Workforce Development

Professional Development Review

The Professional Development Review is one of the principal benefits of full membership of NAPTA and is an essential part of the Workforce Development Programme. It offers teaching assistants a quick, easy and valuable insight into their own capabilities, as well as indicating appropriate routes for professional advancement.

The Professional Development Review consists of a simple online questionnaire which teaching assistants complete. The information from the questionnaire is then automatically generated into a detailed report. This sets out the perceived capabilities of the teaching assistant, compared with four key standards:

• the National Occupational Standards for Teaching/Classroom Assistants
• the National Vocational Qualification/Scottish Vocational Qualification (NVQ/SVQ) for Teaching/Classroom Assistants
• the Professional Standards for Higher Level Teaching Assistant (HLTA) Status
• the underlying skills required to undertake the National Workload Agreement’s 22 tasks.

The information is summarised on a Cambridge Institute of Technology (INTEC) certificate. This is of real value as part of a personal profile when applying for a new job or when seeking promotion.

The Professional Development Review can also help the member’s school or other education setting. By looking at data from all their teaching assistants, an institution is much better placed to utilise and develop their staff, thus enhancing learning, raising standards and increasing professional satisfaction.

In addition, groups of schools or whole authorities can benefit from the Professional Development Review. Using the teaching assistants’ data from each school, they can plan development programmes, additional support or aspects of workforce remodelling.