Delight as Wigan school scoops award

A primary school has cause for celebration after it was recognised for the quality of its teaching assistants and the support provided for them.

Wood Fold Primary School, in Standish has been awarded the Best Practice with Teaching Assistants (BPTAA) award.

This recognises the excellent practice the school’s teaching assistants deliver as well as the commitment the schools shows in their continuing development.

The Green Lane school prides itself on the fact it has a teaching assistant (TA) in every class.

Their task is to provide interventions if needed and support children with special educational needs.

They also provide pastoral support for children at playtimes and lunch as well as the class.

Praising the school, the final verification report for the award, said: “Strong leadership by the headteacher and the two coordinators has driven forward the strategic development of TA practice at Wood Fold Primary School in order to ensure high quality teaching and learning throughout the school.

“The BPTAA has been a positive framework for change, both as a celebration of existing practice and as a framework to develop this even further.

“The coordinators are knowledgeable and enthusiastic senior leaders.

“Wood Fold has proved to be a listening school.”

The report added: “For example, analysis of the views of TAs, teachers and pupils have informed changes, as have observations of practice.”

Rebecca Gough, headteacher of the school welcomed the recognition and said she was “very proud” of the school’s TAs and teachers.

She said: “The award is something we’ve been working towards.

“Someone visits and assesses the schools and decides if the criteria has been

met.

“TAs are very important. If utilised well, they make a huge difference.

“We’ve done a lot of hard work and have to ensure that a lot of different standards are met.

“It has taken us about 18 months. Usually it would take a year but Covid-19 has delayed it a little for us.

“We have it for three years now and will be re-assessed again then.”

She added: “I’m very proud of our teachers and TAs at this school.”

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