EAL TA L2

EAL Teaching Assistant L2

Grade: Grade 3 (Points 5-6)

Hours: 27 hours per week

Term time only plus 3 Teacher Days

Pro rata Salary: £16,417.50 - £16,745.65 (Actual Salary)

Full time equivalent: £19,312 - £19,698

Responsible to: EAL Head of Faculty

Dear prospective applicant,

In the top 12% of schools nationally, Crown Hills Community College blends a 70-year history of inclusive education with an innovative, forward-looking approach to providing a state education like no other to 1500 students from inner city backgrounds.

The school now seeks to appoint an exceptional individual to work alongside 190 other staff to make up our education family. Specifically, we are looking for a Bi-lingual Teaching Assistant preferably fluent in Roma/Slovakian to work as part of the English as an Additional Language (EAL) department.

You would join a well-established EAL department comprising the Head of Department, 3 EAL Specialist teachers (one Full-time and two part-time) and a team of 4 Bi-lingual Teaching Assistants. Roma students from 6 Eastern European countries make up 4% of the EAL students. We currently have 88% of students for whom English is not their first language. Out of these students, 12% are known as International New Arrivals (INA’s) having been in the UK for less than three years at the point of admission to Crown Hills Community College.

We work closely with all faculties to ensure that all EAL students have an equal access to the curriculum. Teaching Assistants work in a variety of ways, using a range of strategies to support small groups of students in targeted interventions as well as supporting whole classes. The bi-lingual skills of Teaching Assistants communicate with parents / carers as well as students.

We welcome applications from those with an educational background across the private and public sector.

Over the past three years, the school has changed significantly not only in its performance but in the way it operates. We are not interested in the OFSTED grade or judgement and it is not something that we use to threaten staff with nor do we use it to set policy. We do what is best for the staff and the students underpinned by a set of clear values and we trust that everything else will take care of itself. I would therefore, urge you to visit us and to look at our website and the video about what it is that we stand for and why you would want to join us. 

I want us to be at the forefront of educational excellence because we want to provide the best educational experience possible for the children in our care. This is extremely difficult in a climate of ever-increasing accountability and diminishing resources. However, I sincerely believe that if we lead this community by staying true to our values then it is possible.

I have therefore spent time with staff and exploring what it is we stand for and, after a school-wide consultation, we have decided that ASPIRATION, COMMITMENT and SUCCESS are the three key drivers that will support the development of our pupils.

We believe that the curriculum is king and that the way it is sequenced, will help our students to make progress. We have taken a very clear stance on knowledge-first teaching and place an emphasis on memory recall as well as responsive teaching. In order to be successful you need to buy into this pedagogy and practice as it underpins our philosophy and the way the curriculum should be delivered to our students. As a member of support staff who supports the delivery of the curriculum, it is important you understand and align to our college principles.

We are very clear that the gender, background, colour, poverty, wealth or social status of a child should have no bearing on how well they perform and staff here work extremely hard in trying to close that gap between the different groups of pupils.

Please read the attached job description and person specification. If you are interested in applying, please fill in the application form available on our website. Please include e-mail addresses of all referees, and e-mail it to Jo Amey by 9am on Thursday 12th August.

Interview date is to be confirmed.

Yours sincerely,

Mr. F. Adam

(Principal)