Special educational needs

Supporting children with special needs can be a challenging but hugely rewarding career, whether you work in a mainstream school, a unit attached to a school, a pupil referral unit or a special school.

At Hays Education, we offer you the opportunity to develop and enhance your skill of working with those with special needs. There are no mandatory qualifications to work with children with special needs, but experience, a willingness and the personal attributes and qualities, make great SEN teachers and teaching assistants.

In some schools a SEN teaching assistant may also be called a learning support worker or a learning support assistant, but this will vary from LA to LA. Whilst working in a special needs teaching job or a teaching assistant job, you will be working with children who experience one or more of the following:

Cognition and learning needs

• Specific learning difficulty (SpLD)
• Moderate learning difficluty (MLD)
• Severe learning difficulty (SLD)
• Profound & multiple learning difficulty (PMLD)

Communication and interaction needs

• Speech, language and communication needs (SLCN)
• Austistic spectrum disorder (ASD)

Sensory and / or physical needs

• Visual impairment (VI)
• Hearing impairment (HI)
• Multi-sensory impairment (MSI)
• Physical disability (PD)

Behaviour, emotional & social development needs

• Behaviour, emotional & social difficulty (BESD)

Supporting children with special needs often requires you to build up the greatest amount of trust. You will need to be patient and sympathetic whilst maintaining an appropriate level of discipline.