Working as a Teaching Assistant – Lessons from the first three months

Jane and I were seated in the front row of her Year 7 Art class, where she had just been asked to draw a three-dimensional rendition of her first initial, followed by smaller, more creative sketches reflecting her personality. Although Art was far from her favourite subject, Jane had nobly pushed through the first portion of the task, producing a clear and volumetric 'J'. When the time came for the second, however, our conversation went a little like this:

Ella: "So, what do you want to draw around the 'J'?"

Jane: "Nothing."

E: "How about an animal? A plant?"

J: "No…"

E: "Why not?"

J: "I can't." 

E: "Come on, I know you can. I'll help."
J: "I can't."

I restrained a sigh. 

"Here we go again," I thought, feeling myself fill with dread. "Why is she being so difficult? It's just a few lines and doodles. Art is supposed to be fun. What's the big deal?" 

At this point, I had been working as a Special Education Needs (SEN) Teaching Assistant (TA) for about three months. My aim was to gain foundational skills working directly with children and young people in the hopes that I could eventually apply my learning to a clinical role in Psychology.

Indeed, Teaching Assistant positions are some of the most popular entry-level roles for Psychology graduates. Typing 'SEN Teaching Assistant' into uk.indeed.com returns over 600 listings in London alone, with most highlighting, in their job descriptions, the myriad opportunities that make them suitable to 'Aspiring Assistant Psychologists', 'Aspiring Educational Psychologists', and 'Aspiring Therapists'.

Over the past few months, I have come to experience, first-hand, the many rewards of being a TA, including connecting with and supporting children and young people in one of the most influential areas of their lives. At the same time, the learning curve can be steep, and training on the job is not guaranteed. In this article, I would like to share four key reflections I have gathered in my first three months on the job, hoping to be of some use to others considering becoming and working with TAs as part of their Psychology path.

Meet people where they are, as individuals

A wise friend once told me, 'Unless you meet people where they are, you're only talking to yourself'. 

In my experience, this wisdom rings equally true in the classroom. Any success I have had with students has been directly proportional to whether or not I have accurately gauged their strengths and preferences, and any time I have failed, it has usually been down to misaligned expectations. Lev Vygotsky captures this idea in his work on the 'Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)', or the space between students' independent capabilities and what they are capable of with guidance. The point of school, according to Vygotsky, is to provide as many experiences within the ZPD as possible, advancing students' learning in a supported and encouraging way.

Understanding what works for students can also involve observing their responses to other teaching staff. When I first began working with Daniel, a 14-year-old with Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC), I tried to manage his resistance to support by offering him as many choices as I could. "Do you want to work on this task first, or that one?" I kept asking. "Should we study this topic, or the next?" It was only after I witnessed him working diligently with his notoriously strict Maths teacher that I realised how much my 'flexibility' must have been adding to his uncertainty and frustration. Going forwards, I modified my approach to involve direct and explicit instructions, resulting in subtle but significant improvements to our working relationship.

Demonstrating an interest in students' perspectives and experiences is also foundational to building strong relationships. Working as an Assistant Psychologist at Anna Freud, I received training on the critical role of epistemic trust in facilitating 'helping' relationships: for people to listen to you, they must first decide that your guidance is relevant to them, and this can only happen if they see that you understand their current state of mind. Indeed, I have found that the first step to connecting with students, particularly when they are distressed, is to describe what I understand about their situation and feelings and then check if I have managed to come at all close to their truth.

Observe your own reactions

Despite the non-clinical environment, working in schools can be unexpectedly emotive, as exams, educational targets, and the need to maintain order in classrooms full of excited children and hormonal teenagers compound stress on both students and staff. For 'Aspiring Psychologists', however, these reckonings can be a blessing. 

When I first started working as a TA, I immediately came head-to-head with my own perfectionism and sense of shame, feeling guilty for not knowing how to manage situations even when I was encountering them for the first time. Ironically, it was only when I fully accepted my position as a beginner that I could move away from my solipsistic self-criticism and start authentically observing, understanding, and learning from my mistakes.

Working as a TA also led me to notice my unconscious resistance towards assuming authority. Although my initial, more flexible approach with Daniel had been motivated by a desire to support him better, another, more subtle component had been my discomfort with imposing my own will on someone else. Reading several articles by seasoned teacher Steve Carr led me to reframe authority as a necessary component of school-based learning, with real power being granted 'from below' by students to teachers who are fair, consistent, and reliable even in the face of challenges. Putting this knowledge into practice meant that I had to deliberately notice the ways in which I was undermining and second-guessing myself, identify the roots of my uncertainty, and lead students with greater direction. 

Finally, being a TA developed my ability to take other people's emotions and reactions less personally. When I was new to the role, it was easy to blame myself every time a student I was supporting broke the rules, and a minority of schools did implicitly fault TAs for not 'controlling' children well enough. Working as a daily supply TA in almost a dozen schools since, I came to realise that my sense of usefulness and safety actually depended much more on a school's culture and procedures than my or the children's behaviour. Furthermore, I realised how most instances I had interpreted as teachers being less-than-satisfied with my work were in fact symptomatic of their frustrations with the wider system, where students' needs consistently overwhelmed available resources. As a recovering people-pleaser, facing the extent to which I was indiscriminately allowing myself to be consumed by other people's attitudes and reactions was invaluable.

Ask for help

Another major lesson in my work thus far has been to get comfortable asking questions, even if they might make me look very, very dumb. Sometimes, the answers have indeed been obvious – for example, when I asked my supervisor last week what to do if a student finishes copying down notes quicker than everyone else, and she told me that that's when we check if he has understood the material – but I have always learned something new. Humbling myself to the fact that my colleagues with 20 more years of experience than me will inevitably have something useful to share has been enlightening.

Establishing strong lines of communication with class teachers has been equally helpful. Following one Chemistry lesson in which Daniel flat-out refused to engage with me, I felt slightly embarrassed in front of his teacher, imagining that he must have judged me as totally inept. Knowing that my awkwardness achieved nothing on its own, I waited after the lesson to try and brainstorm solutions together. "I felt quite useless in there," I confessed. "Maybe in the future, I could try moving around the class to support other students first, normalise them receiving help, and then come back to Daniel. What do you think?"

I was struck by the teacher's compassionate response. "I'm so sorry you felt that way," he said, genuinely. "You don't know how much more distracted Daniel is when you're not here. Even if he doesn't engage with you directly, I can tell you that having support staff makes a real difference in his focus."

He then shared an idea that I would not have been able to come up with alone: "To be honest," he said, "I had no clue that Daniel hadn't completed the exercise – I thought he understood. In the future, if you notice that he hasn't comprehended something, signal to me to come over and I will help. He doesn't mind support from his teachers as much."

Several experiences like the above have made it clear to me that speaking honestly with colleagues about my uncertainties is always helpful, creating a space for creative, collaborative problem-solving and a deeper understanding of the children and young people we work with.

Keep it light

The best feeling in the world as a TA, in my view, is aligning with students' skills and needs in such a way that they experience learning as fun, inspired, and alive, growing in confidence as they begin to access more and more of the curriculum. Indeed, there is a significant body of research suggesting that the most engaging learning experiences are playful, permitting learners to explore, take risks, and learn through failure without anxiety.

A lot of the time, the pressures of being in a classroom and keeping up with the pace of a lesson get in the way of this feeling. In another Art lesson with Jane, I remember worrying that we had fallen too far behind the rest of her class, confused as to why she wouldn't copy down the drawing I kept modelling for her. She eventually alerted me to her reasons by exclaiming, in an irritated whisper, "You're going too fast!" Poor Jane. "I'm so sorry," I said, and pushed the rest of the classroom out of my mind. "Thank you for telling me. Let's do it together step-by-step." And that's what we did.

Remaining vigilant about the impact of both external and internal pressure on how I interact with students is a constant and necessary battle. Although it can be tempting to rush through teaching when stressed, in my experience, making decisions out of anxiety instead of attunement to students' needs and pace has only ever resulted in ineffective 'pretend work', where I satisfy myself that I have appeared to do my job, but know in my heart that very little, if any, actual learning has reached the person I am working with. 

While it can be difficult to modify the external conditions that give rise to such anxiety, setting an inner intention to move towards lightness, optimism, and connection has helped me shift the course of several interactions. Returning to my opening anecdote with Jane in Art class, I ended up stopping to reflect on why she might be feeling so resistant to sketching additional images, and reminded myself of her insecurity regarding her drawing skills. As my verbal encouragement hadn't helped her overcome her fears, I considered how I might shift my internal experience to break the cycle of resistance and frustration. Embracing my own love for drawing, I decided to let Jane be and outline my own initial, surrounded by doodles of eyes, daisies, and a cat. Indeed, once I started silently drawing and having a good time with it, I found Jane looking over my shoulder. "That's pretty good," she said, but made a face at the eyes in the middle of my "E". "Except without the eyes." She rubbed them out, then turned back to her own drawing. "I want to draw a cat on the bottom of the J. Can you teach me how?"

Overall, my work as a TA has provided extensive and rich opportunities to develop skills I consider to be clinically relevant, particularly in the domain of working with children and young people. More generally, I have had the chance to apply psychological theories to practice, work with teams around children, and reflect on my own limitations and reactivity. My most critical takeaway has been the extent to which I am affected by real or imagined judgment, and the impact this has on my interactions with students and teachers. 

Applying everything I have learned to my daily practice is still a challenge, and I continue to ask questions on a weekly basis. However, I no longer consider these experiences to be flaws, and have started to whole-heartedly appreciate the beauty that comes with being at the very beginning of a journey, both as a TA and as an Aspiring Psychologist.

• Ella Ucer is a University College London MSci Psychology and Language Sciences graduate, previous Assistant Psychologist, current SEN Teaching Assistant, and member of the British Psychological Society.