Job Description

SEMH Teaching Assistant

Department: Education

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Daven School - Congleton

Compensation: £22,400 - £24,150 / year

Are you passionate about truly making a difference in the lives of young people with Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs?
Salary: £22,400 to £24,150 per annum (dependent on experience)

Hours: Full time (Monday to Friday, core hours falling between 8:30am and 4:30pm)

Esland are driven to changing children’s lives for the better by providing best-in-class specialist services.

Our Teaching Assistants (TAs) play a vital role working alongside our class teachers to support our amazing students to fulfil their potential and to develop their skills of independence.

Staff may work with individual students or small groups to assist them to access our broad balanced, fun, relevant and functional curriculum. Our students have a range of learning needs, and have all experienced trauma in their lives; these experiences mean that sometimes students present with some challenging behaviours.

The position is based at our SEN School in Congleton (Cheshire), which supports a number of vulnerable young people aged 8 to 18 years old with SEMH needs.

We are particularly interested in hearing from candidates that have prior experience that will tie in with support required for our PE lessons.

A successful SEN Teaching Assistant will:

• Have an awareness of how to meet the needs of primary and secondary aged children who have experienced difficulty in accessing mainstream education.
• Have an awareness of additional SEND needs which impact on children's ability to self-regulate - communication and interaction; cognition and learning; sensory and physical needs.
• Be inclusive, empathetic, solution focused and passionate about making a difference for our learners
• Have an awareness of trauma informed practices and positive mental health promotion
• Have a clear understanding of, and ability to, manage behaviour that challenges
• Be a team player and a strong advocate for change, progression and continuous school improvement

Required skills, knowledge and abilities for a SEN Teaching Assistant:

• Appropriate knowledge of first aid
• Ability to relate well to children and adults
• Work constructively as part of a team, understanding classroom roles and responsibilities and your own position within these
• To have some knowledge of National Curriculum requirements.
• Effective knowledge and use of ICT to support learning
• Understanding of relevant polices/codes of practice and awareness of relevant legislation
• Basic understanding of child development and learning
• Ability to self-evaluate learning needs and actively seek learning opportunities
• Prior experience in supporting PE lessons is highly desirable

Whilst this job description gives a reasonable overview of the post, it is not exhaustive, and the post holder will be expected to behave in a flexible manner and take on any other duties that may be reasonably delegated from time to time.

Successful employment is subject to satisfactory Full Enhanced Disclosure, right to work and reference checks in line with government regulations and Safer Recruitment Practices.

All young people are equally entitled to have their needs met in a fair and balanced way. Esland employees are responsible for promoting equal opportunities for all and for challenging any behaviour or practice which discriminates against any young person or colleague on the grounds of race, religion, disability, age, gender, sexual orientation, or any other perceived difference.

What we can offer a SEN Teaching Assistant:

• Enrolment into the Esland education pension scheme, which is double matched up to 20%, meaning at total pension contribution of up to 30%
• Company sick pay
• Life insurance to the value of 4 times your basic salary
• Comprehensive, paid induction training and ongoing training within the role
• Fantastic opportunities for career development, we promoted over 100 colleagues last year
• Cycle to work scheme
• Access to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) including our Online GP 24/7, 365 days a year
• Access to our Green Hybrid and EV car scheme
• A £500 bonus via our 'Refer a Friend’ scheme
• Monthly recognition awards
• Access to big-brand deals and discounts via our employee benefits scheme E-Together
• The opportunity to make a real difference to a child's life!