Private teaching assistant?

[yibby]

Hello,

Our child has SEN, and the report recommends lots of one on one support in a regular classroom, but the school is taking time to get that in place (I'm sure this is a familiar situation!).

Because of my really good health insurance we have the possibility to hire a private teaching assistant (the school is happy for us to do this), but I've no idea how to go about this!

Can anyone recommend a way to find a private TA?

Thanks so much!

If the school are happy with it, ask them what temp agency they use and hire through them. Something to consider is agreeing exactly how you expect it to work in real life as most TA's don't work in a bubble and they will have other children in the classroom taking up some of their time. For example it's difficult for an adult in a classroom to refuse to help a child asking for support as that will have negative ramifications on the 1-1 child as it will isolate them. I'm basing this on primary children who just see adults and have less of an understanding about their roles.

Thanks, both good ideas / points.

I am curious about how your school has agreed to this. My son has huge emotional difficulties at school which are greatly helped by a TA - we could afford to send him private but would prefer to keep him in his current local state school. When I asked if we could pay for a TA to support him I was told it couldn’t be done... OP - do you send your child private or state?

This is a state school. Perhaps what helped was the sen report from neuro developmental psychologist? This hasn't happened yet, let's see what the head says when we cone back with concrete plans...

Yibby - can I be really nosy and ask about which company you use for health insurance ? I’m guessing an international policy as I can’t find any I’m ones that will touch SEN or educational issues.

This is organised through work (which is a German organization in Cambridge). It's a company called Intermedex GmbH.

Hope that helps...