Recent years have seen the emergence of a 'pedagogical role' for teaching assistants (TAs) in response to government policy initiatives in the areas of supporting inclusion, dealing with teacher stress and workloads and the implementation of National Literacy and Numeracy strategies. TAs have seen the range of activities associated with their role grow as a result but not uniformly and TA roles have been characterised as ranging from "dogsbody" to "mobile paraprofessional". In 2005 the status of Higher Level Teaching Assistant (HLTA) with an explicitly pedagogical role (Including whole class teaching) with associated "professional" standards was introduced. In response to these developments, Higher Education (HE) has become increasingly involved In providing accredited work-based learning for TAs.