At the heart of the new findings, the EEF says that students who struggle in the classroom should be spending at least as much time with the teacher as their peers.
Teaching assistant deployment, the report adds, should allow all students to access high-quality teaching.
The recommendations also emphasise the role of teaching assistants in helping to scaffold learning, develop students’ independence, and deliver interventions as appropriate.
The report also includes a completely new recommendation highlighting the importance of engaging all school staff to ensure consistent use and deployment of teaching assistants in the school.
The update comes 10 years after the EEF first published its research review on the effective use of teaching assistants in the classroom.
The resource has been updated after a new review of the evidence, synthesising findings from more than 52 different studies.
It has resulted in five “clear and evidence-informed recommendations on how to best utilise teaching assistants to support attainment outcomes”. These are:
- Deploy teaching assistants in ways that enable all pupils to access high-quality teaching: “Teaching assistants should supplement – not replace – the teacher. This means that pupils who struggle most should spend at least as much time with the teacher as other pupils, if not more.”
- Deploy teaching assistants to scaffold learning and to develop pupils’ independence: “Leaders should ensure teaching assistants are prepared to engage in scaffolding practices that support pupils’ learning and ability to learn independently. Supporting pupil independence should be a key consideration of teaching assistant deployment.”
- Deploy teaching assistants to deliver well-chosen, evidence-based, structured interventions where appropriate: “The evidence shows that teaching assistants can support pupils effectively through structured interventions. However, these need to be carefully considered, monitored, and linked to the classroom to ensure positive outcomes for pupils.”
- Prepare and train staff around effective teaching assistant deployment: “Provide clarity on the role of the TA for all in the school. Enable teaching assistants to be effective in their role and teachers to work effectively with teaching assistants, through effective professional development. Develop on-going co-ordination and communication so that teachers and teaching assistants are prepared for their day-to-day roles.”
- Engage all staff in the process of implementing effective teaching assistant deployment: “Effective teaching assistant deployment is complex and dependent on a range of factors. School leaders should focus on implementation as they look to embed effective practices.”
The previous iteration of the EEF’s teaching assistant advice has proved popular, with 65,000 downloads in the last year alone. This update comes as workforce figures show there are around 280,000 teaching assistants in the school workforce in England – an increase of 28% since 2011.
In a statement, the EEF said: “Many teaching assistants play a role in supporting the inclusion of pupils with SEND in mainstream schools. Teaching assistants are widely seen as vital in helping mainstream schools maintain inclusivity, as the number of pupils with SEND and complex needs continues to rise.
“Making sure teaching assistants are deployed effectively is also vital to supporting high-quality teaching for all pupils, but particularly those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.”
Alongside the updated guide, the EEF has developed additional resources to support teachers, including a teacher-teaching assistant partnership tool to help establish ways of working between the two and to inform on-going communication and decision-making.
Emily Yeomans, co-chief executive at the EEF, said: “Ensuring teaching assistants are deployed strategically is crucial to making sure they have the biggest impact on learning, supporting teachers and ultimately helping pupils to reach their potential at school. Put simply, teaching assistants are an invaluable part of our school workforce.”
- EEF: Deployment of teaching assistants: Guidance report, March 2025: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/teaching-assistants
- See also: SecEd Podcast: Effective deployment of teaching assistants, September 2024: www.sec-ed.co.uk/content/podcasts/the-seced-podcast-effective-deployment-of-teaching-assistants