Strengthening how early career teachers deploy teaching assistants to enhance educational inclusion

About the project

The promotion of educational inclusion and equity in schools continues to be an international priority for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers. Amidst a deepening crisis in the English special educational needs system, the effective deployment of teaching assistants has been shown to be an integral component in the achievement of educational inclusion within the classroom. However, recent policy frameworks on teacher induction in England have underestimated the challenge early career teachers face in deploying teaching assistants for educational inclusion and are not sufficiently sensitive to the specific career-stage factors which shape this work.

The Strengthening Early Career Teacher and Teaching Assistant Deployment for Educational Inclusion project will address this challenge by:

1. Working with preservice teachers, early career teachers and teaching assistants to develop targeted training and support that facilitates equitable and inclusive approaches to early career teacher and teaching assistant co-deployment in the classroom.

2. Developing awareness amongst school staff and initial teacher educators of the challenges of collaborating with classroom-based support staff to strengthen preservice education and early career induction support.

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Project Overview

Key Dates

Mentors and Advisors

Dr Geoffrey Lewis (Project lead): Geoff is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Education Studies at the University of Warwick and, for fifteen years prior to this, worked in primary schools across a variety of leadership roles. His PhD focussed on understanding the fine-grained factors that shape the work of early career teachers teaching assistants (TAs) and looked specifically at how these practices intersect with educational inclusion, school leadership, and teacher education and induction. His 2023 paper, ‘The classroom deployment of teaching assistants in England: a critical review of literature from 2010 to 2020’, aimed to demonstrate how existing models of effective TA deployment can and should be supplemented with a careful attention to the contextual features that shape (and are shaped by) these practices.

Professor Olympia Palikara (Project mentor): Olympia is an Educational Psychologist by training and her research work lies at the intersection of Educational Psychology and Special Educational Needs. Her research interests concern the educational and psychosocial outcomes of children and young people with special educational needs, including those with Developmental Language Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Down Syndrome and Williams Syndrome. She is also particularly interested in the effect of educational transitions, including from primary to secondary education and secondary education to post-compulsory education on children's wellbeing. Recent research aims to identify the individual and contextual factors associated with children's wellbeing, sense of school belonging and school climate.

Dr Mark Pulsford (Project mentor): Mark joined Warwick's Department of Education Studies in 2019 having previously taught on education programmes at the University of Sheffield and De Montfort University. He is currently the Director of Undergraduate Studies in DES and Faculty Senior Tutor for Social Sciences. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and have an interest in education as a subject of study in higher education institutions. With Rebecca Morris and Ross Purves, he recently edited the new textbook 'Understanding Education Studies: Critical Issues and New Directions', published by Routledge. With Rebecca and Ross, he has also worked on research funded by the British Education Studies Association that explored undergraduate course leaders' views and experiences. My research interests are also around men and masculinities in education.

Dr Rob Webster (Project advisor): Rob researches and writes about inclusion and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). He has worked on some of the most ground-breaking SEND research projects of recent years, including the UK’s largest study of the everyday school experiences of pupils with an EHCP. The results of this study are available in his book, 'The Inclusion Illusion', which is free to download via UCL Press. Rob is a leading expert on teaching assistants (TAs). He was a researcher on the world's largest study of TA deployment and impact: the ground-breaking DISS project. He created the award-winning Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants programme. He has also written extensively on TAs, and edited the first collection of international writing on TAs.

Aimee Durning MBE (Project advisor): After several years of working as a parent volunteer, Aimee was employed as a Teaching Assistant in 2007. Aimee’s educational career blossomed when she joined the first University primary school in the country. During 2018, Aimee established the University of Cambridge Primary School’s Teaching Assistant Forum, which provided professional development sessions for Teaching assistants in the local area. Aimee won Classroom Assistant of the Year 2019 at the annual TES Awards and was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2021 for her work with Teaching Assistants, Reading for Pleasure and children with special educational needs. Aimee, along with Dr James Biddulph, recently launched the UK’s first Teaching Assistant Network Hub. The Teaching Assistant Hub provides opportunities for networking, professional learning and the sharing of brilliant ideas.

Media

Strengthening ECT-TA Deployment for Educational Inclusion, Newsletter 1 (February 2025)

School leaders considering reducing teaching assistants should pause and reflect, Twinkl Digest, January 2024.

Working with teaching assistants as an early career teacher: Practical advice for trainee teachers, Research in Action Conference, Centre for Teacher Education, University of Warwick, December 2024. Session recording | Session Slides

Strengthening how early career teachers deploy teaching assistants: Practical advice for schools, Schools and Academies Show, November 2024. Slides | Reflective questions for ECTs

Lewis, G. (2023). The classroom deployment of teaching assistants in England: a critical review of literature from 2010 to 2020. Educational Review, 77(1), 303–319.

Project Activities

Impact

The Strengthening ECT-TA Deployment for Inclusion: Professional Development Programme took place in May and June 2025 with 19 ECTs and TAs from 12 primary schools across England. The impact of the programme was measured using a pre- and post-programme questionnaire with the majority of participants reporting moderate, significant or very significant changes to their practice (See infographic below and Table 1 for further breakdown). 100% of participants said they were likely or very likely to suggest the programme to other colleagues.

See Table 1 below which contains the same information.

Table 1. Perceived change after participating in the programme
	No change (%)	Slightly changed (%)	Moderately changed (%)	Significantly changed (%)	Very signifcantly changed (%)	Total moderate, significant or very significant change (%)
Confidence in designing and/or supporting teaching sequences that include all children	0	12	53	35	0	88
Confidence in co-ordinating my work with the ECT/TAs I work with in ways that support the inclusion of all children	0	6	35	47	12	94
Confidence in using scaffolded activities with children to support them to be more active in their learning	0	12	53	35	0	88
Confidence in preparing for and feeding back on lessons with the ECT/TAs I work with in the classroom	6	12	41	35	6	82
Confidence in developing effective relationships with the ECT/TAs I work with in the classroom	12	24	29	29	6	65

Survey

The project will begin with a national survey of early career teachers in England. Launched in December 2024, the survey will gather data in relation to five key areas of TA deployment:

• Preparation to work with TAs during initial teacher education

• ECT confidence in working with TAs during induction

• Common TA deployment patterns in classes taught by ECTs

• Forms of ECT support provided by TAs during induction

• ECT views on useful forms of professional development

First or second-year early career teachers currently teaching in England can take part in the survey here.

Focus Group

Findings from the survey will be used to inform focus groups with early career teachers and other key stakeholders. Taking place in February 2025, the aim of these focus groups is to co-design a set of professional development resources that can be used by trainee and early career teachers to strengthen TA deployment for educational inclusion in the classroom. The co-design process will engage with stakeholders through a 7-step process based on Yeates et al. (2022):

1. Engage: Establish relationships with stakeholders to comprehend the challenges associated with TA deployment during teacher training and induction.

2. Plan: Collaborate with stakeholders to develop ideas regarding the purposes of professional development and key design decisions.

3. Explore: Learn about and understand stakeholder experiences of TA deployment, identifying critical aspects that a professional development programme might focus on to support and improve.

4. Develop: Utilise information provided by stakeholders and connect this to research to create a research-informed programme of professional development resources for trainee and early career teachers.

5. Decide: Transform these broad ideas into a specific programme of professional development resources for trainee and early career teachers.

6. Refine: Enhance the programme resources by inviting stakeholders and project partners to provide design feedback on the programme.

7. Implement: Roll out the co-designed programme to schools and teacher education providers to effect change.

Professional Development resources

Teacher attitudes towards inclusion and special educational needs and/or disabilities are critical in shaping children’s experiences of school. Equally, the effective deployment of teaching assistants has been identified as a key factor in developing classroom practices that are inclusive of all learners. Yet, for many early career teachers, the teaching of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities and the deployment of support staff are areas where they often feel underprepared.

This professional development programme takes a workshop approach to these issues, recognising that teaching assistant deployment can vary considerably between schools. It aims to work with early career teachers and teaching assistants to develop more equitable and inclusive classroom pedagogies that can be enhanced by, but are not wholly reliant on the availability of teaching assistant support. Throughout the programme’s three sessions, participants will be given the opportunity to engage with current research and use this to explore their own school and classroom context as part of an ongoing process of professional inquiry.

Co-designed with a working group of early career teachers and experts in the field and drawing on data from a national survey, the programme will address the most pressing professional development needs identified by practitioners in this area. It will broadly cover the following key themes:

• Inclusive pedagogy and universal design for learning

• Models of classroom deployment

• Expanding strategies for pupil support

• Planning, preparation and feedback

• Navigating teacher-TA relationships

Download the flyer here.