Teacher Consultant of Deaf Children

Introduction
The purpose of this post is to help children with hearing impairment make the most of the opportunities provided by the school curriculum. Teacher consultants work closely with schools and parents to ensure that deaf, or partially deaf, children are included in all educational activities.

Work Environment
This is mostly the school environment but includes visits to hospitals, audiologists or community centres dealing with special needs from time to time. Consultants attend regional and national meetings that may entail overnight stays and work in the evenings and at weekends.

Daily Activities
Work may have to be undertaken in a number of different venues on a daily basis. In general, soecial educational needs (SEN) consultants will be expected to:

  • reduce the barriers to learning by advising parents, pupils and school staff on the management of hearing disability; 
  • liaise with other LEA teams such as Inspection, Advisory and Early Years groups on the development of strategies for inclusion; 
  • provide training and school-based consultancy on all aspects of hearing impairment to secondary, primary and special schools.

Specific duties include:

  • designing and delivering courses relating to curriculum access for deaf children; 
  • assisting in the development of the outreach role; 
  • running out of hours sessions and school based training according to local needs; 
  • helping with training of specialist teachers; 
  • advising schools on how best to use their own resources to allow full curriculum access for deaf children; 
  • being involved at local, regional and national levels in providing best practice; 
  • assisting in the development of locally devised training materials such as publications; 
  • maintaining a record of all visits and training opportunities and doing a written report every term on all work carried out in schools.

SEN consultants work with a range of professionals - special needs community officers, headteachers, teachers, assistant teachers, governors, Inspectors and Advisors, LEA officers as well as external agencies like speech and language therapists, audiologists and voluntary agencies such as the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and the National Deaf Children's Society.

Skills & Interests
You need to have good:

  • classroom skills; 
  • oral and written communication skills; 
  • interpersonal skills with the ability to motivate others; 
  • influencing/negotiating skills.

You also need to be:

  • confident in using ICT; 
  • able to work independently and as part of a team; 
  • able to work effectively with parents; 
  • approachable - willing to share expertise, skills and knowledge and be able to encourage others to do so; 
  • self-motivating and resilient - able to develop effective partnerships.

Entry Requirements
You need Department for Education & Skills (DfES) recognized Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and be qualified as a teacher of deaf children. You need substantial experience with hearing impaired pupils in the following ways:

  • teaching in a mainstream primary or secondary school; 
  • peripatetic duties either as a member of a support service or as outreach from a special school; 
  • leading curriculum developments involving a number of colleagues and a variety of subject areas; 
  • devising, planning and delivering relevant in-service training; 
  • producing teaching and learning materials; 
  • observing and evaluating the quality of teaching and providing feedback to teachers.

You would also be expected to be up to date with research findings and current legislation relating to children with special needs.

Future Prospects & Opportunities
This is a narrow but important area of work. You can seek promotion to Special Educational Needs Community Officer (SENCO) or look to your line manager's post as Head of the Special Educational Needs Service for Schools (SENSS).

Further Information & Services
All local education authorities.
Teacher Training & Education in Wales www.teachertrainingcymru.org
General Teaching Council for Wales www.gtcw.org.uk
Graduate Teacher Training Registry www.gttr.ac.uk
Education jobs www.eteach.com
Action on Hearing Loss www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk
National Deaf Children's Society  www.ndcs.org.uk/family_support/support_in_your_area/wales

You may find further information about this area of work through Careers Wales (www.careerswales.com/) or in your local library, careers office or school careers library.

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