Teaching Assistant Review

My role as a apprentice teaching assistant is to support the student in school on a daily basis and work with the teacher to support children learning and well-being. For example, some of the things i do everyday includes getting wheelchair students from the school bus and help them get to their classroom.

I have developed many of existing skills in my role. For example, communication skills as i have to interact with students and be responsive to them to deal with any issues. I have developed my team working skills and i have to communicate with the teacher to provide feedback on how the student got on with the lesson.

I enjoy my programme as it can be really rewarding see student making progress in something. For example, a student who didn't really like to share things with others e.g. board games and then see them start to open up and share thing with others make me feel really satisfied.

My programme is well structured as my tutor is always there to support me when i need it e.g. by email or text or can book a appointment to her in person. There are teaching session every month throughout the course to help me which help me to understand the content better.

My school offer me a lot of support as well. for example, during my course my line manager from the school arranges review every half term to discuss with me how things are getting on for me and ask me if everything is alright for my role and also my course.

My training provider provides me a lot of support throughout my course. I can email them anytime and my tutor will respond to me as soon as possible. There are few times where she respond out of her working hours just to help me with my question about observation and professional discussion.

I feel like my qualification gives me the good knowledge and understanding of the theory part of supporting children in learning and well-being. I think a lot of the time you need to be flexible when working as a TA in school e.g. thinking about different ways to deal with behavior as each student is different.

Yes, there are quite a lot of training opportunities for staff after school. For example, there are sign language training, manual handling training, safeguarding training, behavior discussion, ICT training e.g. how to record thing using Arbor. There are also external staff coming into school to talk about specific topic in manual handling and safeguarding.

Yes

I would recommend Rochdale Council to a friend as they offer a lot of apprenticeship roles which means there are more opportunities for young people to get employed. There also offer a lot of support which is crucial to the success of students. I definitely would struggle to complete my course without my tutor's support.

I recommend them to just go for it and they will not regret it. I know it can be daunting for young people to apply for it especially if it's their first time applying a job but it's really worth it because you get valuable hand on experience on doing your role and you get paid as well which is a bonus.