With schools struggling to recruit and teacher training targets being regularly missed, the teaching assistant workforce is surely a resource to be utilised. With more than 260,000 TAs in the UK, upskilling just a fraction of these experienced classroom aficionados would help stem the shortage.

So what’s the catch? We speak to Rob Webster, from the UCL Institute of Education, who leads the Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants initiative, about how TAs can make the step up.

We also talk to Niall Robinson, a former TA and now a Year 5 teacher, about how he found the transition to qualified teacher status.

This sponsored podcast was produced in association with Tes Institute, which has helped many TAs become qualified teachers through its Straight to Teaching course.

Find out more about Tes Institute’s Straight to Teaching course here.