Terri Attwood, East Midlands

I have accrued enormous professional benefits from gaining HLTA Status. My confidence has increased and I feel that I am a respected part of the teaching team with a key role to play in advancing the learning of the pupils.
I am one of 6 HLTAs working at my school (a three form entry Junior School). There is an HLTA embedded in each of the year groups and two others with special responsibilities. One of my HLTA colleagues is
the school’s IT expert and I teach German to all the children in the school during teachers’ PPA time. I am proud to have been the pioneer, being the first TA at my school to gain HLTA status in 2004.
Becoming an HLTA has given me many opportunities. It paved the way to my becoming the HLTA Advocate for Northamptonshire from 2007-2009. I feel very privileged to have had this time to engage with and advise other TAs who were also looking for ways to forge a new career path for themselves and enhance their status in schools. During the course of those two years I was able to further my own studies by undertaking an MA in Education at the University of Northampton.
Whilst the HLTAs embedded in year groups follow a more conventional path of providing the teachers of the school with unparalleled support and undertake much of the cover for emergency absences, teachers on courses, planning and preparation time, I have become the MFL teacher in the school. I have had to brush up on my own language skills, which included a two- week course in Germany. I have had to learn to sing songs, use puppets and dance around the room. All well outside my comfort zone! I do all the planning and assessment for this as well as finding and preparing resources. In my ‘spare time’ I am the Library Manager and can often be found, clipboard in hand, hounding children for lost and overdue books. I am also the school’s EAL Co-ordinator, offering advice to teachers faced with newly arrived pupils, who have little or no English.