Amy Murphy

During my time at Livingstone I have worked with age groups ranging from Early Years Foundation Stage, Key Stage One and Key Stage Two. My role being to provide support to pupils with special educational needs to enable them access their school environment, curriculum and support them in inclusive education within a mainstream setting. Details of this includes;

• Supporting pupils with a wide variety of barriers to learning such as neurodiversity specifically Autism and ADHD, Down Syndrome, moderate to high learning needs, social and emotional, speech and language and behavioural and physical needs.
• Providing support in all areas of curriculum on an individual, small group and whole class basis.
• Working with pupils in line with individual needs and targets and delivering interventions including phonics, reinforcing literacy and numeracy concepts, vocabulary building, pre and post tutoring, play skills, play therapy, social and emotional games, occupational therapy and delivering speech and language interventions.
• Planning with class teachers to ensure optimum support strategies for pupils with additional needs, classroom management and organisation, planning and preparing resources, playground duties, aiding in self care and enhancing visually creative environments for pupils through displays.
• Completing assessments, record keeping, marking books and attending SEN meetings and reviews with parents as well as multi agency professionals.
• Developing established, professional and positive relationships with pupils enabling them to thrive by supporting and encouraging optimum independence potential.
• Differentiating instruction techniques and tailoring language to allow processing time for enhanced student understanding and well being.
• Liaising with parents and carers regularly, fostering strong and positive home-school relationships.
• Designing, implementing and encouraging personalised behaviour management with use of positive reinforcement strategies such as rewards systems and social stories.
• Fostering and providing inclusivity within the school community; promoting acceptance and respect for all pupils.
• Nurturing pupils wellbeing by creating and implementing regulation techniques such as communication guidance, providing calm spaces, sensory breaks as well as sensory stimuli for pupils with special educational needs and neurodiversity to help ease anxiety levels and provide emotional support.
• Creating and implementing visual aids to support pupils to gain a better understanding of their environment and regulate anxieties, such as visual timetables, Picture Exchange Systems, Choice boards and Self Care visuals.
• Encouraging confidence, and independent learning through structured tasks and positive reassurance, boosting pupils self-reliance skills and well being.

During my time SEN Teaching Assistant for supply agency Monarch I worked a long term placement of 18 months in a specialist provision base as a key worker for pupils with Autism and high support needs. This was with the aim of providing inclusive education within an attached main stream setting.

My time here enabled to me to first gain a much deeper understanding of supporting children with neurodiversity and some of their emotional and developmental variations and challenges.

Another long term role was as part of the SEN team in a mainstream school providing support for children ranging in ages with a variety of needs and barriers to learning. During my time in both these roles gained much experience and understanding of;

• Collaborating with teachers to implement personalised education programmes, increasing student progress.
• Delivering interventions in line with pupils EHCP's
• Facilitating and supporting in group activities to promote social interaction among SEN students.
• Encouraging inclusive learning for pupils to enable equal access to learning and development opportunities.
• Improving communication skills for non-verbal children, using non-verbal communication methods. Specifically an in depth experience of the use of PEC's and visual timetables.
• Building student self-esteem through positive encouragement, feedback and praise.
• Modifying and tailoring set tasks in line with each students particular needs in order to achieve optimal engagement and learning outcomes.
• Developing positive working relationships and communication with other members of the team as well as parents and carers of the pupils.
• Helped children with eating, dressing and other aspects of personal care while encouraging independence.

During my time in my second long term placement I also took the lead on planning and delivering whole school art lessons for Key Stage Two during art week. Whilst working here I gained a strong insight into how much art and creativity can benefit pupils with special educational needs as a positive outlet and can support in confidence building, regulation and inclusion.