Duties and responsibilities of a teaching assistant involve a variety of skills including;
- being a good communicator/enjoying working with others. In the role it is vital to share information as well as ideas and thoughts. To be able to do this competently and in an effective way you would need to enjoy working with the people around you to build up a good relationship.
- using your initiative. Teaching assistants need to be able to prioritise and manage tasks themselves at times. Teachers are very busy and cannot always be disturbed to ask questions. Teaching assistants need to decide things for themselves such as doing the photocopying during choosing time and not during phonics time where you will be more useful in the classroom to help.
- respecting confidentiality. There may be
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Training for personal development can be very beneficial to you and the school. It is an opportunity to gain further knowledge and skill which enables you to adapt to your changing role and duties. Teaching assistants can be moved from helping in a year 6 class to reception age. The role would vary greatly and you may be given training in order to meet the expectations they would have of you.
- being firm but fair with the children. You must have clear and consistent boundaries as a teaching assistant so that children recognise that you are fair in your approach and that any unacceptable behaviour will not be tolerated. If you allow children to get away with something one week and not the next, this can give mixed messages to the children causing some to feel unsettled and others to try to abuse these boundaries.
- enjoying working with children and having a sense of humour. If you don’t enjoy working with children, you should definitely consider a different role to a teaching assistant. As a teaching assistant you should try to see the funny side of things, even if it’s more appropriate to do so later