Step up to HLTA: Develop Your Planning Skills

For most people stepping up from TA to HLTA, planning is the hard part of the professional standards. You've watched plenty of lessons and followed plenty of plans, but writing one yourself, and knowing why each part is there, is a different job.

You'll learn to separate what children are doing from what they're learning. "Make a puppet" is the activity, while "cut accurately with scissors" is something you and they can check at the end. You'll plan your own role in the lesson, so you aren't darting from one raised hand to the next. And you'll adapt a single objective so the child who needs to start further back and the child who's already there both learn something.

Resourcing gets proper thought as well, including the cubes one group will need and the frozen washing-up glove that gets a whole class talking about melting ice.