SEMH Class Teaching Assistant - Aspire Alternative Provision
Location: Chalfont St Giles
Overview
We are looking for a caring and enthusiastic individual to join us in our secondary nurture provision for Aspire students with social, emotional and/or mental health difficulties.
Term time only
Salary Type: Aspire Support Staff Pay
Salary details: £23,261 - £27,015 per annum actual pay for 38 weeks.
Contract type: Permanent
Hours: 37 hours Monday to Friday during term time.
Closing date: 21/09/2025 00:00
Interviews to be held: By individual appointment.
About us
Aspire provides ‘outstanding’ alternative educational provision and support for secondary age students. Our focus is to support young people, together with their families and schools, to reach beyond their potential and enable them to flourish by developing positive behaviours, attitudes and aspirations.
About the role
Shortenills, our secondary SEMH provision, opened in September 2021 in its current form. It was formerly an outdoor activity centre and is set within 10
tranquil acres of mixed woodland and large enclosed ponds. It is the perfect site for our nurturing, trauma-informed school for children with SEMH difficulties, using a therapeutic approach based in the ‘awe and wonder’ of nature.
There are 8 students per class, and there is a class teacher and a class teaching assistant for each class. The day begins with a nurture breakfast and students also eat lunch together with our staff.
We believe that young people with SEMH difficulties need and deserve a loving, nurturing approach, clear and high expectations of their behaviour, social development and academic work, and carefully planned support and intervention that enables them to meet and exceed those expectations. Our teaching assistants form an integral part of this approach, supporting our class teachers and forming trusting relationships with the students in order to support them to flourish.
About you
Our ideal applicant might be from a primary or secondary background. You might have experience in this kind of setting, or you might have worked with
children and young people with SEMH difficulties in mainstream and be excited to see what can be achieved in a different kind of setting. You might be used to working across all subjects or you might specialise in one. We want to find the right people, with the right attitude and personality, and we will train staff to work with our teachers to ensure all students are supported and able to achieve.
You will need to be creative and resilient, ready to get stuck into everything, and ready to pull together as a team to maximise the potential of our provision. You will need to be happy to do whatever it takes to ensure that we meet our aims of ensuring that all children make great progress academically as well as with their social, emotional and/or mental health difficulties.
We are looking for applicants who love children and young people, who enjoy spending time with them, and who get excited to share learning with them. You will need to be someone who is able to stay calm under pressure and maintain loving relationships with young people who may display
challenging behaviour.
We seek to employ extraordinary people. We look forward to meeting you!
Other information
For further information please visit www.aspireap.org.uk . If you would like to hear more about this opportunity, have a confidential conversation or arrange a visit to our Trust, please contact us
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 01494 445815
Apply: https://www.aspireap.org.uk/Work-for-Us/
Aspire is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share the same commitment. An enhanced level DBS check and references will be required along with the completion of a pre-employment health check.
This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and therefore applicants are required to declare:
- All unspent convictions and conditional cautions
- All spent convictions and adult cautions that are not protected (i.e. that are not filtered out) as defined by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (as amended in 2020).
For further information on filtering please refer to Nacro guidance and the guidance issued by the Ministry of Justice (see, in particular, the section titled ‘Exceptions Order’).
It is an offence to apply for the role if you are barred from engaging in regulated activity relevant to children. All shortlisted applicants will be required to complete self-disclosure form and return prior to interview.
