Learning Support Assistant

About Rugby Free Secondary School   

We are at the start of a very exciting journey and have worked extremely hard over the last year to create a culture of high expectations across the school, supported every step of the way by our Trust. This has been achieved through the development of strong and positive relationships with staff, students, parents and carers. Our reflective approach means we are always striving to improve in all we do and believe that mistakes are only an opportunity to learn.

Taking and broad holistic approach, we identify the barriers to learning that are likely to affect our students and work relentlessly to address them.

Our aim is for all students in our care to have the capacity to achieve their full potential and for our curriculum to nurture and develop each child’s hidden talents throughout their time at RFSS.

It is an exciting time to be working part of the RFSS family and as part of our trust Learning Today, Leading Tomorrow. RFSS opened in 2016, we relocated to our brand-new purpose-built facility in February 2020 and secured ‘Good’ in our most recent Ofsted inspection (July,2021).

The road hasn’t been smooth, but it is a school committed to providing success for all its students and providing a workplace that supports its staff to ensure they are able to work to the best of their ability for our students every day.

You won’t find teachers and staff anywhere else who are as committed to a school’s purpose and supporting its success. Relationships are at the heart of RFSS and underpin our new core values and we are always looking for dedicated staff who share our ethos and demonstrate our values.

Please find below link to our website with the latest Ofsted report when we were graded as ‘Good’. https://www.rugbyfreesecondary.co.uk/ofsted

Our Values are:   

Kindness – The quality of friendliness, generosity, consideration, honesty   

Collaboration – The belief that working and learning with others will lead to greater success   

Curiosity – A strong desire to know and to learn  

Resilience - The ability to recover quickly and learn from the difficulties we face   

Respect - To appreciate the importance of understanding and admiration for others and self  

Endeavour - The belief that hard work is needed to achieve something we can be proud of 

Key duties and responsibilities

·        To be committed to and contribute to the Trust’s ethos, work and aims of the school, enshrined in the school’s Mission Statement

·        Under the guidance/instruction of the Director of Learning and SENDCo Lead: work with individuals/groups to supervise physical/general care of students, especially those with Special, or Additional Educational Needs.

·        Support access to learning for students, prepare resources for the students you work with and provide general support in the classroom

·        Participate in the planning, assessment and evaluation of teaching and learning

General Duties of the Role Support for students

·        Make sure that the students you support are able to engage in learning and stay on task

·        Supervise and provide particular support for individual/groups of students, including those with special needs, ensuring their safety and access to learning activities. Establish good relationships with students, acting as role model and being aware of and responding appropriately to individual needs.

·        Promote inclusion and acceptance of all students

·        Encourage students to interact with others and engage in activities led by the teacher

·        Set challenging and demanding expectations and encourage students to act independently as appropriate

·        Provide feedback to students in relation to progress and achievement under guidance of the teacher

·        Assist with personal care relevant to the student you are engaged with as required

·        Participate in the education of children, including to their health and wellbeing

·        Support children with special needs (if appropriate to the focus of the role);

o   Sensory and/or physical impairment

o   Cognition or learning difficulties

o   Behavioural, emotional and social development needs

o   Communication and interaction difficulties

o   Support for Gifted and Talented students

Support for the Teachers

·        Be aware of students’ problems/progress/achievements and report to the Director of Learning as agreed

·        Undertake student record-keeping to monitor the type of support you give and its impact on the student’s progress

·        Use strategies, in liaison with the Director of Learning, to support students to achieve learning goals

·        Assist with the planning of learning activities and accurately record achievement/progress as directed

·        Provide detailed and regular feedback to teachers on student achievement progress, problems, etc

·        Promote good behaviour, dealing promptly with conflict and incidents in line with established school policy and encourage students to take responsibility for their own behaviour

·        Administer tests and invigilate exams as directed by your line manager

·        Provide clerical/admin support, i.e. (collecting) photocopying, distributing coursework/exercise books/tests papers, filing, typing etc

·        Assist with the display of students’ work

·        Cover LSA absence where necessary

Support for the curriculum

·        Undertake structured and agreed learning activities/programmes, adjusting activities according to students’ responses

·        Undertake literacy and numeracy programmes, recording achievement and progress and feeding back to the teacher/your line manager

·        Support the use of ICT in learning activities and help to develop students’ competence and independence in its use

·        Prepare, maintain and use equipment/resources required to meet the lesson plans/relevant learning activity and assist students in their use