I am thinking about becoming a teaching assistant.?

[lamplight23]

I love working with children and think this is the path I would like to take, I see a TA as working with small groups of children but I am getting negitive feedback from others who are saying that TAs are being and abused by teachers and heads and are being used to teach whole classes while the teacher has PPA time. Any TAs out there who can put me straight about a TAs job.

[Trace XX]

TAs can work with an individual child or with a group of children supporting the teacher in the classroom or they may take out groups of children to run special programmes within the school.

As a teacher I would not say that they abuse their TAs but both teachers and TAs are under pressure to achieve results, teachers are very pressed for time and need any help they can get, my TAs are very helpful and will help me mark do displays etc.

Some TAs do ppa time but at my school they get paid 50quid for it extra so its not really abuse!

Obviously it all varies teacher to teacher and school to school so what u hear will be a mixof experiences!