Job Description

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Looking for an opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of pupils with severe autism? Look no further! Chatten Free School, a local authority funded special needs free school in the Witham (Essex) area, is seeking a Speech and Language Therapist to join their amazing team.

As a Speech and Language Therapist at Chatten Free School, you will work in a supportive environment with a smaller caseload, allowing for regular client contact and the opportunity to develop specialist skills in supporting severely autistic children. The school is part of the Hope Learning Community (HLC), a fantastic group of SEND schools in Essex.

At Chatten Free School, you'll have the chance to work with incredible pupils and witness the changes and development that can occur when a multi-professional team work together in a truly synergistic style. The school uses a consistent, individualised, and multi-professional approach to ensure that pupils leave as independent as possible, equipped with socially significant skills to access the world around them in a meaningful way.

Role purpose

• To assess, treat and manage a caseload of children at Chatten Free School
• To provide advice to other professionals and parents in order to support the needs of children.
• To liaise with other agencies and services both within and outside the school.
• To plan and demonstrate therapy activities to others

Key responsibilities

• To communicate effectively with patients and carers and professionals in relation to pupils, ensuring a coordinated approach to meeting the individual's needs and maintaining a high level professional relationship.
• To follow national and School policies, relevant to speech and language therapy for children and young people at Chatten School.
• To identify individual training and development needs through supervision, maintaining clinical expertise in relevant clinical area through attendance at appropriate courses, reading relevant literature etc as identified in the Development Plan.
• To attend statutory and mandatory training on an annual basis or as required.
• To provide information to others about speech and language therapy.
• To be responsible for administration and record keeping relating to Chatten pupils.
• To be aware of legal requirements relating to the provision of a Speech and Language Therapy Service and of procedures relating to Child Protection.
• To be aware of, and adhere to policies and plans and to carry out delegated clinical tasks.
• To contribute to the delivery of objectives and priorities for Chatten Free School
• To participate in the development of innovative practices, projects and therapy packages
• To provide appropriate and timely reports and other client related paperwork
• To be responsible for administration and record keeping relating to the allocated caseload, conforming to Departmental and Trust regulations concerning the format and security of patient records and the Data Protection Act.
• To recognise own professional boundaries and seek advice and support as appropriate.
• Support and advise multidisciplinary colleagues, on issues relating to communication
• To manage a caseload independently
• Adapt practice to meet the individual circumstances, having regard to cultural and linguistic differences. Ensure that the child/young person and parent/carers are involved in planning and decision making relevant to therapy intervention.
• To provide accurate and timely statistics
• To develop online training modules for other staff in the school relating to specific areas i.e. PECS, MAKATON etc
• To deliver training to others

Personal and professional conduct
All staff are expected to behave in accordance with professional standards and the standards outlined in the Hope Learning Community (HLC) code of conduct and any other HLC policies and documents. Staff are expected to comply with reasonable requests outside of this job description.

Please note: The duties and responsibilities of this post may vary from time to time according to the changing needs of the school. This job description may be reviewed at the discretion of the Head of School in the light of those changing requirements.

Information about the School

We are a specialist day free school in Witham, Essex working with children and young people who are severely affected by their autism and associated learning difficulties. Our pupils are ages 4-19. Most of our pupils are pre-vocal or in the early stages of developing communicative skills.

We believe that through a consistent and individualised curriculum, using effective and evidence based learning techniques we can ensure that our pupils leave us as independent as possible and with life-long socially significant skills which will enable them to access the world around them in a rich and meaningful way.

Our primary vision for Chatten pupils is: Happiness, Independence and Respect.

We have high expectations of our pupils and believe that they can achieve great things. Our primary focus is to provide all our pupils with an effective form of communication which they can use throughout their lives. We also aim to teach them important tolerance, life and academic skills which will be functional in their real lives beyond school.

Chatten provision includes access to individualised curriculums based on input in the areas of; applied behaviour analysis (ABA), speech and language therapy (SALT), occupational therapy (OT) and qualified teacher (QTS) level educational interventions. We use evidence based interventions and monitor progress meticulously to ensure that methods are effective for the pupil.

We are very excited to be able to offer some amazing facilities at our school which are outlined in the pages on specialist areas.

Most importantly of all we will have a staff team who all share the same vision for our school and your children. Our strongest shared desire: to enrich our pupils lives with the shared aim of Happiness, Independence and Respect.

To learn more about our school visit our website.