Teachers working in special needs schools

[Tia3251]

Hi teachers can you tell me your experiences of working in a special needs school please. I’ve worked in mainstream education for past 10 /11 years. I enjoy working with special needs children I have in my class but I don’t know if this will be enough as at the moment there is only a handful I teach. I find the work very satisfying and I am thinking of applying to a special needs school, I just don’t know what to expect. Could you please tell me your experiences, PM me if you feel unable to talk on here.

In my authority, the special schools are as individual and diverse as mainstream schools are.
We have schools for all sorts of different special needs and schools which do something of a combination.
However, I know in some, much smaller LAs, there are only a couple of special schools so presumably they are more mixed provision.

I enjoyed my years in special school, but know there is less autonomy now than when I worked in special ed.

I don't know if this is at all feasible but I wish teachers transferring from mainstream to special schools had the opportunity to do a trial week so they had a better idea of what they were letting themselves in for both behaviour and teaching wise. Staff turnover was extremely high at ds1's special school and I think a lot of people joined with very good intentions but could not cope with the behavioural problems that frequently occurred including abusive language and some physical aggression. On the other hand most of ds1's teachers (the ones who managed to stick around) did say how rewarding the role could be at times.