Your five point checklist for finding your next SEN teaching role

 

The New Year is upon us - and with the new decade, it’s sparked an abundance of motivation to achieve positive changes and aspirations from teachers all over the country! In fact, as one of the busiest SEN recruitment agencies around, we’ve noticed quite the shift in SEN teachers looking to find a new role to start the new year with a bang,  as well as qualified teachers looking to further specialise and hone their teaching career centred around special educational needs. And of course, we want to make this as easy as possible for them! 

 

So we’ve put our heads together to come up with the following 5-point checklist to help you find your next role… 

 

1)  Ask yourself these essential questions

 

Before jumping straight into the job hunt (as tempting as it may be!), it’s helpful to ask yourself the following questions first:

 

Are you looking to work in a specialist SEN school, Pupil Referral Unit, or a mainstream setting?

Are you happy to commute to your school, or do you want to be nearby?

Are you looking to work full time or part time?

What age group are you hoping to work with?

What specialism of SEN are you looking to work in?

What is your current experience/skill set, and what skills do you want to develop?

Is there anything about a school/role you’d prefer to avoid?

 

Once you have confirmed answers to all of these, you’ll find yourself with a strong foundation on which to build your search!

 

 

2) Narrow down your school selection

 

Armed with your answers to the above questions, it’s time to begin searching for the schools that fit your criteria. Start by looking within the radius of your preferred commute distance, then make a list of all the schools in that radius. You can then narrow down the search by seeing if any of them have an SEN teaching role that matches your skillset, availability and preferred age range to teach. You can complete this stage easily with the handy job search page on our SEN recruitment agency website here.

 

3) Browse the school websites

 

By now, you should hopefully have a handful of schools left that fit your particular criteria. This is the point at which you should look at their websites. As you’ll already know, schools are now required to have a website listing statutory information, such as Ofsted reports, policies, curriculum information, and so on, and they also offer a fantastic window into life at that particular school. Pay particular attention to their SEN policy, and whether they have any other web pages dedicated to SEN. From there, choose the schools that give you the best impression, and...

 

4) Arrange to visit your top chosen schools

 

Although a school’s website can give a good first impression, it’s important that you actually see it in person to be sure it’s somewhere you’ll want to embark upon your next SEN teaching role. Arrange a visit to the school, and see if you can sit in on a couple of lessons with SEN teachers and pupils to get a flavour of the kind of work you’ll be undertaking. Also find out if you can arrange to have a meeting/informal chat with the school’s SENCO and other SEN staff to learn more about the role they have on offer, and ask any questions you may have, such as “what makes the role so rewarding for you?”, “what career progression can I expect?” and so on. It might also be wise to seek out anyone who may have worked in those schools previously to talk about their experiences, good or bad, to further determine whether the school(s) is/are right for you.

 

Then, after your visits and when you know which school(s) you like the best...

 

 

5) Start applying!

 

By visiting your selection of schools, asking plenty of questions and really doing your research, you’ll now be in the strongest possible position to make your application to your chosen schools! It’s best to apply to more than one if the option is available, so that a) you have an increased chance of landing your next SEN teaching role, and b) if there are any unpleasant surprises during your interview, you have another one or two placements to fall back on.

 

At Class People, our experienced staff are well-versed in assisting with CV formatting, application writing, interview preparation and general support and guidance. So, if you’d like to fast-track through the above checklist and secure some guidance to find your dream SEN teaching role, get in touch with us today.

 

As one of the country’s most popular SEN recruitment agencies with a number of ex-SEN teaching staff on our team, we at Class People understand that the whole process above can be time consuming, stressful, and potentially a bit daunting. We’re lucky to have connections with a huge selection of schools across the country who work with SEN pupils, and are able to offer a multitude of SEN teaching roles to teachers of all experience levels. And if you’re still not entirely sure that an SEN role will be right for you, we have plenty of connections and positions available to give you an opportunity to trial an SEN role on a temporary basis, without you needing to make full commitment right away. You can take a look at the roles we have available here.