1:1 SEND Teaching Partner: Fixed Term
Barton Park Primary School
OX3 9WN
Grade 4, 32.5 hours per week, fixed term role: start September 2026, end 31 December.
Role Profile: SEND 1:1 Teaching partner (Teaching assistant)
Salary: Grade 4. Fixed term, 1 Sept - 31 December 2026
Location: Barton Park Primary School
Are you ready to make a real difference where it matters most?
At Barton Park, we serve a vibrant, wonderfully diverse community, including those with complex SEND, awaiting specialist placements.
For this specific role, we are seeking a patient, resilient, and proactive individual to provide vital 1:1 support for a pre-verbal child with complex needs. In this rewarding role, your primary focus will be supporting the child to engage, explore, and play. You will not be expected to plan or run formal interventions; this specialist work is fully managed by our highly skilled EYFS team. Instead, you will be her champion—proactively finding activities she enjoys, discovering what sparks her interest, and ensuring she feels safe, included, and valued. Please note that this role includes essential elements of personal care, including changing pull-up nappies daily.
Whether you are an experienced practitioner looking for a new challenge, or someone looking to start their career in education with a passion to learn, we want to hear from you. If you have a natural instinct for connecting with children, a non-judgmental attitude, and the drive to become an expert in early childhood development, we will provide the training to get you there. We are also seeking someone who is able to offer additional support in our breakfast or after school clubs. If you are able to offer additional hours on a regular or flexible basis, this would be beneficial to your application, but not essential.
Key Responsibilities & Attributes:
Elevate Early Learning & Play: Work closely alongside the class teacher to cultivate a rich, inspiring environment where all children are encouraged to thrive, discover, and learn. You will proactively guide and support your 1:1 child to explore our exceptional indoor and outdoor facilities—including our kitchen garden—finding joyful, accessible ways for her to play and engage.
Impact Through Interaction: Deliver consistent, patient, and high-quality interactions that respect the unique developmental pace of each child, while establishing clear boundaries and high expectations. You will focus heavily on creating a language-rich environment, using everyday play moments to build connection and communication with a pre-verbal child.
Team Collaboration & Growth: Work as an integral part of a dedicated, passionate team. While the specialist SEND team will lead on and run all specific educational interventions, you will be invited to attend occasional out-of-hours CPD sessions to develop your pedagogical skills.
Nurture, Inclusion and Care: Bring a deep desire to help young children thrive in school through patience, consistency, and a developing understanding of early childhood development. You will meet the child's daily personal care needs (including changing pull-up nappies) with dignity and respect. You will learn to use co-regulation strategies to support children experiencing the effects of trauma or deprivation, ensuring our classroom remains an inclusive, non-judgmental space for all.
What skills / experience are required?
Resilience & Patience: A deeply patient, resilient nature with a positive outlook, essential for building trust and celebrating the small, beautiful milestones of a child with complex needs.
Proactive & Child-Centred: The ability to use your initiative to discover what the child enjoys, actively seeking out playful learning opportunities and tailoring activities to her unique interests.
Experience or Passion for early education and SEND: Experience working with EYFS/primary-aged children and those with SEND is highly desirable, but a genuine, demonstrable desire to learn the pedagogy of early childhood development is essential.
Inclusive Mindset: A good foundational understanding of how children learn, alongside a deep appreciation for the importance of inclusion for all children, regardless of their background or starting point.
Commitment to Personal Care: A comfortable, respectful approach to managing daily personal care routines, including changing pull-up nappies.
Qualifications: A recognized TA qualification such as an NVQ2 for Teaching Assistants (or equivalent) is desirable, but not essential.
Core Personal Attributes: A flexible, resilient approach to your work, paired with a patient, deeply non-judgmental attitude.
Teamwork & Problem Solving: A natural problem-solver and collaborative team-player who will contribute positively and energetically to our small, dedicated staff team.
Safety & Compliance: Knowledge of, and strict compliance with, policies and procedures relevant to child protection, safeguarding, and health and safety.
What we can offer
Our school is new and growing each year. It is popular within our local community: our nursery, reception and KS1 classes are oversubscribed and have waiting lists. Parents speak highly of the opportunities we provide the children and our wonderful new facilities. We have developed a forest school site locally, and have an emergent orchard and wildlife area onsite, as well as a fabulous outdoor EYFS area, including a kitchen garden. Our 6 values are embedded in all we do and our children are welcoming and keen to learn. You would join a small, motivated and dedicated team of professionals, serving a newly opened school at the heart of a growing community.
Education has the power to change lives, communities and society for the better. At RLT we believe that we can achieve more for our pupils, trainees, staff and communities by working together rather than alone. Schools in RLT are united by a common belief in the benefits of working together, and by our commitment to shared principles.
OUR VISION is for our schools and SCITT to improve rapidly, continuously and sustainably: to be better faster together.
OUR ‘WHY?’ is that children and young people ‘only get one go’ in school and therefore as part of RLT we aim to ensure the best possible ‘go’ for our pupils.
OUR ‘HOW?’ is through the highest support and challenge for our schools and each other, underpinned by our principles.
Our employees benefit from a wide variety of support including extensive continuing professional learning and development opportunities, wellbeing and staff networks and access to Defined Benefit Pension Schemes (TPS and LGPS) for all staff. For more information on what it is like to work for the Trust, and the benefits you could access, please see our “Working in RLT” guide.
This role includes regulated activity relevant to children.
If you would like to have a confidential conversation with Bryony McCraw about the role, prior to application, then please email [email protected] or telephone 01865 415800
The River Learning Trust and Barton Park Primary School are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children and preventing extremism. The Trust is required to conduct a variety of checks and online searches about you as part of their recruitment process in accordance with Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance. It is an offence to apply for certain roles within schools if you are barred from engaging in regulated activity relevant to children.
For all RLT Safer Recruitment Documentation candidates should click on the following link RLT Safer Recruitment Documents for Candidates. Please see our website for up to date policies including our Child Protection and Behaviour Policies.
This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the amendments to the Exceptions Order 1975, 2013 and 2020. For further guidance for applicants click on this link List of offences that are not filtered
