Someone's Watching You Read: A Realistic Guide to the Practical Stage of a TA Interview

Ten minutes into your interview and there's a seven-year-old staring at you, waiting for you to say something useful about a book. No script. No bullet points. Just you, a child and a panel pretending to be busy in the corner.

If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. Plenty of schools have quietly moved away from the interview-as-interrogation format and added a practical element instead — or as well. And honestly? It's a fairer way of hiring, because it tests the thing the job is actually made of.

Why schools bother with a practical task at all

A TA can talk a great game about differentiation and pastoral support. Standing in front of four Year 2 children who have lost interest in a phonics card game is a different matter entirely.

Heads and SENCOs use practical tasks to check three things:

• Warmth under pressure. Can you get a nervous child talking without interrogating them?
• Awareness of the room. Do you notice the child at the back who's gone quiet, or the one about to knock over a tray?
• Whether you follow the brief. If they say ten minutes, they mean ten minutes — not twenty because you were having a lovely chat.

They are not scoring you on perfection. They're looking at how you recover when something goes sideways, which it usually does.

The three tasks that keep on coming up

Reading with a child

This is the classic. You'll be handed a book at the school's book band level and asked to hear a child read for five or ten minutes. Some schools give you the child's reading record; others don't.

What they want to see: you giving the child time to work out a word before jumping in, praising effort rather than only accuracy, and asking a question or two that checks comprehension — not just decoding. Pausing to say 'what do you think happens next?' goes a long way.

What sinks people: racing through the page, correcting every slip instantly, or spending the whole time talking yourself.

Running a small group

Here you might get a quick brief — usually two minutes in a corridor — and then four or five pupils, a task and a clock. It could be a maths game, a sorting activity, or a short comprehension exercise.

They're watching for behaviour management that doesn't rely on volume. Saying names calmly, giving clear instructions once, and using a bit of positive narration ('I like how Amelia has started straight away') tends to land well. You don't need to be a stand-up comedian, but a bit of energy helps more than a lot of shushing.

The behaviour scenario

Sometimes you're not with children at all — you're in role-play with an adult playing a dysregulated pupil, or you're asked to talk through what you'd do. Either way, the answer they want is calm, consistent and boringly sensible: get low, get quiet, name the feeling, give a limited choice, follow the school's policy, and flag it afterwards.

The 15-minute written or maths bit

Less glamorous, still common. Expect one of these:

• A short piece of writing about how you'd support a specific pupil (often a child with a one-page profile or SEN support plan attached)
• Basic numeracy — percentages, fractions, a bit of mental arithmetic at the level you'd be supporting in Key Stage 2
• Spelling, punctuation and grammar questions that sit around GCSE level
• A safeguarding scenario with a tick-box or short-answer response

None of it is designed to catch you out. It's there to check you can explain yourself in writing to a colleague. Keep sentences short and tidy. If you'd flag something to the class teacher, say so explicitly — safeguarding awareness is often the real test hiding inside a boring-looking worksheet.

Preparing without turning into a robot

Don't rehearse a script. Do rehearse your instincts.

A few things that actually help in the week before:

1. Re-read the school's behaviour policy or at least their published values. Most schools stick them on the website. Referencing their language casually in a task — not in a forced way — shows you did the homework.
2. Get your hands on a reading scheme. If you're near a school as a volunteer, a parent helper or an existing TA, spend twenty minutes hearing a child read. Nothing rebuilds your timing faster.
3. Practise the ten-second pause. The most common nervous habit is filling silence. Let the child think. Count to five in your head before helping.
4. Rehearse your safeguarding basics out loud — the designated safeguarding lead, recording concerns, never promising confidentiality. It should be automatic, not a scramble.
5. Prepare one honest sentence about a time a session went badly. Almost every school asks some version of 'tell us about a challenge'. Having a real answer, with what you'd do differently, beats a polished fiction.

A short checklist for the day

Take with you:

• Your DBS certificate number and photo ID, in case they ask
• A pen that works (two, ideally)
• A notebook — writing down the brief shows you're listening
• A watch or a phone on silent, if you're timing the task
• Water, because practical slots often overrun and the waiting is the worst bit

Ask on the day:

• Who is the child's usual adult, and is there anything I should know before I start?
• Is there a one-page profile for any pupil in the group?
• Should I stay until the bell, or stop when the task ends?
• What does the first term look like for a new TA here?

Reflect on afterwards:

• Which part felt natural, and which felt forced?
• Did you follow the instructions exactly, or drift?
• Would you do anything differently with that child?
• Was there a moment you missed something happening in the room?

Write a couple of lines down the same evening, while it's fresh. If you get offered the job, that little note tells you where your first term's focus should be. If you don't, it's your revision list for the next one.

The bit people forget

The practical stage is not an audition for a television role. It's a fairly ordinary morning in a fairly ordinary classroom, with someone making notes. Turn up as the version of yourself that a child would be pleased to see across the table, and you're most of the way there.