Helping pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) With children back at school, teachers and support staff are rightly focusing on helping students to catch up on the work they may have missed during lockdown. But an important balance must be struck to ensure the needs of students with special educational needs and disabilities…
Profile: Kirsty Gaythwaite – Goodwin Academy Kirsty Gaythwaite is a maths teacher at Goodwin Academy, a mixed secondary school in Deal, Kent. In 2020, she won a gold prize in the national teaching awards for outstanding new teacher of the year. She talked to Teach Now. Teach Now: How did you get into teaching? Kirsty…
10 Top Tips for New Teaching Assistants Punam Sharma is a year 6 teaching assistant at Thornbury Primary Leadership Academy in Bradford. In 2019, she won a Primary Teaching Assistant of the Year Award, in recognition of her contribution to children’s education and support. She offers those new to the profession some key advice to help set…
Emotional literacy support assistants – meeting children’s wellbeing needs. “The idea is to motivate children and engage them in understanding their emotions better. It’s a mixture of feelings and other difficulties we’re dealing with – anxiety, low self-esteem, sadness, angry feelings or non-compliance and friendship problems,” says Vanessa Biles, an emotional literacy support assistant (ELSA)…
Tackling the teaching assistant shortage. Teaching assistants are in short supply – that’s according to the Skills and Employment Trend Report October 2020, published by the Skills Network. It shows that teaching assistant posts are the most sought after positions in the early years and education sectors – with the number of job postings totalling 40,965 between…
