How to Become a Teaching Assistant

Teaching assistants are vital members of the school community, working alongside both the teachers and other support staff to ensure that the classroom is a warm and welcoming environment for children, and where they have all the tools they need to learn. Teaching assistant jobs are in high demand thanks to the attractive working hours, friendly work environment, and the opportunity they provide to make a real difference to the lives of young people. In 2020, there were 263,000 teaching assistants and 232,000 additional members of support staff working in the UK alone. By supporting both learning and activities in the school, your role can help to mold children’s futures.

Wondering how to become a teaching assistant? Here’s everything you need to know:

What is a Teaching Assistant?

The primary role of a Teaching Assistant (sometimes also known as a TA or Classroom Assistant) is to provide support to a teacher within a classroom environment. You will work closely with the children in your class, occasionally on a one-to-one basis, to ensure that they are getting the most from their education. As well as working with the teacher to support the educational development of the pupils within your classroom, as a teaching assistant you will also help those children with their social and emotional development, and you will help to prepare the classroom for upcoming lessons.

By taking on much of the practical work within a classroom environment, teaching assistants allow teachers to free up their time for teaching and preparing lessons. The role between the teaching assistant and the teacher is a partnership, with both focused on the education and the wellbeing of the children under their care.

Teaching Assistants work primarily in schools: these can be either primary or secondary. Your working hours will be during normal school hours from Monday to Friday, although you may work outside of those hours occasionally to support after school clubs or extracurricular trips and activities, and you may also have to work on inset or training days. Many TAs are employed on part-time, term-time only or casual contracts, although these contract terms are unlikely to affect your working hours. Because Teaching Assistants only work when children are in school, this is an ideal role for working around your home life if you have small children.

Personal Qualities of a Teaching Assistant

Not sure if the role of a teaching assistant is right for you or if you have the right personal qualities? The main quality you need to have to be a good teaching assistant is that you like being around children! As the role involves interacting with children at almost all points, you should feel comfortable around, and at ease with, groups of children.

Other personal traits that would be considered beneficial include:

• Endless positivity, and the ability to relate to children whilst also motivating and inspiring them
• Concern for the safety and wellbeing of all of the pupils under your care
• A respect for diversity and the ability to relate to, and interact with, pupils from all backgrounds and cultures
• Excellent communication skills to enable you to communicate not just with the pupils, but also the other staff within the school environment, as well as a variety of parents and caregivers
• A respect for the importance of education and good literacy and numeracy skills
• Good team work skills, as schools are often close-knit environments with large numbers of people working together. You may need to work with, and build relationships with, other support staff, classroom teachers and professionals such as educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, social workers and external agencies
• Creativity and the ability to make introducing new concepts fun
• Endless patience
• The ability to teach pupils new things and engage them in new topics
• The ability to be flexible, as things often change at short notice when children are involved
• A professional attitude to everything you undertake
• Fluency in languages that are frequently used within your community might be helpful if you are supporting English as an additional language within a school
• Other skills such as sign language, Makaton, and first aid are also considered highly desirable in a teaching assistant

What a Teaching Assistant Does

A teaching assistant will fulfil a huge number of different roles, both inside and outside of the classroom, but the main tasks you can expect to undertake on a day-to-day basis include:

• Getting to know the children in your classroom and providing them support with their mathematics, writing and reading. This can be conducted either on a one-to-one basis, within small groups, or you may be leading the whole class
• Supporting pupils within your classroom who have learning or behavioural difficulties. You will also provide one-to-one help to other children who need support to keep up with the learning within the classroom
• You will build a rapport with the children, helping to motivate and encourage them throughout a wide range of different tasks
• You will fulfil a supervisory role for the children under your care, and other children in your school, by supervising lunch and break times
• Escort children on school trips, to school events, and take part in other special activities within the school environment
• Provide administrative support to the class teacher. This could include printing worksheets, photocopying or laminating work, preparing materials and activities for lessons (such as setting up craft activities or science sessions)
• You may be asked to mark papers, particularly spellings or other homework assignments, and provide feedback or grades to the class teacher
• You may be asked to support different tasks at short notice, and will often be providing support in more than one classroom. Within a school environment, all employees are expected to be versatile, and to be happy to move quickly and provide help and support as and when it is needed
• In some specialist school environments, you may need to provide personal care to pupils. This could include support with feeding, changing, lifting or moving as and when required
• As a teaching assistant, the majority of your day will be spent working in the classroom, but this is a very varied role where no two days are exactly the same

How Much Does a Teaching Assistant Earn?

As a full-time teaching assistant, you can expect to work between 32 and 40 hours a week, and your salary will depend on your qualifications and your level of experience, with your salary growing the more years or experience you have within the field. An average teaching assistant salary starts at £12,621, whilst more experienced teaching assistants can earn up to £23,000. To break this down further, here is a guide to earnings depending on your qualification level:

• As a Level 1 TA, you can expect to earn £17,364 in a full-time and permanent position
• As a Level 2 TA, you can expect to earn between £18,000 and £20,000 in a full-time and permanent position
• As a Level 3 TA, you can expect to earn between £20,000 and £25,000 in a full-time and permanent position

It’s important to note that the amount you take home might be very different to the figures outlined above, however, and this is something to be aware of when you are applying for teaching assistant positions. This is because some schools or other providers will only pay their support staff a term-time only wage. This means that your salary will be pro-rata, effectively deducting pay for the weeks of the school holidays when you are not in the classroom. You will still receive a salary every month, so you will still have a wage during those longer holidays when you are not in the classroom.

There is no national pay scale for teaching assistants, but if you work within a state school setting there is a government pay scale for support staff that can provide guidance of what you can expect to earn in each position. If you are considering taking up a position within an independent or private school, an academy, or a free school then these schools do not have to follow local authority guidelines: when looking at roles in these schools then, the salaries offered can vary wildly, with some being much more than the local authority rate, and some being considerably less. The pros and cons of these positions should, therefore, be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Teaching assistants benefit from generous (often unpaid) holiday packages, access to a private pension scheme, and the ability to work school-only hours. This makes the role incredibly attractive to parents who wish to work when their children are in school, but not secure childcare for the longer school holiday periods.

Qualifications Needed for a Teaching Assistant

Teaching Assistant positions are incredibly sought after, so in order to give yourself the competitive edge, as well as having the appropriate qualifications for the role you are applying for, you are also advised to gain some relevant work experience. This can be either on a paid or voluntary basis. Some examples of valuable work experience opportunities include:

• Working or volunteering in childcare or educational settings
• Working or volunteering in a nursery or pre-school
• Helping to coach or volunteer with youth sports activities
• Undertaking youth work on a voluntary basis: this could involve supporting a youth club, or other club for children (such as the scouting organisation)
• Providing tutoring services
• Working or volunteering in a summer camp

A great way to gain the experience you need, as well as to build good relationships with your local school, is to work with them on a voluntary basis. Most schools are always looking for volunteers to assist with reading, school trips, and other extracurricular activities, and your support is likely to be very welcome.

As well as having experience of working with children, if you are looking for an entry-level teaching assistant position then you will need to be able to demonstrate that you have literacy and numeracy skills: usually schools will request that you have a GCSE or equivalent in both maths and English.

There are no formal qualification requirements to become a teaching assistant, but some schools will have their own minimum requirements or a list of qualifications they would prefer from their applicants. Any qualifications and experience relating to childcare or youth work will certainly stand you in good stead, and there are also specific courses designed for teaching assistants that would provide a key introduction to the sector, as well as showing your dedication to working within it.

These courses include:

• CACHE Level 2 award in supporting work in schools and colleges
• CACHE level 3 award in supporting teaching and learning
• Teaching Assistant Level 3

As well as ensuring you have the qualifications outlined above, you’ll also need to undergo an enhanced criminal records check through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) or Disclosure Scotland in order to work in a school. If you have already worked with children (either in a paid or voluntary capacity) then it is likely that you will have already had one of these checks and be in possession of a DBS certificate.

On the Job Training

On the job training forms a key part of becoming a qualified teaching assistant and you are likely to find that many of the more advanced qualifications targeted to this profession require that you have a practical placement in an education setting (either paid or voluntary). This means that many teaching assistants qualify or advance their qualifications as they are learning.

In addition to on-the-job training for the role you already have, there are also plenty of opportunities for career progression once you have secured a teaching assistant position. From a career progression point of view, many teaching assistants choose to take a course to become a higher-level teaching assistant (HLTA), which is a role that not only commands greater salaries, it also offers greater opportunities for career advancement, and opportunities in other schools. It is also quite common for teaching assistants to continue working in their roles whilst they study to become fully qualified teachers. There continues to be a shortage of teachers in the UK, many that once you are qualified you will find an abundance of job opportunities. You can learn about routes into teaching from Get into teaching.

Professional Bodies

The National Association of Professional Teaching Assistants (NAPTA) is a highly regarded professional body that promotes the importance of teaching assistants and works with thousands of schools and other education settings across the UK to help realise the potential of teaching assistants. Membership to the NAPTA will provide you with access to learning tools and resources, and can help you with your professional development. Membership will show your commitment to working within the field of education and to being the best teaching assistant you can be.