This paper describes the formal and informal aspects of the teaching assistant (TA) role in schools in England, and how the role has evolved beyond its original imagining. The TA role is a predominantly part-time role carried out by women [1]. The size of the TA workforce – 29% of the school workforce [1], making it an international outlier [2] – is a function of the post-Salamanca Statement drive to ensure mainstream schools are more inclusive for students with SEND [3]. In the mid-2000s, the number – and role – of TAs expanded further following a major policy, which encouraged schools to employ and deploy TAs to reduce teacher workload. Arrangements agreed by the government, employers and trade unions permitted schools to deploy TAs with suitable experience to supervise classes when teachers are absent, and to lead lessons in place of teachers. This paper uses the CoFTA framework to organise data from empirical research and official documents to provide an account of the roles TAs undertake in schools in England, and the extent to which these are consistent with national guidance on how they should – and should not – be deployed. The findings reveal the TA role has evolved over time into an implicitly pedagogical one. TAs are often ‘assigned primary educator status’ for students with SEND [3]. Many TAs are trained to deliver intervention programmes, typically outside the classroom, to improve students’ basic literacy and numeracy skills. While there is strong evidence this has a positive impact, TAs are, in contrast, underprepared to support learning inside classrooms, which limits their effectiveness [3,4]. TAs frequently take on or absorb additional roles on an informal basis. These often become permanent features of their workload, but not their job description. For instance, the family liaison role TAs adopted during the Covid have persisted post-pandemic, without formal recognition [5]. Furthermore, recent research suggests the practice of TAs covering classes for teachers has gone beyond the scope and scale of the original policy and guidance. Deploying TAs to ‘teach’ lessons is a commonplace response to managing the on-going teacher shortage crisis facing English schools [6]. This paper concludes that in the longstanding absence of government policy concerning TAs, a culture has emerged wherein schools respond to ever-growing needs, and dwindling teacher capacity, by redrawing the boundaries of the TA role, and re-legitimising the conditions under which they can be deployed for certain duties.

Dept. for Education. (2024). Size of the school workforce. School workforce in England. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/4ab64067-e89d-4e39-a11e-08dcfae39e23 OECD. (2024). Number of teacher aides. OECD Data Explorer. https://data-viewer.oecd.org/?chartId=90ac9cee-f510-48ec-a6bd-ca3c97528869. Note. Data in this table covers the whole of the UK. England accounts for 76% of all UK schools Blatchford, P., Russell, A. and Webster, R. (2012). Reassessing the Impact of Teaching Assistants: How research challenges practice and policy. Oxon: Routledge Education Endowment Foundation. (2024). Teaching assistant interventions.https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/teaching-assistant-interventions Hall, S., & Webster, R. (2023). ‘It’s properly changed, and I think it’s going to continue.’ How the pandemic and the cost of living crisis remade the teaching assistant role. Pastoral Care in Education, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2023.2271483 Webster, R. (2024) Teaching on the cheap? The extent and impact of teaching assistants covering classes and leading lessons. British Educational Research Journal, 50(6), 2599-2622. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.4043