SEND Support Assistant

Job Description

SEND Support Assistant

Required for September 2025

One Year Fixed Term Contract

Closing date: Friday 4th July 2025

37 hours per week

8.30am - 4.30pm Monday - Thursday

8.30am - 4.00pm Friday

Part Time hours will be considered

Term time + INSET days

Starting Salary Scale 5 Point 9

Application forms are available at www.shsg.org/vacancies/#how-to-apply

Applications and supporting letters to be submitted to recruitment@shsg.org

We are seeking to appoint a SEND support assistant to join our friendly team and help us to provide our students with the very best educational experience.

You will be working on a 1:1 or small group basis with students who have special educational needs,

building strong relationships and positively impacting their learning experience.

Experience of supporting students with a multi-sensory impairment: HI and VI, in an educational establishment would be an advantage for this role.

The successful candidate will:

· Be dedicated and resilient when supporting children who experience significant barriers to learning.

· Have the ability to support students either in a classroom environment, 1:1 or in small groups.

· Be able to draw on available resources to adapt and develop strategies to support students learning across different ages.

· Have experience of working with children with a range of SEND.

· Be an active member of the SEND team, putting students' academic success and personal development at the forefront.

· Have excellent communication skills and a professional friendly manner.

· Be organised and efficient and able to prioritise workload.

· Have excellent IT skills and the ability to learn new systems quickly.

We can offer you:

· A strong, highly committed team of staff with an ethos of tolerance and a family community spirit

· Training and development and our commitment to staff wellbeing

· An environment which promotes innovation

Southend High School for Girls is a highly successful and oversubscribed girls' grammar school rated

'outstanding' by Ofsted. This is an exciting time to join the school as it continues to move forward under the leadership of its Headteacher, Mr Jason Carey.

For all enquiries please contact Sinead Carter recruitment@shsg.org

Interviews to be held week commencing 7th July 2025

We reserve the right to call applicants to interview, and appoint, prior to the closing date

All staff at Southend High School for Girls have a responsibility for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. The successful applicant will be required to complete an enhanced DBS check. This is a customer-facing role needing fluent spoken English.

Information about the School

Southend High School for Girls is a grammar school with academy status, steeped in history, and built on strong traditions and values, combining tradition with innovative approaches to teaching and learning and curriculum delivery. We are an outward facing school, ambitious and proactive in researching and learning about the best practices. Our friendly, ‘family-orientated’ ethos is at the heart of all that we do; our core principles are to ensure that everyone is ‘safe, happy and successful.’

Southend High School for Girls has a long and illustrious history of over 100 years of educating the brightest minds in the country. At the core of our philosophy, we believe that students should be safe, happy and successful. Our team of staff are all experts in their fields and are passionate about the education and well-being of our young people. We are unashamedly ambitious for them and aspire to create a pervasive ethos of high expectations, and promote discipline and good behaviour in school life.

Our moral purpose is to ensure that our students experience a rigorous and stretching academic education on the one hand, and outstanding wider personal development on the other. We believe that our students should develop high self-efficacy and self-belief, and be confident and fearless – demonstrating resilience in the face of challenges. Being a member of a high-performing grammar school demands hard work, fortitude and a can-do attitude; participation, energy and commitment are our non-negotiables – but the results are well worth it.

Our academic ethos is underpinned by a culture of teaching which centres on Trivium 21C approaches where the tradition of grammar and knowledge form the foundations for questioning, reasoning, communicating, and learning. An SHSG student is encouraged to develop a swashbuckling approach to their learning and personal development journey from Year 7 to Year 13, confident to take risks and engaging in learning adventures with gusto and flamboyance.

We believe in the importance of creating a strong sense of pride, shared identity, teamwork and belonging in our school for every member of the SHSG family. Once a member of the SHSG family, you are always a member of the SHSG family and have a lifelong connection to the school, its people, values and traditions.

We truly believe that Southend High School for Girls is a special place to work. Our students are highly motivated, curious, and hard-working, and our staff are ambitious for them. It is a privilege to learn and to work at Southend High School for Girls.

Local Area

Southend High School for Girls is situated on Southchurch Boulevard in the east of the City of Southend-On-Sea, Essex. The schools location is easily accessible with links by road to the A13, the A127 and the M25 can be reached in under 30 minutes. London is 35 miles away with direct and regular rail services to Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street from several local stations. The closest train station to the school is Southend.

Southend and the locality offer Department stores, exclusive shops and popular street markets, and a modern library within close distance of the town centre. The local districts and towns such as Leigh-on-Sea, Westcliff, Thorpe Bay and Southchurch are full of shopping and cultural facilities including museums and art galleries. The town's parks and gardens are well-known features and Belfairs Park and Nature Reserve is popular with bird-watchers and nature lovers. Within a short distance of Southchurch is the open countryside with many places of interest to visit.

Southend offers many recreational opportunities. There are lots of different sport activities available through both public and private facilities for swimming, tennis and golf and with seven miles of seafront, windsurfing, angling, sailing and paddle boarding are popular. Southend Pier is a major landmark in the City of Southend-on-Sea. Extending 2.16 kilometres into the Thames Estuary, it is the longest pleasure pier in the world. It is serviced by its own trains and is one of the town's oldest landmarks.