TA Recognition Day Awards

Join us in celebrating the incredible contributions of Teaching Assistants across the country!

Teaching Assistants (TAs) play a vital role in shaping student development, providing essential classroom support, and ensuring schools run smoothly.

Their impact is felt every day, often without the recognition they deserve.

That’s why we’re launching TA Recognition Day—a national celebration to honour TAs who go above and beyond to make a difference.

Winners of the 2024 TA Recognition Awards

We’re thrilled to introduce our incredible winners, whose dedication and impact have inspired students, families, and colleagues across the country. Selected from over 100 nominations, these Teaching Assistants represent the best of education support.

Lyn, Southampton Best New Teaching Assistant

Lyn is an exceptional support in tutor times to both the students and staff. Lyn has taken the time to get to know the students, has built good relationships with them and helps to support them with any needs they have during tutor time. Due to building these relationships she has also supported me to identify key students and put them forward for extra support in areas of need. Lyn has been incredibly insightful, proactive and generous in her support of one student. She brought in her own latex sheets to protect the student's hand from touching paper during the mocks last year and even found her high quality paper that is less irritating . A lovely human being and an awesome problem solver.

Tracey, Birmingham Best New Teaching Assistant

Tracey is my new assistant. My second day in class she brings me a muffin - chocolate! Come on! She's welcomed me with open arms and heart into her class. Made me feel part of the year 1 family. Goes over and beyond her duties. It's only my first week.

Eleanor, Bristol Community & Wellbeing Engagement

Eleanor works tirelessly in supporting our most vulnerable children and families. She works 1:1 with a vast amount of children with Thrive support and offers help with transitions in the morning for children who struggle coming to school. She also offers Early Help support with families in targeting support for them. She enables children to be regulated for learning and gives them emotional support. This in turn helps each teacher as the children are ready for the day ahead. Eleanor is a huge support to our whole team.

Helen, Bristol Community & Wellbeing Engagement

Helen is simply amazing! Without her the school would fall apart. She works tirelessly to support children and families with wellbeing, children with additional needs, children who've been bereaved, children struggling with anxiety - the list goes on and on. She is so intuitive and knows exactly what to do and say - I call her 'Wonderwoman'!

Leanne, Newcastle Outstanding Support in the Classroom

Leanne provides the very best support to children from Reception to Year 5. She is unfaltering in her positive attitude and always has the very best interests of the children at heart. Leanne goes above and beyond for our children.

Sue, Dorset Outstanding Support in the Classroom

Sue is a phenomenal support to everyone in our school. She has dedicated over 30 years of service to Sherborne Primary School, working as a TA, Cover Supervisor and Lunch Time Supervisor, managing various lunch time support staff as well as managing new ways of cooking meals on site and children's settings etc. I have had the pleasure of working with Sue since I started in January 2018 - not only did she make me feel welcome from the start, nothing was ever too much trouble and she would always find a way to make me smile on the most stressful of days! In my role as Phase Leader, Sue often jumps in at a second's notice to cover me when I need to leave the room to deal with situations arising in our team. She covers in staff absence, on planning mornings / PPA and never, ever grumbles. Everything is taken in her stride and with a smile. Sue is the most kind, caring and supportive lady I have ever had the pleasure of working with and I sincerely hope that she is able to have some additional recognition for her wonderful work across many years of service. She has positively impacted on thousands of lives and is still recognised in the street by children she worked with many years ago.

Nathan, Manchester Outstanding Support in the Classroom

Nathan goes above and beyond to support, not only in his own classroom, but across school. He covers for teachers, helps sort staffing and is always willing to deal with challenguing behaviours and is overall amazing! Such an asset to our school.

Rebecca, Manchester National Winner 2024

"Rebecca is a Level 3 Teaching Assistant and has the children's best interests purely at the heart of everything she does. Nothing is ever too much trouble for Rebecca and we would be lost without her! Rebecca has been a Teaching Assistant at Holly Grove School for nearly 20 years. Holly Grove School is a primary special school for pupils with SEND and Rebecca goes above and beyond daily to ensure that no child misses out on any learning opportunity due to their medical needs or disabilities. Rebecca has undergone a wide range of medical training (far outside what would be normally asked of a Teaching Assistant) to ensure that children are able to attend school fully and independently. Some of the training that Rebecca has willingly undertaken are catheter training, diabetes training, gastrostomy feeding, blended diet training, tracheostomy training, suctioning training, epilepsy and mickey button replacement training. Rebecca has also undertaken her paediatric first aid training and emergency first aid at work training and always deals with any medical emergencies with calmness and dignity. She even had to perform CPR on a very poorly pupil until the ambulance arrived, contributing to him making a full recovery at the time. Rebecca really is our own Florence Nightingale! Rebecca has also recently taken on the responsibility of being our Asthma champion making sure all policies and care plans are in place and checking that all medication is in date. Rebecca has a heart of gold and nothing is too much trouble for her. She works closely with our families to really get to know the children and ensure that they feel safe leaving their children in our care. She is a trained lifeguard and supports all of our most vulnerable pupils in the hydrotherapy pool and has recently taken on the role of a Moving and Handling Trainer, ensuring that all staff are trained to safely support our pupils with their moving and handling needs. Rebecca would be a very worthy winner and truly deserves recognising for all she contributes to school."

Friday 29th November

Nominate an Amazing TA for Teaching Assistant Recognition Day

Award Categories:

Outstanding Support in the Classroom
Best New TA
SEN (Special Educational Needs) Champion
Community Engagement and Wellbeing (e.g., Afterschool / Lunchtime Club)

Do you know a TA who’s made an exceptional impact on students, teachers, or the wider school community? Now’s your chance to make sure their hard work and dedication don’t go unnoticed. Whether they’re a seasoned TA or a rising star, we want to hear their story!

We will be recognising regional winners and one national winner, so every TA across the UK has a chance to be recognised.