Motherland and Line of Duty star Anna Maxwell Martin has revealed that she would love to retrain as a teaching assistant one day, after struggling to get her daughters’ educational needs met.
The actor, 49, has become an advocate for children with special educational needs after navigating the system with her two children.
She has previously called for a ban on school exclusions and to stop “cruel and idiotic” fines for parents whose children struggle to attend school.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the star told host Lauren Laverne that trying to meet her daughters’ educational needs following the death of their father Roger Michell, Maxwell Martin’s ex-husband, in 2021 was a “soul-destroying” process.
“After Roger, trying to get the girls’ needs met in the education system, especially for my younger one, was exceptionally difficult, head-banging, mental-making, exhausting, soul-destroying,” she said.
“I don’t use those terms lightly,” she added.
“It’s no one’s fault, and we came across wonderful caregivers in the school setting, but for my younger daughter it was a different story.”
She described one meeting at her daughter’s school as “heartbreaking and humiliating” after it was suggested that the youngster might have to be excluded, an escalation that Maxwell Martin said she “want[s] banned from schools because it affects our most vulnerable children in the worst ways”.
Maxwell Martin also hailed teachers and teaching assistants as “the most difficult jobs, undervalued, underpaid”.
“I wish we had more TAs,” she added. “They are exceptional.
“For me, it’s not about Send – which is special educational needs – it is about meeting all children’s needs at the point of need. This is my dream.
“I’d love to one day retrain as a TA. I’d love to mentor young people. They probably wouldn’t want me, but if they did, I’d love to do something much more practical.”
