Including teaching assistants

This paper examines the role of teaching assistants in the inclusion of children for whom English is not their first or preferred language. Drawing on observations and interviews with Teaching Assistants, teaching staff and children in primary schools in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland it looks in detail at the ways in which teaching assistants can contribute to the inclusion of bilingual and multilingual children in primary schools. The paper focuses in particular on the ways in which bilingual or multilingual teaching assistants mediate the culture and the curriculum of the school for children. Through a focus on the work of teaching assistants this paper seeks to identify inclusive strategies which will be relevance to all who work with children for whom English is not a first language