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Communication Support Worker – *D/deaf Learners
Education Outreach Service
Children's Services – Inclusion
Are you looking for an opportunity to make a positive difference to a child or young person life
Do you have a British Sign Language (BSL) qualification, or lived experience of using BSL?
If helping people comes naturally to you and you find reward in supporting people, this could be the perfect job for you!
What you’ll be doing:
As Communication Support Worker, you will perform an important role in the school life of D/deaf pupils, helping them to communicate with their teachers, and access all parts of the learning. An important aspect of your role will be to ensure these pupils have an enjoyable and typical school experience.
You will assist in supporting the delivery of flexible, high quality education that meets the needs of D/deaf learners within an inclusive environment.
You will work closely with the Qualified Teacher of the Deaf, and school based staff, to enable equality of access to information and education to meet the needs of D/deaf learners. The support may involve working with pupils whose first language is BSL. This type of support would generally involve a two way exchange of information, through BSL, written notes or clear speech.
You will be responsible for understanding individual learner’s needs, developing and using a range of communication strategies, for example working between BSL signing, speech, note- taking and/or language modification and preparing for support sessions and subject areas, as appropriate.
You will work closely with the QTOD (Qualified Teacher of the Deaf) in ensuring the quality of the curriculum being delivered is linked to national and local curriculum guidelines and where necessary contribute to Individual Educational Programmes (IEP).
You will require relevant experience supporting D/deaf children/young people and have an understanding of the barriers d/Deaf people face especially in education settings.
You will be focused on and responsive to learners’ needs, with strong communication skills (spoken and written) and ability to listen accurately in noisy surroundings.
What’s in it for you?
1. Excellent Salary and Conditions
2. Distant islands allowance
3. Relocation Package
4. Generous holiday allowance
5. Local Government Pension scheme
6. Flexible working and family friendly policies
7. A varied and interesting workload
8. Excellent training and development opportunities
9. Various other employee benefits
*D/deaf definition: Deaf with a capital D refers to people who have been deaf all their lives, or since before they learn to talk. The word deaf (lower case d) is used to describe anyone who does not hear very much. Sometimes it is used to refer to people who are severely hard of hearing. Deaf people tend to communicate in sign language as their first language. For most Deaf people English is a second language.
Additional Information
Do you share our values?
In Shetland Islands Council, Excellent service is at the heart of everything we do. We provide excellent service by taking personal responsibility and working well together .
It is important that you share our values and would demonstrate this by:
10. Providing an excellent level of service, by making sure you understand, meet and manage our service users’ needs.
11. Working in an open and honest way, reflecting on your performance and looking for opportunities to improve and develop.
12. Having a positive attitude by being open-minded, fair, respectful, trustworthy and honest.
13. Taking your responsibilities as an employee of the council seriously.
We’re looking for someone who’s compassionate, respectful, empathetic and honest, with a values and integrity to make a very real and positive difference to the children and young people we support.
14. The grade of this post is H
15. Rate of pay shown in the advert is inclusive of Distant Islands Allowance of £1. per hour
16. Permanent Part Time post for 30.0 Hours per Week, 39 weeks per year plus 6.24 weeks (pro rata) paid holiday to be taken during school holidays
17. BSL training opportunities as required