Marshlands Primary School
Marshlands School is a Special School catering for 51 pupils between the ages of 3 and 11 with learning difficulties. The school employs 7 full time teachers, 12 teaching assistants (including one apprentice), a secretary, clerical assistant and a caretaker.
The School currently employs one Teaching Assistant apprentice who is coming to the end of her first year. She will stay with the school for a further 2 years to complete her level 2 and then her level 3 Apprenticeship.
Ms Whale heard about the Apprenticeship programme last year from the School Improvement Division within Staffordshire County Council. She decided to recruit an apprentice Teaching Assistant because she considered that it could provide a good entry route for teaching assistants in the special needs area and took on one apprentice as a pilot:
‘I think we are a good school and we rate our teaching assistants. Training for teaching assistants is relatively limited and the programme allowed us to train a young person to work with special needs children’.
Although only a year into the programme Ms Whale has been impressed with the comprehensive nature of the training that her apprentice has undertaken:
‘It is a very thorough scheme and wide ranging and provides the apprentice with good general training including child protection and first aid’
Ms Whale considers that one of the key benefits of the Apprenticeship is in allowing the school to pass on their skills and train a young person in their ways of working:
‘It is really good for us to pass on our skills and the staff member which has been involved in supporting the Apprentice has really enjoyed extending their skills and learning how to be an effective mentor’
Vicki Thomas is an apprentice Teaching Assistant at Marshlands School. Before starting her Apprenticeship, Vicki studied for a BTEC National Diploma in Care. She had originally decided to go to University to study for a BA in Early Childhood Studies however Connexions told her about the Apprenticeship Teaching Assistant Post. Vikki was very attracted by this:
‘I thought it sounded really interesting and would give me really good hands on experience’
Vikki started her Apprenticeship when she was 18 in September last year. She has finished her BTEC Technical Certificate and nearly finished her level 2 NVQ and will start her level 3 in January next year. She considers that the training has been very useful to her job role:
‘Doing the BTEC has made me more confident in the classroom as I know what I am doing is grounded in theory, for example we did work on dealing with Challenging Behaviour which has been very useful’
She is glad she chose the Apprenticeship over University or an NVQ 'The Apprenticeship gives you a lot more background knowledge of the curriculum which you can then apply than the NVQ does…It is really well structured with plenty of time to get good experience and complete the individual components.’
Vikki would recommend the Teaching Assistant Apprenticeship to other young people:
‘I would recommend it…a lot of people just go to University and miss out on the hands on experience. For me it has been a good way of finding out that I want to go into teaching’.
Last Updated: 23/05/2012