HLTA - Cover supervisor
Courtlands School, Plymouth, Devon, PL6 5JS6 days remaining to apply
Start date details
ASAP - pending pre-employment checks
Closing date
4 January 2026 at 11:59pm
Date listed
8 December 2025
Job details
Job role
- Teaching assistant
Visa sponsorship
- Visas cannot be sponsored
Working pattern
- Full time
Contract type
- Permanent
Full-time equivalent salary
- £24,413.82 Annually (Actual)
HLTA - Cover supervisor job summary
Dear prospective candidate,
Thank you for taking the time to look at our Higher Level Teaching Assistant position at Courtlands School.
Courtlands is a friendly and ambitious school which is part of Transforming Futures Trust in Plymouth which caters for primary aged children (4-11) with Moderate Learning Difficulties and Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs. Our innovative curriculum is based on meeting individual’s needs rather than schemes of work, and it provides a wide range of curriculum and therapeutic input.
Courtlands School caters for primary aged children who have Moderate Learning Difficulties, Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties (SEMH) and other complex needs including autism, ADHD, speech and language difficulties and those impacted by trauma.
Courtlands is a remarkable school with a real feel of positivity, acceptance and camaraderie. You see targeted therapies many other schools do not offer and a curriculum that is designed to meet the additional needs of our pupils. You see learning organised to meet the developmental needs of the children and we have the confidence to buck the trend, stand out, and to aim for the outstanding.
We have 107 children here ranging in age from 4 to 11 years old. We take pupils from Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall and we welcome prospective visits from interested parents, SENDCos or Local Authority Officers.
We have small classes of no more than ten children with high levels of adult support so that our children can make excellent progress. We look at the whole child and help them to improve both their academic achievement and their personal wellbeing. This means that we help them to socialise, eat and play independently, become more active and have better coordination. We help them to learn to swim, ride a bike and look after themselves in every way. Our children make excellent progress and really enjoy coming here as can be seen through their smiles and obvious love for learning.
The levels of progress made by our pupils is significantly above national expectations for like pupils, our attendance is in the top 1% of special schools nationally and our exclusion levels in the lowest 1% nationally. We are a truly inclusive school who believe that the children have a right to have their needs met and not feel excluded from anything.
Our curriculum has been designed from the ‘ground up’ to meet the needs of the children. Whilst it is based on the National Curriculum, we have adapted and added to what you could expect in a mainstream school. We use specialist approaches such as TEACCH, Makaton, Attention Autism, Precision Instruction and many more to help our children to access the curriculum. We have a unique outdoor environment and we have won national recognition for its innovative use of the outdoors to teach children the value of relationships and transferable skills. We use outdoor activities such as forest school, mountain biking, and problem solving to enhance our wellbeing curriculum and teach our pupils resilience, teamwork, adaptability and perseverance - all life skills that they will need to be successful in the 21st century jobs market.
We have a team of complementary therapeutic workers who provide for the wider needs of our pupils from their emotional needs, through their medical needs to their sensory needs. We use expertise from our school-base occupational therapist and play therapist, and other professionals such as speech and language therapists, CAMHS and paediatricians to design bespoke packages for some of the most disadvantaged children in the area.
We have a reputation for flexibility and making the impossible possible.
About The Role
Job Title: Higher Level Teaching Assistant - Cover Supervisor
Salary Range: Grade E
Hours: 35hrs a week, 39 weeks a year
Contract Type: Permanent
Job Description
Provide short to medium term cover for staff absence at Courtlands School, both Teaching Assistant and Teacher inside and outside various classrooms.
Complement the work of teachers by taking responsibility for agreed learning activities under an agreed system of supervision. This may involve planning, preparing and delivering learning activities for individuals/groups or short term for whole classes and monitoring pupils and assessing, recording and reporting on pupil’s achievement, progress and development.
Be directed by the school leadership, at short notice, to cover across the Primary age range from Foundation to Year 6.
Work with class teachers to raise the learning and attainment of pupils.
Safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people ,and follow school policies and the staff code of conduct.
Please see the attached Candidate pack for more details
Further information about the job
Commitment to safeguarding
Our organisation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. We expect all staff, volunteers and trustees to share this commitment.
Our recruitment process follows the keeping children safe in education guidance.
Offers of employment may be subject to the following checks (where relevant):
childcare disqualification
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)
medical
online and social media
prohibition from teaching
right to work
satisfactory references
suitability to work with children
You must tell us about any unspent conviction, cautions, reprimands or warnings under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975.
Applying for the job
This school accepts applications through their own website, where you may also find more information about this job.
CVs will not be accepted for this application.
View advert on external website (opens in new tab)About Courtlands School
- School type
- Academy, ages 4 to 11
- School size
- 108 pupils enrolled
- Age range
- 4 to 11
- Ofsted report
- View Ofsted report
- School website
- Courtlands School website
Courtlands Special School Academy is a friendly and ambitious academy in Plymouth which caters for primary aged children (4-11) with Moderate Learning Difficulties and Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs. Our innovative curriculum is based on meeting individual’s needs rather than schemes of work, and provides a wide range of curriculum and therapeutic input.
We are leaders in our field, having won numerous national awards for our work, and work in a Trauma Informed way to support our children to overcome their difficulties and make great progress in all areas of their development. We constantly strive for the best ways to support our children, and welcome innovation and new, evidence based ways of working.
You will need high levels of emotional resilience, and good coping strategies born out of successful experience of teaching and supporting children with complex needs including Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties such as ADHD and attachment disorders; Communication and Interaction needs such as ASC and Speech and Language Difficulties. This could be in either a special school or mainstream school, with mainstream experience being an advantage.
We can offer you a motivated and skilled staff team and a real opportunity to make a difference to the future of our wonderful children and school. We look after our staff with award winning care for their wellbeing (National Wellbeing in Schools Award 2019). You won’t be taking marking home to do in the evening, and you will be given the freedom to meet the needs of the pupils in your class, along with the resources to do it. You will receive training in a wide range of SEND and real time support and mentoring form a Leadership Team whose door is literally open all the time.
School location
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