ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some important points to make about research on teaching assistants (TAs), helpful for contextualizing the case made and guidance. Interventions will have been tested and refined before being made available to schools; this is especially the case for commercial programmes. To begin with, reasonably assume pupils who were given the most TA support in the first place would have been those most likely to make less progress in any case. The broad principles and processes deployed in the EDTA project form the basis of the MITA school improvement programme run at the UCL Institute of Education (IOE), London. The overall challenge facing school leaders, which explores, is how to define the role, purpose and contribution of TAs and show how it adds value to pupil's educational and social development in a distinctive way. Our aim is broader: TAs as having a potentially transformative effect by taking on the type of roles that can benefit all pupils.
