Task 4
For the fourth task, you are asked to analyse five situations or events that you have encountered.
Some may have taken place recently; others may take place while you are on the programme.
These short accounts should not be a minute-by-minute description of activities, nor are they
expected to be a substantial essay that includes detailed evidence. Rather, each should be a series of
notes that summarise your reflections on situations that made you think about what happened, why
it happened and the nature of your own involvement. The length of the ‘entry’ on the response sheet
for each of the five situations or events is likely to be between 300 and 500 words, but this is
guidance rather than a rule. You should spend between 45 and 60 minutes writing up your notes on
each of the five situations or events.
So what would count as relevant situations or events?
There are two issues that you should consider
First, you should choose situations or events that enable you to demonstrate the standards and, in
particular, those standards that you have been unable to reflect fully in the first three tasks. For
example, you may find that it is through your analysis of these situations that you can clearly show
your professional values and practice as set out in section 1 of the standards.
Second, you should remember that your chosen situations or events should typically relate to
routine encounters in your school. They do not have to relate to dramatic or extraordinary events.
They may, of course, refer to challenging situations you have encountered, but in all circumstances
your assessor will be interested in your observations on typical professional issues rather than your
experience in handling crises. The situations may involve not only children and young people, but also
teachers and/or other adults, including parents. They can relate to circumstances outside the
Handbook for candidates 13
classroom, elsewhere in the school and/or activities outside school. If they do take place outside the
school, they must be part of the school’s curricular or extra-curricular provision and be managed by
the school.
In selecting relevant situations or events, you should consider how best to demonstrate the
HLTA standards. You should refer to the handbook Guidance to the standards to help you identify
suitable situations.
The kind of learning points that you identify are entirely dependent on the situations or events you
have observed or experienced. In selecting your situations/events, however, you should think carefully
about the evidence available to support your analysis of each. The range and amount of evidence
for some situations or events may be less substantial than is available for tasks 1–3, but there must
be some corroborative evidence, which could include the oral testimony of a class teacher and/or
the headteacher.
As you complete the response sheets for task 4 (F4, F5, F6, F7 and F8) you are asked to
note the following
‘Brief description’ means just that. This section is not the place on the form to discuss in detail your
reflections about the events that took place and the reasons why something happened. It might
simply say: “During morning playtime, two children got into a dispute about such-and-such and I had
to intervene”; or “During literacy hour I noticed that such-and-such child’s behaviour was out of
character and I had to decide what to do”.
The section headed ‘Analysis’ is the place where you explain what occurred and why, how this
involved you, what decisions you may have had to make, and any outcomes of the situation.
In the section headed ‘Learning points’, you should comment on what you learned from the
situation. For some situations, you may be able to pinpoint either what you did well or whether you
would have handled things differently. In others, you may be able to identify a way of dealing with a
situation that is transferable to other situations. But, as is emphasised above, the kind of learning
points that you raise will be entirely dependent on the situations or events that you have observed
or experienced.
Once you have identified your five situations or events, you will need to:
• complete the five response sheets for task 4
• keep a copy of all relevant documents, and
• complete appropriate parts of your assessment grid (F9).

I was just wondering...will the task 4 be the same now this year, because the standards have changed?

Yes Task 4 comprises of F4,F5,F6,F7,F8
The format has changed I think but you basically write up different situations and mop up with the last two things you haven't covered anywhere else.I only covered two pieces of evidence with the last one because I had covered the other standards already. Just make notes of any unusual situations you are involved in.It could be bullying, Equal opps.Take photos if you can.Send a note to a teacher(tell her to keep it for you.) If you take a whole class regularly then use this for one as it shows that you are working with whole classes.You could use circle time, P4C, ICT.Have you started yet?

the principal is the same, the form is just slightly different

Do you write out the tasks from collecting the children to taking them back to class?
I'm thinking that I take the children from class walking through school to the ICT suite. I could get some health and safety in there then (Walking up steps etc)

Is there a particular way of writing it?
Thanks
Karen

You could if you needed to cover H&S but I would keep it fairly brief.Talk about behaviour.Hmm I think I would check with your tutor just to be sure as it is almost two separate things.You could write it as two or could you use another senario like playground duty to cover behaviour and H&S.