The purpose of this post is to help children with hearing impairment make the most of the opportunities provided by the school curriculum. Teacher consultants work closely with schools and parents to ensure that deaf, or partially deaf, children are included in all educational activities.

The post exists in all types of authority except for district councils and is sometimes called a Special Educational Needs (SEN) Consultant.

Work Environment

This is mostly the school environment but includes visits to hospitals, audiologists or community centres dealing with special needs from time to time. Consultants attend regional and national meetings that may entail overnight stays and work in the evenings and at weekends.

The hours are 36 per week.

Daily Activities

Work may have to be undertaken in a number of different venues on a daily basis. In general, SEN consultants will be expected to:

• reduce the barriers to learning by advising parents, pupils and school staff on the management of hearing disability
• liaise with other LEA teams such as Inspection, Advisory and Early Years groups on the development of strategies for inclusion
• provide training and school-based consultancy on all aspects of hearing impairment to secondary, primary and special schools.

Specific duties include:

• designing and delivering courses relating to curriculum access for deaf children
• assisting in the development of the outreach role
• running out of hours sessions and school based training according to local needs
• helping with training of specialist teachers
• advising schools on how best to use their own resources to allow full curriculum access for deaf children
• being involved at local, regional and national levels in providing best practice
• assisting in the development of locally devised training materials such as publications
• maintaining a record of all visits and training opportunities and doing a written report every term on all work carried out in schools.

SEN consultants work with a range of professionals – special needs community officers, headteachers, teachers, assistant teachers, governors, Inspectors and Advisors, LEA officers as well as external agencies like speech and language therapists, audiologists and voluntary agencies such as the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and the National Deaf Children’s Society.

Skills & Interests

You need to have good:

• classroom skills
• oral and written communication skills
• interpersonal skills with the ability to motivate others
• influencing/negotiating skills.

You also need to be:

• confident in using ICT
• able to work independently and as part of a team
• able to work effectively with parents
• approachable – willing to share expertise, skills and knowledge and be able to encourage others to do so
• self-motivating and resilient – able to develop effective partnerships.

Entry Requirements

You need Department for Education & Skills (DfES) recognized Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and be qualified as a teacher of deaf children. You need substantial experience with hearing impaired pupils in the following ways:

• teaching in a mainstream primary or secondary school
• peripatetic duties either as a member of a support service or as outreach from a special school
• leading curriculum developments involving a number of colleagues and a variety of subject areas
• devising, planning and delivering relevant in-service training
• producing teaching and learning materials
• observing and evaluating the quality of teaching and providing feedback to teachers.

You would also be expected to be up to date with research findings and current legislation relating to children with special needs.

Estimated salary range

Variable: from £25,000 to £30,000 due to possible differences in job description as given above.

Please note that salary information is a guide only and there may be local agreements in place. For further information about salaries for particular positions, please contact your local council directly.

Future prospects & opportunities

This is a narrow but important area of work. You can seek promotion to Special Educational Needs Community Officer (SENCO) or look to your line manager’s post as Head of the Special Educational Needs Service for Schools (SENSS).

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