What Is Covered In Teaching Assistant Courses

The type of modules that are taught in teaching assistant courses can naturally vary very much depending on whether there are any specialities and what the individual plans to do with their course once they’ve finished it. This can make choosing a course increasingly difficult as prospective studiers do not wish to get the selection wrong. Within this article I shall be giving a brief summary of the types of modules you can expect to learn and explaining why it is important. 

Safeguarding of Children

This is almost always the first module you will study, and will arguably be the most important thing you will study within teaching assistant courses. It will cover a number of different laws that govern the care of children, such as The Children Act 1989, The Protection of Children Act 1999, The Children Act 2004 and the Childcare Act 2006. These will give you a good background on how you are required to act and care for the children, whilst staying professional.

An explanation of how to look out for child issues such as social exclusion, poverty, abuse and parental mental health will also be included relatively early on. If you work in a school, you will be expected to recognise the early signs of these and pass the information on to the appropriate person/body.

Supporting Learning Activities

Teaching assistant courses naturally need to include a great deal of information on how you will be expected to support teachers and the students within the classroom. This will be the vast majority of your job, and having a sound knowledge of how best to improve the learning experience will make you far more valuable to schools and increase your employability.

More specifically, these modules are likely to cover tips for communication with children, supporting bilingual pupils and the use of ICT within the classroom. 

Developing and Maintaining Positive Working Relationships

Working in schools requires a large amount of interpersonal and communication skills, as you will be required to communicate with Pupils, Other Teachers, Management and Parents. Most teaching assistant courses will also include ideas on how to speak to different types of people and how to act. This can be immensely important when communicating to Parents who may be difficult to work with and who may become agitated unless you are very careful.

Different Types of Schools

Once you’ve decided you want to work within a school, you must decide on what type of school you would flourish in; state or private; primary or secondary; big or small? This is another factor that teaching assistant courses cover. Such courses include what it’s like to work in different establishments and the general differences between the types of schools. This includes information on the national curriculum and examples of administrative tasks that you may have to complete as part of your role.

I hope this article has helped to explain the kind of modules that you can expect to be learning, and give you a good overview of why they are useful.