We are looking to appoint a committed and enthusiastic individual to join our school as a Personal Care / Welfare Assistant working predominantly across Early Years and KS1 at first but it could be across the whole school age range. This is a new role to Birkbeck.
The successful applicant will be reliable and passionate about working with children and enjoy working as part of a team. The ability to form positive relationships with children, parents, carers and staff is essential.
Good communication skills between themselves and children as well as colleagues and outside agencies such as Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapist is essential. You will be assisting children with personal care and welfare needs whilst their peers are learning so you will need to think creatively how you can support the child with their learning even when not in the classroom. Experience of administering basic first aid is also desirable but training will be provided for the right candidate as they will need to be paediatric first aid trained.
Main duties
• To attend to the personal, hygiene, and physical care needs of pupils, promoting their independence wherever possible.
o This includes providing support with toileting, which may involve manual handling (with or without the use of a hoist), in accordance with the guidance provided by relevant professionals. Full training will be provided.
o You will also support pupils with physiotherapy and rehabilitation activities, as directed and demonstrated by external professionals. Training will be provided.
• To maintain students’ independence and respect their dignity at all times.
• Follow the school policies regarding personal care, safeguarding, behaviour, staff code of conduct and all other policies at all times.
• The post holder will be working in a school environment and may be required to escort students on educational visits/activities.
Important Note:
This role involves significant physical activity, including manual handling. In line with Health and Safety requirements, the successful candidate must be able to safely perform the physical tasks associated with the role, with or without reasonable adjustments. We welcome applications from candidates with disabilities and are committed to making reasonable adjustments where required.
This post is considered to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. The school therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the person specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.
This position is fixed-term for 12 months.