SEN Teaching Assistant (Outdoor, Land and Craft Curriculum)
40 Hours per week, 40 weeks per year
FTE Salary: £29,308
Actual Salary: £25,715
(This salary includes a market supplement for Teaching Assistants)
Sunfield Garden School and Children’s Home sustains a distinguished historical legacy in the beautiful Clent Hills, West Midlands. Sunfield’s farm, walled garden and woodlands provide excellent opportunities for outdoor learning and practical activities. Sunfield is part of Ruskin Mill Trust.
Established in 1984, Ruskin Mill Trust is an educational charity that operates in England, Scotland and Wales. We offer exciting outdoor learning environments, utilising practical land and craft activities to support the development of work and life skills in young people with autistic spectrum conditions and other learning differences. Our research-led method, Practical Skills Therapeutic Education, is inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner, John Ruskin and William Morris. Working with hand, head, heart and place, Ruskin Mill Trust helps individuals to re-imagine their potential.
Sunfield Garden School is an exciting and innovative provision which offers full time education to children who have significant/complex social, emotional or educational difficulties.
At Sunfield Garden School students will learn through a dynamic outdoor land and craft-based curriculum, which includes practical skills; textiles, green woodwork, pottery, cooking and blacksmithing with a significant period of time involved in growing biodynamic produce in the school gardens and looking after the farm animals.
You will need to be:
- Honest, reliable, an excellent communicator, resilient, hard-working, versatile, and a great team player.
- You must be keen to improve your own knowledge and skills in a genuinely unique educational environment.
- Experienced in, or willing to develops skills in, supporting the delivery of our unique curriculum
You must have:
- Experience of working with children in an educational setting.
- Knowledge of how children learn and an interest in developing the whole child.
- Good levels of literacy and numeracy skills. (e.g. GCSE Maths and English, or equivalent).
- An interest in / or skills in working in the outdoor environment.
- A desire to learn and a passion for working with children and young people with additional needs.
- A patient, caring, compassionate and child-centred approach
- Excellent observation skills and the ability to problem solve and think creatively to enable our children and young people to reimagine their potential
- Emotional intelligence and resilience with the ability to react calmly in challenging situations
The key duties of this role will include:
- To provide one to one support to learners with learning difficulties and/ or learning disabilities and challenging behaviour.
- To help students adjust to their new settings, recognise signs of distress and offer reassurance, and to promote and encourage the acceptance and inclusion of all pupils within the classroom and school; thereby, developing and reinforcing students’ self-esteem.
- To encourage students to interact with others and engage in activities led by the Teacher.
- To supervise and support students to ensure their safety and access to learning and facilitate students’ physical, emotional and educational development.
- To establish and promote supportive and productive relationships with students: acting as a role model and being aware of, and responding appropriately to, individual needs.
Working at Ruskin Mill Trust is incredibly rewarding; we offer competitive salaries and holiday allowances, an auto-enrolment pension scheme with a salary sacrifice option, a health cash plan and employee assistance programme via Medicash.
In addition, staff receive valuable training opportunities including an in-depth interactive induction to enable our new team members to experience our Practical Skills Therapeutic Education (PSTE) curriculum and also opportunities for further training and academic research including our own MSc in Practical Skills Therapeutic Education.
Full details of our benefits can be viewed on www.rmt.org/careers
**Early applications are encouraged as we reserve the right to close the application early in the event of finding the right candidate*
The Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Successful applicants will be required to undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service Enhanced Level Disclosure as well as a medical check, references, evidence of qualifications, plus verification of the right to work in the UK
Job Types: Full-time, Permanent
Pay: £25,715.00 per year
Benefits:
- Casual dress
- Company pension
- Discounted or free food
- Employee discount
- Free parking
- Health & wellbeing programme
- On-site parking
- Referral programme
Schedule:
- 8 hour shift
- Day shift
- Monday to Friday
Experience:
- Special education: 2 years (required)
- Teaching assistant: 2 years (required)
- working with children: 2 years (required)
Work Location: In person
Application deadline: 11/08/2025