Teaching assistant interview questions (UK)

Teaching assistant interviews are short — often half an hour, sometimes with a classroom task — and panels are testing three things: whether you can be useful in a room full of children, whether you understand where your authority stops, and whether you are safe. Here is what they actually ask, and what a strong answer contains.

"Tell us why you want to work in this school"

The weak version lists your own needs: hours, location, a career change. The strong version shows you looked. Name something specific — the school's approach to reading, its specialist resource provision, the fact it serves a wide catchment — and connect it to something you can contribute. One sentence of research beats a paragraph of enthusiasm.

"A pupil refuses to start the work. What do you do?"

Panels want to hear graduated, low-drama practice: check understanding first, reduce the task, offer a start point rather than the whole thing, use the school's own language and systems, and escalate to the teacher rather than turning it into a confrontation you cannot win. Say explicitly that you would tell the teacher afterwards. The unsafe answer is the one where you handle everything alone and nobody else knows.

"How would you support a pupil without doing the work for them?"

This is the technical heart of the job. Good answers talk about prompting rather than supplying, using questions, giving thinking time, scaffolding with visuals or a worked example, and stepping back deliberately so the pupil experiences finishing something themselves. Mention that you would feed back to the teacher on what the pupil could do unaided, because that is the information the teacher needs for planning.

"A child tells you something that worries you"

Answer with the process, not the sentiment. Listen without promising confidentiality and without asking leading questions; let the child use their own words; write down what was said as soon as you can, in their words; report it to the designated safeguarding lead the same day, following the school's procedure. Do not investigate, and do not decide whether it is serious enough. Panels are listening for "designated safeguarding lead", "same day" and "I would not promise to keep it secret".

"Give an example of working with a teacher you disagreed with"

They are checking that you can hold a professional relationship where you are not the decision-maker. Describe raising it privately, at a sensible moment, with the pupil as the reason, and accepting the teacher's decision on planning. Avoid examples that end with you being proved right.

"How do you keep track of what you have done?"

Concrete beats general. Intervention records, reading logs, a note in the class file, a two-line handover at the end of a session, a quick verbal update at break. Say what you would record and who you would tell.

The practical task

Many schools include a short activity: hearing a child read, supporting a small group, or joining a class for twenty minutes. What is being watched is your positioning and pace — do you crouch to the child's level, do you wait, do you talk over the teacher, do you notice the quiet child, do you tidy up. Ask beforehand what the task will be and what year group; a reasonable school will tell you.

Questions worth asking them

Ask what a typical week looks like for the post, whether the role is attached to a class or an intervention programme, how support staff are briefed on planning, what training is available, and — if the post is one-to-one — what the plan is for building the pupil's independence. Those questions signal that you understand the job. Asking only about hours and pay signals that you understand the timetable.

Before you go in

Reread the person specification and prepare one short, real example for each requirement on it. Take a form of ID and any qualification certificates if asked. If you have gaps in employment, be ready to explain them plainly — safer-recruitment interviews ask, and a straightforward answer is never the problem.

Browse live teaching assistant vacancies to compare person specifications; the recurring requirements across several adverts are the ones worth preparing hardest.