ABSTRACT
The teaching assistants (TAs) work best as part of a team and often the job of a TA involves working with others to implement policy initiatives, programmes or interventions. This chapter discusses in detail the TAs' potential role in implementing and evaluating initiatives, be they designed for the whole school, whole class, small groups or for one individual pupil. Approaches to education are always evolving and naturally schools wish to incorporate these new approaches into existing practice. The intervention, or change, will often require relevant staff members to alter their existing practice and incorporate new ways of working. Most of the time interventions will stipulate success criteria at the beginning of the programme. In order to measure success, evidence will often be collected prior to the intervention, sometimes this is referred to as baseline data after the intervention has finished.
