One of the things you learn when you spend some time working with teaching assistants (TAs) - and in the kind of environments they inhabit in school - is that there is a lot to an intervention you may not always consider. Here’s what you need to think about as a teacher:

Who?

Who will be delivering the intervention? You need to consider their skills, their knowledge (do they need any more training?) and their working hours.

Do they actually want to take on that fabulous-looking intervention with all the wonderful (and resource-heavy) activities that will have to plan? And have you checked that those extra 15-20 minutes you have given them fit in with their childcare arrangements or tax credits?

Next, think about the children. What is their relationship like with this chosen adult? Do they get on? What about the composition of the group - are you putting together best friends or worst enemies?

When you look at the data, remember that it’s not all about the numbers, but what you know of the people, too. If you don’t know, you need to find out.

When?

Funnily enough, children are not machines. And the time of day we ask them to do things in school has a subtle but serious knock-on effect on learning. Is it just before lunch? (No one can think on an empty tummy.) Are they missing out on something they really enjoy and might excel at? (All children want to be the fastest runner in the school - and some don’t get much chance to run around outside.) Are you giving them time in the timetable to manage the transition between activities? Are they coming back in the middle of a lesson? (And so will be confused for the rest of it.)

Where?

It’s all very well having planning that says that this, that and the other child are getting this, that and the other intervention, but will it work if the child (and the TA) have to sit on a mat in an echoey corridor that smells of wee?

Equally, there is nothing quite like trailing around the school, wasting your precious 20 minutes, like some sort of Pied Piper, looking for somewhere to ply your trade because when you turned up, someone else was there.

Thinking about how your workplace works will help you to get the best out of your interventions.

Nancy Gedge is a consultant teacher for the Driver Youth Trust, which works with schools and teachers on SEND. She is the Tes SEND specialist, and author of Inclusion for Primary School Teachers