ABSTRACT

I have 15 years’ experience as a full-time teaching assistant in a small primary school working throughout the school giving support to the teachers on a fixed timetable. Most of the teachers are younger than I am and they largely leave me to use my own initiative. Indeed, I often lead in finding or developing resources to make the learning more relevant to the children. Some teachers want all the children to carry out the same task and I may have to extend or adapt these to the needs of particular children, groups of children or occasionally the whole class.