Education Support Professional (SLSO), St Ives

Education Support Professional (SLSO), St Ives

Meaningful 1:1 Educational Support / Teaching Learning Support opportunity.

Flexible hours / times, including during school hours, after school and weekends over a 6-8 week period, supporting a Year 6 student access mainstream school while she recovers at home from surgery.

Experience innovative AAC learning access with bright, engaged non-verbal 12 year-old girl, working towards completing assessments and ultimately HSC on eye gaze device, with long-term, ongoing options:

• During school hours - via applying for to support her at her local High School from 2027 - Years 7 - 12
• Outside school hours - helping with High School Homework at home.

We are looking for the right person to our Year 6 daughter who has been fully accessing the mainstream curriculum.

She is a highly capable, engaged learner with a physical disability similar to Cerebral Palsy – a locked-in syndrome but with no intellectual or behavioural challenges.

She is non-verbal and has an age-appropriate understanding of spoken language and has developed strong communication skills primarily through eye gaze. She is fully participating in the mainstream curriculum and is increasingly using her Tobii i13 eye-gaze device and low-tech AAC, including an Etran frame, to access her learning.

She is a bright, enthusiastic student with high educational aspirations and the long-term goal of completing her HSC using eye-gaze technology.

The opportunity

The student will be completing her schoolwork at home for a number of weeks during the last two terms of Year 6 while she recovers from surgery. This provides a unique opportunity for someone to work closely with her, understand how communicates and accesses her learning.

The family will employ you to help with home-schooling during her recovery period and provide practical training in how she accesses her learning and how to support her functionally, supported by her existing education and therapy team.

The focus will be on:

• Supporting the student to access all aspects of her mainstream curriculum, across subjects and learning areas
• Learning to use her Tobii i13 eye-gaze device, Etran frames and other AAC methods
• Supporting her transition from low-tech methods to completing increasing amounts of her schoolwork using her eye gaze device.
• Supporting her access to learning, including accessing pre-prepared, tailor-made eye-gaze class worksheets and assignments, with support and guidance from leading AAC educators online and experienced AAC Speech Therapist face-to-face.
• Supporting her to use eye gaze to complete schoolwork, assignments and assessments and demonstrate what she knows
• Learning how to present and adapt learning so that she can access the same curriculum and learning expectations as her mainstream peers and help her use eye gaze to demonstrate what she knows, participate in discussions and group work and communicate her ideas and choices.

This is an educational support role, not a carer role. The student is able to do some things for herself. Some straightforward physical prompting is required to support her educational day, such as transitions to walking or walking frame, functional activities such as lunch, etc with the focus always on encouraging independence.

Why this role is different

The student is transitioning from low-tech to high-tech AAC and eye-gaze technology. She is beginning to use eye gaze not simply for communication, but to access her education and demonstrate her knowledge.

The longer-term goal is for her to use her eye-gaze device fully to access the mainstream secondary curriculum with a view to ultimately completing her HSC exams using the device.

This is an exciting and relatively new area of inclusive education and would suit someone who is genuinely interested in AAC, assistive technology and enabling a student with a physical disability to access higher education and high school certificate at their true intellectual potential.

You do not need previous eye-gaze experience — training will be provided.

The right person

We are looking for someone who:

• Has a genuine interest in inclusive education and social inclusion
• Has experience as an SLSO, Teacher's Aide, Learning Support Officer or has a related Educational or Allied Health background.
• Presumes competence and has high mainstream expectations of students with disability
• Is interested in AAC, assistive technology and innovative approaches to education
• Is patient, observant, creative and willing to learn
• Can communicate naturally and age-appropriately with a young teenager
• Would ideally suit SLSO, Teacher's Aide, Learning Support Officer looking for a new, exciting challenge
• Or an Education or Allied Health Professional looking for an opportunity which fits around family commitments

The student's interests include modern art, reading, music and sport. She trains weekly in a race-runner alongside other para-athletes and Paralympians and plays All Abilities soccer and so an interest in sport and physical activity would also be a bonus.

Carlton Search & Selection (Private Advertiser)

St Ives, NSW

https://www.carltonsearch.com.au/

Affiliation: None
Teaching Level: Not applicable

Application Instructions

Apply

Please send a CV and short cover letter outlining:

1. Your experience in education/SLSO/learning support
2. Any experience with disability, AAC or assistive technology
3. Why this role interests you
4. Your current availability and preferred days/hours

..and then submit your application by pressing the "Apply for Job" button