Required for September 2025
At St Luke’s we are looking to appoint Level 1 Teaching Assistants who will have the opportunity to participate in a fixed term Development Programme to acquire the knowledge and skills to become a successful Teaching Assistant.
This is fixed term contract until 31st August 2026.
During your contract you will work and be paid for your contracted hours in a class and have specific development tasks to help support and expand your understanding of children with Special Educational Needs and how to best support them in a classroom environment.
The areas of development that you will learn about include:
• Understanding the different needs of the children (including autism, physical needs and speech and language development)
• Understanding and supporting children with challenging behaviour – at St Luke’s we follow a therapeutic approach to support children, which focusses on understanding the children’s needs and putting strategies in place to reduce potential incidents
• Moving and Handling Training
• How to best support a teacher within a busy classroom environment
• Developing your understanding of communication skills, including Makaton signing
• Understanding child development
Alongside specific training sessions you will also be assigned a mentor who will support your development.
Over the year you will produce a portfolio of work to demonstrate what you have learnt.
Your portfolio will include certificates of training, completed assignments and a personal reflective journal.
Please note this development programme does not provide you with a recognised official Teaching Assistant Qualification.
This is an exciting opportunity for candidates.
As a comprehensive training package will be given no experience of working in schools is required for this role.
At the end of the contract and successful completion of the development programme, you will be able to apply for any vacancies available at St Luke’s or take your development portfolio to apply for other posts.
If you are interested in this opportunity then please contact Alastair Sutherland (01724 844560) or email
Informal visits are encouraged, this will give you the opportunity to see the school and talk more about this new, exciting role.
CLOSING DATE: Friday 9th May 2025 (Applications received after 9:00am will not be considered)
As an employer, we promote and safeguard the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expect the same commitment from existing and prospective employees or volunteers. Recruitment to this post will follow our safer recruitment procedure which includes us requesting references prior to interview and a DBS check.