With more children being diagnosed with special needs, SEN teaching assistants are needed to help support these children. A SEN teaching assistant supports pupils with physical, behavioural, and learning difficulties. This could be supporting the learning of small groups, one on one with student or you may work in a full classroom at a special SEN school. To become a SEN teaching assistant, you may decide to take a course from traditional college education or a functional skills online course for flexibility.
What are the responsibilities of a SEN teaching assistant?
The responsibilities will vary from which position you decide to take in the education sector. Generally, you will be required to support pupils to understand instructions and understand their schoolwork, you will use your learned skills to encourage the children’s confidence and independence while providing helpful feedback to assist teachers. This may also follow on to the students’ social activities. international home study zone may also be useful to you.
More specific responsibilities could be the following:
working with pupils through care programmes
communicate with parents and professionals to share information
help teachers to maintain pupil records
communicate information to the teacher
create a stimulating environment for the children
take care of the pupils physical, social
emotional welfare
work both in and outside the classroom to support individual learners or groups
prepare learning materials under teacher supervision.
To improve your chances of getting a position as a SEN teaching assistant you will need to make sure you achieved the necessary skills and qualification for the position. If you decide to do this, you need to complete SEN teaching assistant training a you will need to make sure you meet the requirements of the job you apply to.
You will need to be patient, understanding, sensitive, flexible and have excellent verbal communication skills as well as the need to be creative so that you can change your teaching style to suit each individual learner. You can learn this on SEN teaching assistant training.
What hours will I work?
A SEN teaching assistant works from around 30-40 hours. If you work for a school, you most likely work term times which usually starts from September to December, January to March or April and then April to Mid-July.
What can I earn?
The salary for a SEN Teaching Assistant can be around £17,000 in the UK, it can then rise to an average of around £20,000 when you progress in the position. The highest earning SEN teaching assistants earn around £29,000 a year. This can depend on factors such as location, experience, responsibility and how much you already earn.
How do I find a SEN teaching assistant job?
You can use the traditional methods to find SEN teaching assistant jobs such as newspapers and online job sites. It is also worth looking at school websites as schools tend to advertise on by that method. Facebook is also beginning to advertise local jobs in your area, you can find this searching through the Facebook search bar or going to specific Facebook pages and seeing if they were advertising.