Are there any special needs teachers around?

[HollowTalk]

If anyone is a special needs teacher, please could they tell me something about it? I'm asking for my daughter. She has lots of relevant experience but has not wanted to teach in mainstream schools because she's seen my siblings and me go through hell!

Is there a teacher training course just for special needs? It seems to be joint with another subject. That would be fine, just wondering.

What's working life like? In mainstream school there's a hell of a lot of pressure to meet targets. Do you have the same?

She would prefer to teach older children rather than primary children. It would be really interesting to talk to someone about teaching either age-groups.

Thanks in advance.

My DH is a special needs teacher and trained in primary first. He had links to a local sen school before finishing his pgce and then got a job there afterwards.

I believe some universities offer a primary and SEN course and probably other joint courses but I don't know if you can just do a SEN although I think it would be good if you could!

The pressure is very different ( I'm a y6 teacher myself) to mainstream as you're dealing with a wider range of issues. I would say my DH has a more social worker type job than a mainstream teacher in that he's dealing with issues that are not just education. He mostly really enjoys it and would NEVER teach in mainstream.

You are paid a little more and there aren't as many performance related pay issues. Also, targets don't really appear to exist in his school so there isn't the pressure of getting x amount to children to expected. He works longer hours than I do although he is SLT and I'm not. I think he worked slightly more than me when we were both CT but maybe I'm just more productive ;)

The downsides include working with aggressive children, often the parents themselves have SEN which is a whole different issues and also I think he feels that he doesn't always 'teach'. For example I could be planning a lesson about the active and passive voice and he's taking the kids on a trip to the local shop. Obviously it is teaching but in a different way.

Smaller classes and more support staff also.

Hope this helps and good luck to your daughter!

Special needs is a very broad church - what particular group is she interested in teaching? Mild to moderate learning difficulties? Complex needs? SEMH?
I have taught in mainstream Secondaries and also SEMH (in special schools). They were very different roles, both requiring planning (more in SEMH) and marking (more in mainstream) and I found SEMH far more emotionally draining. There are always targets be it functional skills, p levels or particular life skills whatever the setting.
I have a degree and then a PGCE. I had both personal experience and mainstream experience of Sen before moving to semh and working in a special environment. After 18 yrs I’m no longer teaching though.