SEN Teaching Assistant in The Orchard
Leighton Academy, Crewe, Cheshire, CW1 3PP4 days remaining to apply
Start date details
ASAP (negotiable)
Closing date
4 February 2026 at 9am
Date listed
9 January 2026
Job details
Job role
- Teaching assistant
Visa sponsorship
- Visas cannot be sponsored
Working pattern
- Part time
Contract type
- Permanent
Full-time equivalent salary
- £18,892.00 Annually (Actual) Hours - 32.5 per week, 38 weeks per year.- Monday - Friday 8.45am - 3.30pm with a 30 minute lunch break. Grade 4 Payscale 5.
SEN Teaching Assistant in The Orchard job summary
The Learning Partnership, together with the Principal, is delighted to announce an exciting opportunity for a SEN Teaching Assistant to join our team. We are looking for a skilled candidate who is committed to our vision and values, is reliable and resilient, and is passionate about helping our pupils in the Orchard thrive. The successful applicant will have key experience in working with SEND pupils.
What does the role involve?
Supporting pupils with EHCPs to access learning through visual symbols, structured routines, and differentiated activities, fostering pro-social communication and behaviour.
Implementing programmes focused on speech, language and communication, social communication, emotional and sensory regulation, and life-skills—guided by teachers and external professionals (e.g., speech therapists, educational psychologists).
Contributing to daily Sensory Circuit activities and small-group/1:1 interventions, maintaining a calm, safe environment.
Helping assess and record progress using the Cherry Garden and AET frameworks; provide feedback for pupils’ SEN School Support Plans each term.
Working closely with families, modelling strategies that can be supported at home to aid consistency and generalisation.
What is the Orchard?
The Orchard is Leighton Academy’s specialist 20-place SEN Unit (Year 1-Year 6) for pupils whose primary needs are Cognition & Learning and Speech, Language & Communication, as identified on their EHCP. Children learn and play in a dedicated, sensory-friendly area of the school and benefit from highly structured routines, visual supports, and a calm, happy environment designed for engagement and success.
Our provision includes two classrooms with small-group learning areas, a sensory room/calming space, dedicated outside play, and its own toilets and separate changing area—all set up to promote communication, social interaction, emotional regulation, life skills and independence. We adapt mainstream curriculum plans, emphasise fine/gross motor development and social play, and deliver daily Sensory Circuit sessions. Progress is tracked using the Cherry Garden Assessment Framework alongside the AET (Autism Education Trust) framework.
About the Trust
Formed of two local trusts on 1st September 2023, The Learning Alliance and The Learning for Life Partnership, The Learning Partnership is a diverse new multi-academy trust delivering excellent educational provision for pupils in primary and secondary schools across the North-West. The Trust primarily serves the communities of Crewe, Congleton, and Knutsford, and is now the largest multi-academy trust in Cheshire.
At The Learning Partnership, we believe that there are three core facets of our mission -people, passion, and performance. We are striving to build a community of the strongest people, inspiring a passion for education that galvanises these people to maximise their abilities, which supports all
pupils to perform at their best. We believe that these core principles will create a culture that helps all our schools to improve and ensures pupil outcomes are the very best they can be.
The trust subscribes to the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter and places staff wellbeing at the forefront of its strategic people priorities. Our ongoing commitment in this area is reflected in our employee offer that includes:
Discounts in retail stores, entertainment, and supermarkets
Benefits schemes in affordable tech, cycle2work, gym memberships and a car scheme
Employee assistance programme providing specialist advice and guidance in a range of areas including menopause, financial management, and up to 8 counselling sessions per referral
Flexible working offered as a day 1 right of employment
Free parking
Access to high quality CPD and secondment opportunities
The Learning Partnership is a disability committed employer: applicants requiring adjustments to the application or interview process should contact Debbie at: recruitment@leighton.cheshire.sch.uk.
The Learning Partnership is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. All staff appointments are subject to satisfactory references and enhanced checks with the Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS), and appropriate online searches in line with the requirements in Keeping Children Safe in Education (2023).
The Learning Partnership is committed to the promotion of equality of opportunity and the elimination of discrimination; all applicants should note that they will be considered on the basis of suitability regardless of disability, gender, race, religion, age, sexual orientation and marital status or any other discrimination which is unfair or unreasonable. We particularly welcome applications from black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates, LGBTQ+ candidates and candidates with disabilities because we would like to increase the representation of these groups at The Learning Partnership. We want to do this because we know greater diversity will lead to even greater outcomes for children. We are proud to be an employer that holds Disability Committed and Menopause Friendly status.
The Trust is ‘happy to talk flexible working’. Flexible working increases workplace diversity by making roles accessible to those with caring responsibilities (primarily women), disabled staff, and both older and younger workers. For further information regarding this role, please contact : recruitment@leighton.cheshire.sch.uk
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 Leighton Academy
- School type
- Academy, ages 2 to 11
- Education phase
- Primary school
- School size
- 457 pupils enrolled
- Age range
- 2 to 11
- Ofsted report
- View Ofsted report
- School website
- Leighton Academy website
School location
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