What Is Your Role as an Educational Support Worker
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Education Support Work is a bit of a shift from the norm that you might expect from support worker jobs. We look at the job and what you should expect if you follow a career down this path.
'In an education support worker role you are working to help students access education with the same level of opportunity that anyone would expect from an establishment.'
Technically, it's the same. You are still supporting your service users in their daily routine.
However, you're out with them whilst they are studying.
Job role?
In an education support worker role you are working to help students access education with the same level of opportunity that anyone would expect from an establishment.
Your students may have some kind of physical or sensory impairment that conflicts with traditional teaching; alternatively, they may have a specific learning difficulty or behavioural issue that makes the typical classroom more challenging.
The kind of support that you provide in education support worker jobs changes accordingly
If your student has physical impairments, you will support them to get around between classes.
You may also help them with personal care and toileting where appropriate.
If your student has a difference in sensory ability, you work to help with communication and translation.
For instance, as a communication support worker, you might translate the teacher's instructions into British Sign Language. Students with specific learning difficulties occur within a real spectrum of categories in terms of severity and blend.
Autistic spectrum disorders can range from students that need their very own specific support worker from a specialist organisation, to being a high-functioning individual who is perfectly capable of socialising but has a tendency to write far too much information.
Learning impairments like dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia require you to help with reading, comprehension, practical concerns and, sometimes, writing.
These learning difficulties are all to do with the input and output of information.
So, you might help your student to formulate sentences to answer questions, write down the working for a maths question, or work with them to make sure they are safe in the kitchen.
Alternatively, they may just have a global delay where everything requires a bit more simplicity, thought and repetition.
Finally, behavioural support issues require you to support students in acting appropriately in the classroom.
You might work to prompt students to wait their turn, not talk over people, take time out to calm down or provide them with a 'fiddle toy' so they can keep themselves busy whilst thinking about their work.
Qualifications and personality
It is likely that you yourself must be qualified to A Level standard at least.
Whilst education support worker jobs don't require you to actually teach any subjects, you do need to have a good level of background understanding to help you decide how to aid.
Any educational qualifications will be desirable but not necessary.
Similarly, qualifications and experience in working with people with learning difficulties will support your application.
As for personal qualities, there are a few necessary traits:
• Patience: people learn things at different rates and may require you to explain several times in different ways
• Experience: partly so that you can understand the work itself, and partly so you can judge how is best to communicate information
• Emotional intelligence: you need to know when to help them calm down, when to draw behaviour boundaries, when to praise, and when they need to take 5 minutes and talk about what's troubling them
• Proactiveness: whilst you need to remember that the teacher or lecturer is always in charge, they will be thrilled if you are proactive and take initiative in extending a student's learning or make the extra effort to find useful resources for them.
Finding education support worker jobs
Schools and colleges may list them on their own websites, councils may aggregate their county's schools' needs on their website or alternatively, you can always use us!
We aggregate jobs from many websites to get a great selection of possibilities.
See another blog I wrote on how to be successful in an interview for a support worker job - this will be extremely useful once you've applied for the job you want.
Search now for education support workers jobs and try out the advanced search options to filter responses by location, career level or sector.
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About the author
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- Matt Farrah
Co-Founder
I studied English before moving into publishing in the mid 90s. I co-founded Nurses.co.uk and our other three sites in 2008. I wanted to provide a platform that gives a voice to those working in health and social care. I'm fascinated, generally, by the career choices we all make. But I'm especially interested in the stories told by those who choose to spend their life supporting others. They are mostly positive and life-affirming stories, despite the considerable challenges and burdens faced.
What Is Your Role as an Educational Support Worker
Source: https://www.socialcare.co.uk/blog/what-do-you-do-in-education-support-worker-jobs/