupils in lessons. Paton (2014) states that class sizes in the United Kingdom are bigger than most other international countries and experts, from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report (2012), suggest that large class sizes can hinder a child’s education since they receive less one-to-one attention. With the increasing class sizes, teachers may well find it difficult to engage the children on the same subject at the same time. For example, If the children are learning about rounding two digits to the nearest ten, there may be a lower ability group that cannot do this, they may be struggling with counting in ten’s. The higher ability children who can do the activity could perhaps become disengaged and less focused on their work whilst the teacher helps the lower ability …show more content…
Children misbehave for a number of different reasons and it is vital that the teacher knows how to deal with this as soon as it arises, in order to make sure that the child does not distract the rest of the class. Children could misbehave due to bereavement, divorce, increased levels of agitation or low motivation. If a child is misbehaving because they do not understand the work it is important for the teacher to get the child back on task and help them with their work, for example – in a maths lesson, if the children are learning about measurements such as cm, mm and km, but do not understand the difference between them, it is likely to cause problems with them being able to do the work. The child will become disruptive and is more likely to divert the attention of the children around them. The teacher will have to stop what they are doing in order to discipline the child which could cause problems for the other children in the