We know that quality interactions with adults are crucial to young children’s development.
In 2003, the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education Project found that the quality of interactions between children and staff made a notable difference to children’s development. Children made more progress, the report found, “where staff showed warmth and were responsive to the individual needs of children”.
Meanwhile, the Department for Education’s early years framework emphasises that all children need to be guided in their learning by “warm, positive interactions” with adults.
That advice applies as much to support staff who are working with children as it does to teachers.
Making sure that there are strong relationships between all of the adults working in your classroom can help to ensure consistency of approach, which will support those quality interactions that lead to the best outcomes for children.
Here are some ways for teachers to build those relationships, and to work more effectively with their TAs in early years.
Make CPD a priority
New TAs will initially need support to scaffold their interactions with young children.
This might involve observing teachers or more experienced TAs, watching recordings or taking part in in-house or external professional development.
The key thing is that CPD for TAs needs to be prioritised just as much as CPD for teachers.
When offering specific programmes - for teaching phonics, for instance - learning assistants should receive training to understand the theory and application of these, alongside teachers.
TAs should also be given time to reflect upon their practice and share their ideas with all staff.
In addition, if the class has a high number of children with English as a second language (EAL) or speech and language difficulties, TAs will need dedicated training on this, too.
Model adaptive teaching
According to the Education Endowment Foundation’s Early Years Toolkit, communication and language approaches are crucial in the early years.
Interactions with young children should be tailored to their particular needs - such as whether they are struggling with social communication or vocabulary - and when a TA works with a child, they should be differentiating their approach in accordance with those needs.
For example, when interacting with a child with EAL, vocabulary in context should be emphasised. The TA can comment on what they see: “I see you are putting the red car on the tall block.”
When a child has social communication issues, the TA should tune into non-verbal prompts.
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If a child exhibits a high level of language, the focus should be on working with them to develop their problem-solving skills, using methods such as “sustained shared thinking” whereby two or more individuals work together to solve a problem, clarify a concept, evaluate activities or extend the narrative.
As well as encouraging TAs to think about language levels, it’s also important for the teacher to model how to identify a child’s interests and harness these to play alongside them, or to develop their play.
Emphasise the importance of socioemotional support
Socioemotional support is important in any classroom, but particularly when working with young children.
TAs must be tuned into the emotional needs of children from when they enter a setting and throughout the day. They must be warm and welcoming, and ready to respond to any shifts in mood or concerns that a child might express.
This is essential to helping the child develop a sense of trust and belonging within the setting. If a child does exhibit any issues, these must be shared with the class teacher.
Establish clear roles and responsibilities
There are many tasks in the early years classroom - from cleaning up paint pots to working with a small group.
Early on in your working relationship with a TA, set a meeting to talk through these tasks and discuss who should take on each role. Don’t simply assign the TA the tasks you’d prefer not to do; make task allocation a more collaborative process.
It’s also important for the teacher to establish their expectations in terms of running and resourcing the classroom. Some TAs may never have worked in a classroom before, so will need guidance on when and how to complete tasks.
Encourage the TA to state their strengths and areas in which they would like support. Look to develop their areas of expertise, and regularly meet with them to discuss and share ideas, including planning and observations.
Through effective interactions with children, rooted in understanding their difficulties, strengths and how they learn best, we’ll be able to deliver the best possible early years provision.
It is the responsibility of both the teacher and the TAs to make sure this happens.
Jess Gosling is an international teacher and author of Becoming a Successful International Teacher. She tweets @JessGosling2
