Teaching Assistant Apprentice Review

My role consists of supporting student's learning and behaviour on a day-to-day basis. I am a tutor for year 10 so it is my role to check-in with them in the mornings and afternoon, be able to speak up if I have a concern about their behaviour as well as managing individual's reports for punctuality and behaviour.

I have learnt a plethora of new skills whilst being on my training. This includes communicating in different methods and understanding a child's preferred method of communication. I have also learnt a lot more about putting personal boundaries in place when working with children. As I work in a SEMH school, I have also learnt a lot about children with different abilities and needs such as ADHD and ASD.

I have really enjoyed my programme, the content was informative and I was easily able to apply it within my own setting - for example, learning about all of the safeguarding legislation like 'Keeping Children Safe in Education' helped me to understand the extremely important and relevant legislation when working with children.

My programme was extremely well structured, this is one of the things I valued most about it as I always knew when my assignments were due and what work I had to complete in order to reach my targets. I felt like every step of the way, I knew what was expected of me and I could be as independent as I wanted to be.

I recieved a brilliant amount of support from all of my employers at LMP. My pastoral manager was extremely kind and attentive, I never felt like I was bothering her if I had something going on and she was always there for me when I needed her. I felt extremely lucky to have the amount of support I did as it made the experience more enjoyable.

I recieved a lot of support from my training provider when working towards my apprenticeship qualification. My tutor was very kind and helpful, was always answering my emails quickly and offering me help whenever I needed it. He was also very constructive in his feedback and alwyas pushed me to do better and be successful.

I feel like my qualification has prepared me very well in terms of the knowledge it provided me with, there are many things like safeguarding, health & safety, external professionals, etc that helped me to be more informed for my role. However, I do feel that as my placement was within a SEMH school, more SEN training would have been appropriate.

Unfortunately, due to covid and lockdowns, we didn't really have much opportunities for any social activities held in person, which would have been good in terms of getting to know other apprentices and having a space online where we could talk about our experiences and help each other with work. However, LMP did make a lot of effort to still run social events online and all members of staff were always making a huge effort and were engaging so they were very enjoyable.

Yes

I would definitely recommend LMP to a friend as the structure and support that was offered to me was exactly what I needed to help me get through the duration of the course and kept me going and motivated. I think this is a great company to help any individual start their career and they have set me off on a good path.

I would tell anyone who is applying to work with this company to really show your passion and interest to learn - it doesn't matter if you have little/no experience in the profession you are trying to get into, it is about how you present yourself during interviews and recruitment to show them that you really care about your own future.