Teaching assistants (TAs) comprise a quarter of the school workforce in England and Wales. There has been controversy over TAs' deployment and appropriate role regarding supporting learning and these debates have been transformed by findings from the largest study of school support staff (the DISS project), which show that TA support has a…

In many countries, teaching assistants are working in schools in increasing numbers. While they formerly supported teachers by completing low-level administrative tasks, they are increasingly playing a pedagogical role and working directly with pupils, particularly those with special educational needs. However, little is known about the quality of…

In recent years there has been an unprecedented increase in support staff in schools in England and Wales. There were widespread expectations that this will be of benefit to teachers and pupils but there has been little systematic research to address the impact of support staff. This study used a naturalistic longitudinal design to investigate the…

Despite an unprecedented increase in classroom-based support staff, there are confusing messages about their appropriate deployment and a lack of systematic evidence on their impact. This article addresses the deployment and impact on pupil engagement and individual attention of support staff, commonly known as teaching assistants (TAs), in terms…