SEN Teaching Assistant

Location: Darwen, Lancashire   

Salary: £11.72 - £12.78 per hour   (£20,941.30 - £22,835.30 actual salary) depending on experience

Hours: 40 hours per week – Term Time Only  

The Aurora Group

The Aurora Woodlands School is an 'Good' rated innovative provider of education and care, supporting students aged 10 - 19 with complex needs typically related to Asperger’s Syndrome, Autism and other conditions.

We’re currently looking for an experienced SEN Teaching Assistant – Level 1-2 to join us at our beautiful woodlands surrounded school in Darwen.

The Role

As our new Teaching Assistant, your role is to support our children with their learning and general wellbeing to ensure every child has the best opportunity to reach their full potential in a caring and safe environment. Where necessary this may include supporting with care needs from time to time as well as positive behaviour management adopting a tailored approach to the individual child.

You will be expected to establish a warm, caring and supportive relationship with pupils in order to support them feeling safe and enabling them to enjoy and learn during their time at the School, and to promote and encourage independence and personal development in pupils and maintain high expectations of behaviour at all times.

You will support the class teacher and contribute to providing high quality, challenging and differentiated educational activities and experiences through supporting the teaching of a broad and balanced curriculum aiming at pupils achieving their full potential in all areas of learning.

Key duties:   

• Participate in the planning and evaluation of learning activities.   
• Provide meaningful feedback on pupil attainment and progress.  
• Support the teacher in monitoring, assessing, recording and reporting pupils’ progress according to the school’s policies in order to monitor and foster pupils’ progress in all areas of learning.  
• Support positive behaviour and concentration levels of the children and adapt own behaviour and responses to any change or escalations in behaviour of the children.  
• Promote spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development and British values within the PSHE policy across the whole school.  
• Promote pupils’ cognitive, social, emotional, behavioural, physical development and spiritual well-being through a whole Day Curriculum. 

Like many SEN environments; your duties are likely to vary and therefore candidates will need to be flexible and be able to lend a hand whenever required.

Skills and Qualifications:

  Successful candidates are likely to demonstrate:

• Experience working with SEN in an employed or voluntary setting   
• Full UK driving licence and access to your own absolutely necessary, as you will be required to carpool students to and from school, on a rota basis.
• A recognised qualification at Level 2 or above in Support work for Teaching and Learning in Schools or an equivalent is desirable    
• GCSE Maths and English Level 2/C or above qualification is essential.  
• Understanding of the Safeguarding principles and Child Protection procedures.  
• Knowledge or experience of pupils with SEN or SEMH/ASD  
• The desire to put the child first and treat them as an individual  
• Be positive and creative in assisting to meet pupils’ individual needs 

What’s on offer?

• Training and Development

Within Aurora, we strongly believe that learning and development should not be limited to just the children and young people we support.  We offer wide range of programmes and opportunities to all our employees to improve your skills and further your career. 

• Save money on your bills!!

With the cost of living rising we have a fantastic benefit through Perkbox to help with cutting costs and help make your money go further.  Perkbox is a free app for you to use on the go wherever you are.  You can get deals and discounts to save money on things like your weekly food bill, phone plans, internet, eating out, gym memberships, insurance and more.  You can also use Perkbox for our cycle to work scheme and car scheme. 

• Competitive Pay and Reward

Every year we compare the market rates of pay and rewards to insure they are comparable or better to other similar organisations.  We also offer Enhanced Annual Leave, Company Sick Pay, Pension and Life Assurance.

• UK Health Cash Plan

This plan can help cover your day to day healthcare expenditure such as optician and dental bills.  You and your children are covered on this plan and you can also choose to upgrade and add a partner to enjoy the benefits with you.

• Employee Assistance Programme

Your health and wellbeing is very important to us and we have support available on a wide variety of issues, helping you with online tools, information and via a freephone counselling service available 24/7. 

• Refer a friend for £1,000

We’ll reward you for recommending friends and family to come and join the company (*terms apply)

How to apply?

Please complete an online application form in full, remembering to include all employment and education details.  If you need any assistance or would like any more information please contact Karen in the Aurora Group Recruitment Team at karen.barnfield@the-aurora-group.com

Successful applicants will be subject to pre-employment safeguarding checks including an enhanced disclosure and barring service (DBS) check.

The post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Aurora Group is therefore permitted to ask job applicants to declare all convictions and cautions (including those which are "spent" unless they are "protected" under the DBS filtering rules) in order to assess their suitability to work with children.

The Aurora Group is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the children and young adults in our care and is a disability confident and equal opportunities employer.

This advert could be taken down at any point in time without prior notice if the position is filled. 

Please note that candidates that are shortlisted might be subject to an online search.