Teaching Assistants: The Architects of Inclusion

Last week, across the UK, we recognised and celebrated our education workforce as part of ‘Thank a Teacher Day’, a well earned moment of gratitude for the extraordinary work taking place in classrooms, lecture halls, and MATs every single day.

Teaching Assistants are rightly included in that celebration. But I often find myself reflecting on whether we ever truly articulate what we are thanking them for.

In England alone, we invest just under £4.5 billion each year in Teaching Assistant and similar roles, employing nearly 300,000 people. The average take-home pay is around £14,000 per year, shaped by term-time and part-time contracts that are so often the reality of the role.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) highlights that when TAs deliver structured, targeted interventions, pupils can make an additional three to four months’ progress. That impact is clear, through one-to-one literacy and numeracy support, small-group catch-up sessions, and tailored intervention for identified pupils.

But the real story of their impact goes far beyond what research and formal evaluation can easily capture.

It is the TA who greets a previously persistently absent pupil every morning, helping them feel seen and ready to return.

It is the TA who quietly and consistently supports a pupil with an EHCP to navigate the school site with confidence and dignity.

It is the TA who notices a child in distress and gives up their own lunch break to listen, comfort, and ensure the right staff are informed.

It is the TA who commits to their own development, completing training and learning in their own time because they want to be better for the pupils they support.

It is the TA who turns up to lunchtime clubs, enrichment sessions, and extra-curricular activities so that vulnerable pupils are not left on the margins of school life.

None of this is fully measured by the EEF, captured by Ofsted, or reflected in performance tables. Yet it is often these moments; small, unseen, consistent, that shape whether a child feels they belong in school at all. In many cases, Teaching Assistants are the quiet architects of inclusion.

As Headteachers, MAT leaders, and Finance Leads navigate increasingly complex and difficult budget decisions, we must not allow what is easiest to measure to overshadow what is most meaningful to a child’s experience of education.

Because when we talk about inclusion, we are often talking about them.

And to every Teaching Assistant doing this work every day, thank you. Not just for what you do, but for what you make possible.