Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 26 September to Question 45468, what assessment he has made of the availability of teaching assistants to support children with SEND.

The department does not collect teaching assistant vacancy numbers as part of the school workforce census, nor does it monitor vacancies within schools.

Schools can recruit teaching assistants according to their own circumstances. In the last two years, schools have recruited 10,000 more teaching assistants, taking the headcount to the highest on record. The department is committed to helping schools with their recruitment and provides guidance on the use and training of teaching assistants in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision Green Paper, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/send-review-right-support-right-place-right-time. The department has also provided guidance on the use of support staff in schools in the school resource management guidance, which can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-excellent-school-resource-management.

The department has funded the development of a number of good practice guidance documents through its SEND schools’ workforce contracts, including a Teaching Assistant Deployment Review Guide, which can be accessed at: https://www.sendgateway.org.uk/resources/teaching-assistant-deployment-review-guide.

The Education Endowment Foundation’s guidance report 'Making best use of teaching assistants' offers the latest evidence and makes a number of recommendations to help schools make best use of their teaching assistants. It identifies ways schools can deploy them in different contexts to deliver high-quality support to pupils. The report also recommends that teaching assistants are fully prepared for their role in the classroom by having the skills and training necessary to carry out their work. The report can be accessed here: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/uploads/pdf/TA_Guidance_Report_Interactive.pdf.