Link TAs to their staff records

Written for: Staff who manage TA scheduling, usually the headteacher.

Each teaching assistant on the TA timetable needs linking to their staff record. Once they’re linked:

• the lessons they support can be published to the school calendar;
• those lessons appear on the TA’s own Home, marked Supporting;
• dated absence cover can find them.

You need two things: the TA Timetabler page, and permission to manage TA scheduling.

• By default the headteacher has both.
• A SENCo or DSL has the permission, but the page is switched off for their role until your school turns it on.

If you can’t open TA Timetabler, ask your Student Radar administrator to give your role access to it.

Review the links

1. Open TA Timetabler.
2. Click Link TAs to staff records. The review lists every active TA on the roster, with the ones that aren’t linked yet first. At the top it says how many are linked and how many have a suggested match.

For a TA who isn’t linked yet, the review suggests a staff record only when exactly one active staff record has the same work email, and that record isn’t already linked to another TA. A home email address is never used. Nothing is linked until you confirm it.

Link TAs

• Accept the suggestions: click the button that confirms the suggested links. You can confirm up to 50 at a time.
  • You’ll see how many were linked.
  • If any couldn’t be linked, the review lists them with the reason, such as “That staff record is linked to another TA”.
• Choose a record yourself: click Choose staff record next to the TA, pick their staff record, then click Confirm link. Staff records already linked to another TA can’t be chosen.

Check that a TA is ready for Home

Under each linked TA, the review says what’s still missing before their Home shows their lessons. For example:

• “No sign-in account on this staff record, so they won’t see Staff Home.” The TA needs a Student Radar account linked to that staff record.
• “Not on the school timetable yet, so sessions cannot be published for them.”
• Roster sessions that aren’t on the calendar yet. Use Review recurring support proposal to publish them.

When nothing is missing, it says “Ready for Staff Home.”

Change or remove a link

Click Change link, choose the right staff record, then click Save change. Or click Remove link.

A link can’t be changed while that TA has:

• recurring sessions published under the current staff record. Review the recurring support proposal without them first;
• absence cover that’s still open. Cancel it or let it finish first.

Every link, change and removal is recorded with who made it.

If something doesn’t work

What you see	What to do
“The TA roster could not be loaded.”	Click Try again.
“This link changed somewhere else. Reload the review and try again.”	Someone else changed it. Close and reopen the review.
“You need permission to manage TA scheduling to change these links.”	Ask your headteacher or Student Radar administrator for TA scheduling permission.
“Scheduling changes are paused for maintenance. Try again shortly.”	Wait a few minutes, then try again.