Are you someone who thrives on connection, warms up a room with your energy, and genuinely enjoys spending time with young people? We are looking for a Graduate Teaching Assistant to join a calm, structured, high-expectation secondary setting in Gateshead where every day is rewarding and often fun too! This isn’t your typical classroom support role. You’ll begin your day at breakfast club, not just supervising quietly, but actively engaging, chatting and helping students feel welcomed and ready for learning. In lessons, you’ll be an active presence, moving around the room, helping students stay focused, supporting literacy development and providing real-time feedback that makes a difference. Schools often look for TAs with patience, empathy and strong communication skills, and while formal experience isn’t essential, backgrounds like youth work, childcare, coaching, sports leadership or previous roles working with children will help you hit the ground running. Break times are lively! Whether it’s organising a quick game of football in the yard, cheering on students from the sideline, or helping keep things fun and fair, you’ll be right in the heart of the action. Lunch brings even more opportunity to build rapport, staff eat with students and join in structured social activities like ping pong and supervised PlayStation sessions. These aren’t just fun moments, they’re where relationships are built and trust grows. After students leave at 2:15pm, you’ll have time until 4:30pm for reflection, admin and professional development. This could be perfect for someone looking to get a feel for education, build experience, or even pursue a long-term career in teaching, youth work, SEND support, childcare or pastoral care. If you’re confident, approachable, flexible and ready to be fully involved in school life plus happy to kick a ball around or referee lunchtime games — this role could be a brilliant next step for you. All applicants will require the appropriate qualifications and training for this role. Please see the FAQs on the Protocol Education website for further details. All pay rates quoted will be inclusive of 12.07% statutory holiday pay. This advert is for a temporary position. In some cases, the option to make this role permanent may become available at a later date. Protocol Education is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. We undertake safeguarding checks on all workers in accordance with the DfE statutory guidance ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’, this may also include an online search as part of our due diligence on shortlisted applicants. We offer FREE online safeguarding and Prevent Duty training to all our workers. All candidates must undertake or have undertaken a valid enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and subscribe to the DBS Update Service. Full assistance provided. For details of our privacy policy, please see visit the Protocol Education website.