Education support officers work under the guidance of teachers to help students engage with learning tasks and learn the curriculum. They may also help reinforce classroom rules and discipline students who misbehave.
Education support professionals are paid for full-time work during school hours, including several weeks off throughout the year for federal holidays. They often work in schools, colleges, and universities.
Communication Skills
Communication skills are an important part of a person’s development and are often seen as one of the basic requirements for personal and institutional growth. It is not only important for people in the workplace, but it also affects their social life and family life.
There are many different ways of communicating – verbally, visually or written. Each of these means of communication is essential to allow others and yourself to understand information more efficiently and quickly.
Good communication skills can help you succeed at school, college or university and in your career. In addition to helping you communicate ideas and information clearly, they can help you build relationships and encourage teamwork.
Learning how to communicate effectively is an ongoing process that involves practice and self-improvement. It can be helpful to observe and take notes on the communication styles of others, as well as asking close friends and colleagues for honest feedback.
Special Needs
A child may have special needs if they have learning problems or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn than other children their age. This can include difficulties with communication, behaviour or social skills.
Schools can support special needs students in several ways. These range from dedicated schools and dedicated classes to integrated classes, withdrawal or “pull-out” classes and regular classes with resource support.
Special needs schools can also offer a range of extra services aimed at supporting special needs students in and outside of the classroom, such as speech-language therapy and occupational therapy. These are often based on alternative learning expectations specified in an Independent Education Plan (IEP).
Other forms of special education support include accommodations, modifications and remediations. All of these are meant to improve the academic performance of a student with special needs and can be outlined in an IEP.
Behaviour Management
Behaviour management is about preventing unwanted behaviours and ensuring students learn in a safe and productive environment. It can help teachers prevent disruption to their teaching and maximise the amount of time they spend on learning tasks.
The first step in using behaviour management is to set clear rules with your students. This is the best way to ensure everyone knows what your expectations are.
It also gives students clarity on what you expect of them, which helps them to feel confident and safe.
You can also use behaviour management to support your education support work by addressing challenging student behaviours that have negative effects on the students, school and community.
You can use these strategies for preventative or corrective interventions (Marzano, 2003). It is important to make a distinction between minor and major behavioural concerns that disrupt lessons, and those that pose a risk to the student or others in their environment.
Organisation
Organisation is a process of identifying and grouping work to be performed, defining and delegating responsibility and authority and establishing relationships for the purpose of enabling people to work most effectively together in accomplishing objectives.
Education support is the most visible part of public schools, with instructional assistants, secretaries, custodians, bus drivers and other school employees dedicated to ensuring that every student has a meaningful learning experience. PSEA education support members are recognized each year for their outstanding service to students, families and school communities across the country.
The education aid sector is a key element in the international development agenda, but it has a number of problems. In particular, there is a lack of research and data on how countries are using their education aid. It also fails to speak to the world’s education challenges, and is often dominated by basic education. Many development agencies, however, have a strong commitment to education and can play a significant role in influencing education policy.